Both are very nice...
Hi,
I'm going to add my seven cents here. I love the blue ones becasue they have the lighted logo in the hood that makes Eureka spelling and logo light up blue, and Self-Propelled light up a reddish pink, yet the later series did not hae that. At least the next one did not.
The first blue series ones had the vinyl bags by Eureka that did NOT hold up well in service, as the vinyl was thinner than contemporary makes, dried out easily, and was very prone to cracks rips and tears.
Over the years I have had several of the two that you've found, and out of the three I've had of the blue model only one had the original bag, and that had some minor fraying down by the ferrule that attaches to the cleaner. All the brandywine series, and for that matter most of the original vinyl bags that either had a pattern stamped in it, or were glossy toned just did not hold up well.
Mainly from housewives, or househusbands allowing the F&G bags to fill up to newborn baby status and weight, which was too much for the material...hence their rarity.
On the other hand, the Burnt Orange second series had the much tougher Triple Filter Fabric bags that hold up rather well. And as you can see by the earlier ones that had the blue Triple Filter Replacement, most of the plastic bag toppers were NOT retained. It makes them for some reason to me to look cheaper and not so expensive.
Another point of discussion is the relaiability of the Self-Propelled unit. It was a much more compact and durable unit than others, however if at all out of adjustment or if the clutch discs became greasy the unit woul fail to work, and from what I've seen over time people thought that this mecahnism needed to be lubricated which was NOT the case.
Also many unfamiliar hands would adjust the tensioner screws too tight or too oose also making the unit unuseable. It just seemed that Hoove's unit was the more durable of the two based by the fact that todays Self-Prop WT cleaners use a basic mechanism that was introduced way back in 1967 witht eh advent of the P-D Dial-A-Matic. If I'm wrong here please correct me. The casings difinitly went from metal to plastic for sure...
These if taken care of are pretty durable and awesome cleaning vacuums. The treatment of the machine pre-collectivity in my book will will out whether you will like the Eureka unit or not.
Those who've owned them praise their durability and smoothness in the drive, whereas people who have owned the Hoover self propelled owners eith like or complain about jerkiness.
Almost if you will the Eureka being a Dynaflush Drive Buick, whereas the Hoover was a Hydra-Jerk unit Oldsmobile or Cadillac... you decide...
Incidentally, none of the machines that I've owned which was three blue, two Burnt-Orange never had wheels that were siped or grooved a'la Hoover... Anyone care to show me what those looked like. I mean most if not all had the "flat" spot but were not grooved as mentioned... And i'm sure the difference of drive type was infulenced by the different types of wheels as well...
Chad...
P.S. My current Self-Propelled Eureka incidentally is a early series blue Procision series witht the cord-reel and the peppercorn blue TripPle Filter bag... and the wheels on it are smooth with the flat spot also...
Thanks
