Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Initial review: 15-July-2011 My wife asked if we should get a Dyson. $500 for a vacuum? No way... I started looking... Amazon sent me a notice offering the Hoover MultiCyclonic Canister - SH40060 for $144. I bought it; my wife was pissed because we didn't have a discussion first. End of background statement. I put it together without needing the instruction booklet. GOOD SHOW, Hoover! The entire vacuum structure is plastic. So is my wife's high-precision $2000 Bernina sewing machine. Not a confidence builder, but not a problem, either. It makes the business end light and easy to move around. I pulled out the cord and plugged it in. The cord is almost 1/2 the length of the cord on our Royal upright. BAD SHOW, Hoover. This is a substantial, but far from fatal, annoyance - I can vacuum my entire 1300-sq-ft ground floor with the Royal plugged into one outlet. I have to move the cord 4 times to do the same floor with the Hoover. The first thing I noticed when I turned on the MultiCyclonic: it is quiet (compared to the Royal). TV and normal-voice conversations are possible with the thing running. WELL DONE. Venturing across hardwood floors, I found the machine works just wonderfully. It picks up hair from our beagle with no problem, and demonstrates it's prowess with a ball of fur whirling around in the transparent canister. VERY NICE. Here is the bad news: the soft, flexy hose does not have rotating couplings to keep the hose un-wound. When I tried to double back to a corner I had missed, the hose kinked and collapsed under high torque or bending loads, and it did so at both the canister end and at the handle end. The cyclone depends on high-velocity flow, which ends abruptly when the hose collapses. BAD BAD JOB, HOOVER. THE HOSE IS THE WEAKEST POINT OF AN OTHERWISE VERY GOOD DESIGN. WHY CHEAP IT OUT WITH A 10-CENT PIECE OF HOSE? In the quantities these things are manufactured, a chunk of reinforced hose with rotating couplings would add at most $2 to the purchase price. Big deal. I worry about whether these kinks will set into the hose as permanent creases, causing me to wonder whether the typical manufacturer's scam for a replacement part will cost me $50 or more. The hose on our Royal upright has some issues, but when we pull on it, IT NEVER EVER kinks, no matter what direction we move relative to the machine. Despite the impressive hardwood floor performance, I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS VACUUM CLEANER BECAUSE THE HOSE IS JUNK. I'm willing to test a better hose; Hoover can contact me through Amazon. Coming up: completing the evaluation by vacuuming the stairs and (gasp) testing on carpeted bedroom floors. Final review: 19-Jul-2011 I tried the thing on medium-pile carpet. Didn't work all that well. A couple reviews state that the power head (for carpets) seizes up. Apparently plastic housings don't work all that well when bearings begin to heat under mechanical load (duh). Out of curiosity, I went to Hoover's web page. A replacement hose can only be had as a complete hose/head assembly. HOOVER WANTS $121 FOR IT? FOR A $5 HOSE? ON A $140 VACUUM? Come ON, people! As of this date, Hoover is in the process of selling itself to any investor interested. Producing junks product like this is going to make it a tough sale. On the basis of poor design and very uneven performance, I am returning this vacuum. OVERALL GRADE: FAIL (and I've never before written a review quite this harsh)