Tested a Miele Swing full size upright

[DesertTortoise]

I visited a vacuum shop I hadn't visited before hoping to see some Miele and Riccar canister vacuums. They didn't have any Riccar canisters, owner said they weren't that good, and he only had the Miele S6 canister (no powered brush so that didn't interest me) so I tried a Miele Swing upright.

Not impressed. Oh, nice quality, but there is no way that thing will get under my beds (the Windsor won't either, limiting it's utility) and the swivel feature seems like a gimmick. The S6 definitely has better plastics than modern Kenmores (but not the old ones, not by a long shot) and nice features but the tools are a rude joke. For that kind of money I at least expected good quality full size tools, but Meile's tools are as cheap as those that Kenmore sells. All that money for a vacuum and they cannot even give you decent tools. I didn't see the wand. The only thing I see it has going for it are the motors. They have an honest to gawd all metal motor like Kenmores used to have. The vacuum ought to be durable. But the crappy tools! Nein danke.

Looked at a Sebo canister later in the day. Same thing as the Miele. Above average quality canister body, probably very durable, ok hose, but the tools and the Sebo wand are frankly budget items. Give me stainless steel button lock wands, not this aluminum telescopic crap with sliding contacts inside, and the kind of tools one found on 80's and 90's Kenmores.

 

[oliveoiltinfoil]

What sebo's were you using? The one on my d4 are stainless steel, pretty sure. May none powerhead models but what's wrong with alloy? Its strong and won't rust, and lighter.

 

[DesertTortoise]

Will an aluminum wand last as long as a heavy duty stainless steel wand? Maybe in theory but the ones I'm seeing don't look durable. The telescopic part is what looks most fragile, both structurally and the sliding electronic contacts. If a coiled cord is used instead of sliding contacts then a telescopic wand might be ok. It is the sliding contacts, just like the rotating contacts in hose ends, that make me shake my head. Those things fail earlier than anything else and are expensive to repair, sending otherwise serviceable vacuums to the junk pile of some local vacuum shop where they are parted out to repair other vacuums. No such problems with a simple pair of button lock steel wands.

I'm pretty sure the Sebo I saw was an Airbelt K3.

 

[sebo_fan]

You're very opinionated for someone who doesn't own those models.

Im not going to waste my time mentioning what I think. The above says it all.

 

[DesertTortoise]

I'm don't follow the trends Sebo-fan. I'm not blinded by what's new and cool. I have two older Audis and wouldn't waste my time and money on anything from about 2000 on. But I would very much buy a new VW Passat or Jetta. They have all the qualities I love in my older Audis in terms of materials, finish, and overall refinement, but they don't have the over-the-top electronic (and associated failures) and some of the mechanical complexity (effing ball joints in Audi front suspensions fail regularly at $1100 a pop to fix) that make owning a newer Audi very very expensive. Needlessly expensive in my opinion. VW will sell you a simple, durable manual transmission with their turbodiesel cars. If it ever fails it can be rebuilt inexpensively. With Audi all you can get are a hideously expensive DSG gearbox. When it fails it is so expensive to rebuild you junk the car (Toyota auto boxes are just as bad this way). Bull crap. I don't want it, trends be dammed. You couldn't pay me to own a new BMW car, and I have a garage full of their motorcycles. Too much crap I don't need or want on them, stuff that breaks and breaks expensively, or software that crashes and puts your car on the flatbed so the dealer can reboot it for $150 or so. BMW has a 700 page manual to tell you how to operate the iDrive infotainment system. I call it iQuit. Effing Germans and their love of complexity for the sake of complexity. Now it infects their household appliances. A Krupps toaster. Beautiful machine, but a silly electromagnetic device failed and it won't hold the toast tray down. No fix, you throw it out. A $50 toaster in the trash. German "engineering". Right.

I'm the same way with vacuums. The new gizmos don't impress me much. Newness for the sake of newness doesn't impress me at all. I like simple mechanical things. Save the money spent on cool gizmos and worry about the basics, like quality materials, motors and tools. The tools on both the Miele and Sebo are junk, and the plastics are still not as nice as older Hoover or Sears canister vacuums from the 1980's. It's better than most of what you find today, this is true, but it's a premium vacuum and you are still giving up on the level of quality we used to expect from medium priced department store vacuums. I have the equivalent of a Sebo X1 in my Windsor, and it is second rate on carpet. Guess what I have a lot of in my house? Carpet. It's a sorry commentary on German engineering when a brand new $550 vacuum can't clean carpet as well as a thirty year old department store vacuum.

Your love is misplaced Sebo-fan. Trendy doesn't vacuum the floor. It does vacuum your bank account however.

