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constellation86

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Dec 4, 2006
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I have scaned the article from May 1964 about vacuum cleaners. Let me know if anyone wants me to put it up. Can you guess what the winners were? (Hint: two of my favorites!)
Nicholas
 
64's Best

My guess for the upright would be the Hoover convertible, second guess would be a Eureka. I'm lost on the canisters, with or without powernozzles, and who all had them back then? Definitely post it when you're ready!
 
Great report...

Thanks for posting. I wish the report included some pics of the Sears canister vacuums it describes. I haven't been able to find anything about those models on the Internet--not a thing--which I find surprising. If anyone has any pics of the Sears model 4695W, 46652, 46653 or 3485, it would be much appreciated. Thanks.
 
funny that Eureka got away with charging more for their upright cleaners than Hoover. with the Eurekas lousy height adjuster, poorly placed handle release and cheap sleeve bearing agitator i just dont get it. even in the 80s the midrange Eurekas seemed pricer than Convertibles, but with the cheap Eureka motor and sleeve bearings in the agitator.

thanks for the article
 
Where's the Kirby's?

Wonder why there was no testing of the Kirby? was there no new model that year I guess? Do they just test certain models every so often? Do they go by popularity?
 
Kirby and Consumer Reports....

..CU had the principle that they would not rate an upright unless it performed on rugs much better than the best straight suction tank/canister. According to them, Kirbys of the 50's 60s and 70s did not do that.

CU did not pay much attention to all the attachments of the Kirby except to note that there were, "not without merit."

Although they had occasionally tested Kirbys, and now the G series is considered by them one of the very =best= in terms of carpet cleaning, the earlier Kirbys did not measure up to CU's upright standards.

CU also had a big problem with Kirby sales methods and, in fact, the entire door to door sales method in general. No doubt there have been some blunders here and some definite horror stories. However, it always seemed odd to me that they never complained about Electrolux and always seemed to top rate them. [Not that they shouldn't have been top rated, Electrolux were always among my favorites] But, I sold for Electrolux and know that among my fellow "Electrolux Home Cleaning Specialists," [hyperbole for a door to door vacuum salesperson], there were very honest and forthright folks, and some very shady characters as well. I always felt that CU gave certain direct sales companies a bad rap for this stuff while dishonest and shady business went on in all vacuum markets, sometimes even in retail sales. Anyway, CU seemed for a long time to have a big problem with Kirbys on many fronts.

In the past, these negative ratings, or lack of any rating often got CU many letters of complaint from loyal Kirby fans who felt that CU was not fair or accurate in their assessment of the Kirby. In fact there was one issue when CU actually felt the need to explain themselves on this score.


It is worthy of note, however, that when they did mention Kirbys, CU always made a point of acclaiming the remarkable workmanship of the Kirby. In recent years, since they have bothered to gather data on repair history, CU has consistently found Kirby to be one of the best, if not the very best in terms of repair history.

If you look at the articles posted in the consumer articles section of our web site, I believe you will find some of this informaiton there.
 

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