No loss of suction, eh? (Dyson DC08 Animal)

Member Name: LadyCunegonde

Product:	Dyson DC08 Animal
Date:	26/01/06 (3042 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant suction! For about two months

Disadvantages: Loses suction, 'turbo-head' a pain to clean, inside becomes very dirty

I regret to write that my experience of this dyson has been a painful one...

We bought it a year or two ago, around christmas, when our previous Panasonic vacuum cleaner finally gave out. We had already made the decision to go dyson, but we selected this particular model because at the time, we had both a dog and a cat, and the hair was becoming a real problem.

On bringing the dyson home, and assembling it (which I must say, was relatively straight-forward), we were astounded by it's miraculous ability to remove animal hair from the carpet. The 'turbo-head', a large carpet attachment with a spinning brush interior, was particularly adept at sucking up the stuff.

I found the attachments very usable, and the design of the machine handy for doing stairs etc. As with all dysons, there was also the bonus of not needing to buy bags.

Unfortunately, a few months in, things began to go wrong (horribly, horribly wrong!). We noticed that the suction which had been so strong initially, was beginning to weaken. We also noticed that the attachments had begun to get hairline cracks, which had some effect on their usefulness.

We first attempted to address the suction problem by giving the mechanism a clean out. The purple cyclones (within the clear drum) had gathered disgusting amounts of dust which proved very difficult to remove. All that effort proved in vain - as the suction was as poor as ever.

The turbo-head slowly began to spin slower, and we saw that hairs, animal and human, had completely filled the brush. It was a rather foul job untwining it all, even with the outer section unscrewed.

One time, I though I had discovered the secret to the dyson's loss of suction in a piece of plastic blocking an airway, and peeled it away at once. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a nothing, and the machine was still as bad as ever.


I would like to say that this is probably a one off situation - but I have a few friends and acquaintances who have also bought dysons, only to find they have lost their suction, renderring them near to useless. They're not cheap, and it is a lot of money to spend on something which gives up so quickly.

No recommendations here.

Summary: Great! Then loses suction. Difficult to maintain, attachments crack, Turbo-head disgusting.

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