 

[matt8808]

All I'm going to touch on is your apparent in depth knowledge of cars. You say you wouldn't touch a newer Audi but would love a newer VW... You do realise Audi and VW are the same company right?
In fact most of their cars share the same parts. Secondly, the newer VW passat you would love... We've just had to get rid of one. It was riddled with faults. Mostly electrical. Electronic handbrake failed once. £500 for a repair / new calliper. It failed a second time. Only needed the button replacing but they then discovered the ECU for the key fob was faulty so in total ended up costing around £900. Electric handbrake failed a THIRD time, the other calliper this time so another £500. The engine failed a few times - new injectors, tandem pump ect ect thankfully most of the engine faults happened while the car was under warranty. The module in the front passenger door had in intermittent fault and sometimes wouldn't unlock. Part of the timing belt arrangement failed meaning it spat the belt off at 70mph. In the end there was a major fault with the engine and it wouldn't come out of limp mode... We were advised to get rid of the car ASAP so they traded it in.

Don't get me wrong, my mums older (late 2003) passat has never missed a beat.

Your hate of BMW... My gran's last car was a late 2005 525i and they never had an issue with it. They just traded it in for a new x1 M-sport and that seems a good car too.

Oh and I've recently bought a Mini Cooper with the JCW pack on it and can't fault it.

 

[turbo500]

I hope there are no German members reading this thread.

 

[sebo_fan]

No, I hope there aren't either - but then not all things German are complicated and Im respectful of mostly all of their brands.

 

[matt8808]

Personally I love the Germans...
We're like the house of Bosch

Dishwasher - Bosch
Fridge - Bosch
Kettle - Bosch
Iron - Bosch
Washing machine - Miele
Lawnmower - Bosch
Strimmer - Bosch
Hammer drill - Bosch
Pressure washer - Karcher
Steam cleaner - Karcher
My car - Mini (BMW)
Stepdads car - VW

There's probably more German stuff stashed away that I've forgotten about.

Oh and from what I've seen on the internet you can't beat a nice bit of German sausage hahaha frankfurter that is of course

 

[kirbymodel2c]

Oh...

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: book antiqua,palatino;">Oh I love frankfurters

</span>


 


<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: book antiqua,palatino;">James

</span>

 

[ctvacman]

First off

People who can truly afford a BMW, Audi and Mercedes don't give a flying F--k how reliable they are or how much it costs to repair. I don't buy German cars for reliability I buy them for features and the driving experiance . But then again I can afford my cars and can afford the maintenance and would much rather fix my car every week than drive a Honda or Toyota.

Secondly this for vacuums anyways

 

[DesertTortoise]

I know modern Audis and VWs. I've owned them for over 25 years. VW and Audi don't share platforms to the degree they once did. Passats are no longer built on the same chassis as A4s and A6s with longitudinal engines. They use the transverse engine platform of the Golf and Jetta. They are very different cars. VWs don't have the equivalent to MMI (Multi Media Interface, what I call Multi Frustration Interface), aren't infested with as many processors. V-dubs are electronically much simpler than Audis.

All my cars have manual trans so I don't have any of the problems you had with your parking brake. Manual trans cars still get a proper mechanical hand brake, and none of the many interlocks present on cars with slush boxes or DSG transmissions to prevent you from putting it in gear without stepping on the brake, or any of the crap put on cars in the wake of the Toyota acceleration problem, etc. You cannot incorporate those "safety features" in a manual transmission thank gawd. But your complaints do point out why I refuse to buy some of this technology. Audi won't sell you a diesel powered anything with a manual trans (in the US at least) so you are forced to accept them kludging the car with the interlocks that cause so much problems (not unlike German vacuums with all of their electronic switches and interlocks to prevent such horrors as operating the vacuum with a full bag or gawd forbid you ever tried turning it on with the bag compartment lid open, nein, ist verboten, we all know the whole world could descend down a worm hole into a parallel universe if you dare to turn your vacuum on without properly latching that bag compartment lid, effing Germans!). In the US the only car Audi offers with a manual trans is an A4 Quattro. If you want front drive only from Audi, the only transmission offered is a CVT!

On a manual trans car I have to exercise some skill and the car isn't burdened with the kludge you complained about. VW, however, offers Golf, Jetta and Passat models with turbodiesel engines and six speed manuals. Simple mechanical cars.

Ok, I've had my fun with this today.

 

[DesertTortoise]

Ctvacman, those BMW owners very much care with their car goes into a fail safe mode on an LA freeway and cannot manage more than about 35 mph. LA traffic during non peak periods moves right along. 80 mph usually won't earn you a certificate of achievement from the CHP, someone is always going faster. When your mighty 7 Series suffers an electronic problem and defaults to the fail safe mode in the fast lane and they have to fight to get over to the right and exit the freeway without being rear ended by fast moving traffic, they care very much about their car's reliability or lack thereof. There is never a good time to have to flatbed your car back to the dealer, especially if it causes you to miss business appointments.

