Hoover Powermax™ Series vacuum Cleaners

I live with my girlfriend and one cat in a small one bedroom apt. I felt we didn't need anything really heavy duty because she is the only one with long hair and we don't have that much carpet. We needed a replacement to the old Filter Queen I had. It was dying.

My girlfriend and I did some research and bought a Hoover Powermax™ vacuum thinking it would be a good one to buy.

Boy was I wrong.

By the way, these pics were taken 6 to 7 months after we bought it. The unit itself is still less then a year old.

After vacuuming two rooms. Nice huh?

This is what happens when you don't take this rip-off vacuum apart every 2 or 3 times you do your carpets. Hair, thread, and fibres get trapped in the ends, THEN they melt out that plastic bearing, and then very quickly, there is no plastic bearing, there's only melted hair.

As you can see, the plastic is almost completely gone. I can still cut the hair away,

This pic was taken after a few uses. You can see all the hair wrapped around the brush.

The first thing I noticed was after a few uses is the beater brush stopped turning. I took it in to the place to where I bought it and they sent me to the warranty shop across town. I left the unit with them and they phoned me two days later (not bad turn around time) and stated I hadn't taken it apart and cleaned the powerhead. I asked the tech to show me how to do this when I went to pick it up.

He showed me that the hair and lint mats under the belt that drives the beater brush. I would have to take the unit apart on a regular basis and remove the hair.

By the way he was talking, I got the feeling I wasn't the only one that has this problem with this brand of vacuum.

I don't know about you, but this is the first vacuum I've owned that I had to do this much maintenance on. I've had two Filter Queens™, one Electrolux™, and borrowed my brother-in-law's Kerby™ many times.

I had to replace the belt on the Electrolux™ once, but the unit was over 20 years old, and we owned it for 6 years over and above that. Other than bags, that was it. I never had to cut hair away from the brush. Once a year, I would cut away the string that stayed wrapped on.

I've never had to do this much up keep on any other vacuum, even on the old beat-up units I've had. That sucks! (Pardon the pun.)

You can see the beater brush guide is getting melted.

You can see the threaded end to the beater brush axel is cracked. This should be made of metal, not thin plastic.

I regret buying this unit. Every time I vacuum, I gotta spend about 15 minutes taking it apart, and clean away the hair and lint. I will never buy this type again. Maybe I will stay away from Hoover™ products altogether.

The only good sides to this vacuum (aside from the fact it looks good), is it does do a decent job on picking up stuff after you've cleaned the sucker. The allergy filter is not bad either, but it doesn't make up for having to get out tools and rip apart the powerhead every time you want to clean.

I guess this unit wouldn't be too bad if you are just one person (or a couple) with very short hair, no animals, and very little carpet.

If you want my advice? check out other vacuums and really do your homework. The time you could spend on doing the research you will save in not having to clean the bugger every time you want to use it.

And as far as I'm concerned, that is gonna be a lot of time saved!

I had a letter from a person who didn't want to be named, and he told me the good Luck he had with Bissell.

Bissell is a very good company. In terms of customer service, they blew me away. The container cracked after a few days of using the vacuum. I sucked something hard up into it. I called Bissell and without questions they took my address and promised to send me a replacement container. And I got to talk to a human, not a machine. Sure enough, in the next week or so, a brand new container arrived. Great customer service.

The vacuum itself is pretty good. It was great for the first few months. But now it seems to lack some suction that it had originally. I often have to cut hair out of the wheel. Perhaps I need to change my filter or soak it and clean it.

All in all, for the price - 89 bucks - it has been worth it. I'm glad I did not drop $400 on a Dyson.

But a vacuum that maintains it suction without too much user effort, would definitely be worth more and I would be willing to pay more for one. But for my purposes, taking care of a two-bedroom apartment, I am happy with the Bissell vacuum. Dyson, if it works, might be an investment once I have a home. We'll see.

Hope this helps.