Forbes Article - "How Shark ate Dyson's lunch in America's vacuum market"

[ralph123]

A large number of responses does not help a poorly designed survey - but it may give the false sense of accuracy.

consider CR's reliability of uprights.
Both Shark and Kirby owners have EQUAL reliability scores of 4%. Thus Shark and Kirby vacuums are equally good. furthermore, bissell got a score of 6%. You might think that makes it worse than Kirby/Shark, but differences of less than 3 points are not meaningful. Thus, CR can lump Kirby, Shark, and Bissell together.

Dyson scores a 9%. Miele gets a 13%, Riccar 12%, and Simplicity 13%. Thus, based on CR's data, we conclude that Miele, Simplicity, and Riccar uprights are junk and Shark/Kirby/Bissell are best.

Curiously, the Miele canisters have a 7% rate of problems but uprights have 13%. Perhaps the Miele canisters are suction only?

 

[sebo_fan]

And yet in another thread just created by another member, it takes 9 screws to get entry into the brush roll and 2 hidden screws. Can't be easy doing maintenance on Shark vacuums.

 

[martin187]

Shark

We had a shark navigator nv44 for 8 1/2 months before it started the decrease reliability. When I say decrease I mean something went wrong in the motor and ended up catching Fire.

 

[kirbylux77]

Dys0nb0y

Read that VIP Lifetime Service Guarantee carefully, & Shark has a very sneaky way to avoid honoring their guarantee:

"The original unit and/or non-wearable components deemed defective will be repaired or replaced as long as you own the original unit."

Now, that may seem good AT FIRST....but especially when you read further down & see what else it says, you will see their "out" for not honoring the warranty. If you had that vacuum for, say, 10 years, & the main suction motor finally died & called them to honor their guarantee, they could call the suction motor a "wearable component". And they could also claim that ALL the electrical wiring, switches, plugs, receptacles, motors, electric hoses, electric telescopic wands, circuit boards & relays are all "wearable components". It's also important to note that Euro-Pro/Shark does indeed have a history of doing this....back years ago I read a review for the Shark Professional EP754 Canister Vacuum on the Canadian Tire website here in Canada....there was a review from a person who had the vacuum, & the electric hose failed under warranty on the vacuum. According to this person's review, they had to fight & argue with the customer service rep over the phone before they finally agreed to replace the hose free of charge under the warranty.

Pretty sneaky warranty if you ask me! And one designed for consumers tempted by such a guarantee & dumb enough to NOT read the fine print & understand the terms & conditions of the warranty fully, thinking they will have a problem-free vacuum for a long time to come.

Rob

 

[ralph123]

Just curious, can anyone in the vac service business explain CR's reliability ratings? That is, what types of problems are so common with Miele, Simplicity, and Riccar uprights that would cause them to get lower ratings than say Kirby/Bissell/Shark? Are there particular models that have had troubles?

While I think the CR reliability data based on survey questions is utter garbage, I'll keep an open mind. Surveys may be a cheap way to collect the data, but it isn't reliable. How many people even know how old their vacuums are?

 

[sebo_fan]

The other thing is that surveys only show the majority of what owners have, not the minority. Only a few reports online indicate a wider pool of brands and truer ownership data if it hasn't been influenced by a leading brand who are paying for the survey to be done...