 

[matt8808]

Manual cars still get a propper hand brake?....


I hate to break it to you. But the VW we had all the issues with. It was a manual. And the hand break was operated by a button on the dash board.

You also couldn't start the car unless you had your foot on the clutch (one of the safety features you hate so much).... Just like my mini won't start unless you have the clutch down

 

[tolivac]

Can we focus on talking about VACUUM CLEANERS-NOT cars-thought this was a discussion about Meile vacuums-then it went to cars.After reading this thought I was on a CAR discussion forum-instead of vacuum cleaners.

 

[sebo_fan]

Well, the problem is the poster of this thread seems to think everything should be as well built as a Kenmore. It isn't a downside because I guess, everyone is entitled to their opinion but he did go into mentioning German built cars, thus tarring every downside with the same brush and probably wasn't expecting a response back from one of the other members.

I sold my SEBO D2 Total a few weeks ago to a good friend. She is American. She has had plenty of vacs in the U.S but in Scotland where she now resides, she has gone through tons of bagless uprights and canisters. The last straw was with a Morphy Richards upright (not the ones sold in the U.S by Shark) but from the 1990s. Even I couldn't push it!

She loves the SEBO's twin metal telescopic tubes (not the ones supplied on the K3 because the K3 has an electric embedded cord for the PN) and the fact that the SEBO hose is longer (the D series and some K series models have 2.1 metres over 1.8 metres which some SEBO models have AND Miele as standard without their clip on 1.5 metre hose extension accessory) as well as the huge bag capacity and the long 12 metre cable. She also loves the power and the quietness in general.

The only downside that she doesn't like is the dust brush. She loves the crevice tool and the flat T shape upholstery brush, even if she got a stair cleaning turbo brush as well. Evidently this is an American thing all round - and I have noted this on several other threads by our U.S members before.

The thing to remember DT is, that Europe is very different to the U.S in the first respects. We don't have a huge market with canister vacs that have PN's added OR canister vacs with great big cleaning tools.

Secondly, the only brand we have in the UK who offer PN canisters vacs are SEBO. There was Wertheim but they didn't stay around due to reliability issues. Miele only offer a rechargeable PN head with some of their cylinder/canister vacs.

Thirdly, most European buyers and owners don't tend to require huge "smaller" cleaning tools on board vacuums - if you want to dust, you'll use a cloth and furniture polish or other means (I use damp microfibre cloths and no agents). Our homes are on average FAR SMALLER than U.S homes.

So, when it came to the dusting brush issue since the SEBO D has a similar tool to the type Miele supply with their round dusting brush, I gave my friend the larger X series dusting brush with long bristles. I explained that due to the 2100 watt power of the SEBO that the bristles would probably get sucked in, covering the dust channel - but this doesn't appear to have been noticed.

 

[eurekaprince]

You don't need the revolving brush of an upright or power nozzle canister to deep clean carpets under furniture. For the once a year thorough room clean-up, when the furniture gets moved anyway, you can use any bulky upright to deep clean the rugs that are covered by beds and other furniture.

But the dirt under furniture is never ground-in by footsteps - it stays on the surface. And for that you can use a hose and wand and upholstery nozzle to get rid of surface litter and dust. You can even use a suction-only carpet nozzle to do this. Obviously, for carpetless floors, you can use a bare floor brush. It's actually safer to clean the dark reaches under furniture this way because you don't have the danger of jamming a brush roll with a sock or a plastic bag that you did not see.

 

[ralph123]

I don't know how the Miele upright compares to a 30 year old hypothetical Kenmore, but the Miele uprights were in the top tier (with Kirby) for carpet cleaning in recent Consumer Reports tests. I suspect the Miele and almost any modern upright would have better filtration than the 30 year old hypothetical kenmore. the door to door brands used to sell a lot of vacuums by shining their lights on the inflated bags of bagged uprights to show the dirt being belched into the air.

My family had a Kenmore canister vacuum back in the early 1980's. The vacuum seemed to clean fairly well, but the weak link was the plastic hose. It seemed to be designed to fail after a couple of years. Duct tape helped for a while, but the hoses just didn't seem to hold up.

 

[sebo_fan]

Once a year cleaning under a bed? Maybe for you. Spare a thought for those who may have beds in UK rooms that may not have enough space "to move out of the way."

I clean under my spare double bed in the spare room every three months, or per season - simply because all my clothes are under there in wheeled storage boxes. I simply don't have the room or space to store clothing in any other way despite having two cupboards full of coats as per season.

The flooring isn't taken up with lots of boxes, but enough space on the carpet for dust to settle under there, noticeable on the grid lids of the boxes when I go to pull them out.

You may well have a bed that you only clear ONCE a year. However, whenever I've had pets, it requires constant cleaning - cats adore going under beds if there's any chance of hiding or in hunter mode and the hair that collects under there is a nightmare!