Electrolux - pet lover or hater? (Electrolux Vitesse Z4703AZ)

Member Name: Wee_Jackie_163

Product:	Electrolux Vitesse Z4703AZ
Date:	08/08/09 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: SEE REVIEW

Disadvantages: SEE REVIEW

I have always preferred upright vacuum cleaners when cleaning my home. I think this is mainly because I find the other ones - the pull-along type with the larger hose - a bit bulky to manoeuvre, although I do find that they are better for vacuuming stairs. As I live in a two bed-roomed flat though, whether a vacuum cleaner is good at managing stairs is not the biggest priority for me when it comes to making a new purchase.

I have had the Electrolux pet lover (Z4700 series, model Z4703AZ) vacuum cleaner since February 2008, when I bought it as a 'temporary measure' to tide me over until I could buy a better quality cleaner.

Always on the look out for a new bargain in terms of buying a Dyson (which is by far my preferred brand of cleaner) the £150 price tag was still a little too steep for me when my previous hoover eventually gave up the ghost. I had no choice but to buy what I could afford, and this Electrolux cleaner seemed to offer the best value at that time.

Reduced in my local Tesco super-store, the original price (from memory) was around £75, although the price I paid on the day was some sort of special offer, and I ended up paying just under £60.

The main reason for this choice was of course the reduced price, but it also met most or all of my requirements. These were:

* The model was bagless.
* The tools could be stored 'on board' the vacuum cleaner itself, thus making them more convenient to use.
* The vacuum cleaner is not overly-heavy.

With these 'boxes' duly 'ticked' my choice was made and for the most part I have found this hoover to be a fairly worthwhile purchase.

The bagless design certainly cuts down on running costs as the need to purchase replacement bags has been removed altogether. I did however find that the 'clip' design on the 'Dust Cup' (the receptacle which collects the dust and debris picked up by the cleaner) required a steady hand when removing it from the vacuum and a fair bit of messing about to align it up again properly when replacing it.

This little niggle led me to wonder whether this model would perhaps not be the ideal cleaner for somebody with limited use of their hands. I certainly do not think that my elderly grandmother would successfully manage to remove and replace the dust cup, even though she is a more-than-capable lady who still lives in her own house without any help or care, despite her 80-odd years! It just seems a little 'temperamental' for my liking, and something about the design of the 'dust cup' and the way that it slots into the rest of the vacuum cleaner is not quite as robust as other cleaners I have used before. Something tells me that if you pushed too hard on this cup whilst it wasn't aligned properly, something would give, and you would perhaps end up with a hefty repair bill. Needless to say, I have always treaded quite carefully when emptying the cup and replacing it.

The suction on this model is not particularly over-whelming either. I do find that because one of my carpets is quite dark in colour, it is my preference to hoover every second day or so. What would take five minutes with a more efficient vacuum cleaner takes at LEAST double the time with this model.

I think this is because the suction is not as powerful and therefore lots of debris and pet hairs on the carpets get 'overlooked', meaning I need to go over the same area at least once more... Considering this model is from the 'pet lover' genre of vacuums, I personally had expected it to perform a little better than this, and I did expect it to cope a little better with pet hairs than it actually does!

This, coupled with the fact that 'harder' bits of debris - such as crumbs - are 'blown away' by the air that seems to escape from the front of the cleaner, means that a 'quick run around' the room to give it a bit of a spruce up is not really an option with this model.

I did initially think that this was perhaps a problem that only surfaced if the dust cup was full but no, I have since experimented and find that the dust cup is irrelevant to this problem altogether. The air just tends to blow bits and pieces all over the carpet, thus meaning I need to follow them all over the place until I have managed to catch everything. Very annoying, not to mention time consuming!

Whilst I am on the subject of the dust cup, I find that the capacity is irrelevant to me, as I found that if there was more than one carpet's worth of dust collected in the cup, it really impacted on the performance of the vacuum and I therefore tended to only vacuum one carpet at a time. And no, my house isn't THAT dirty! >:-o I therefore got into the habit quite early on of emptying the dust cup each time I used the cleaner.

There is a filter within the dust cup that seems to collect as much dust as the cup itself. I did find that this was really easy to clean and maintain. There are lots of 'ridges' on the filter and these tended to fill with dust, so I tended to use an old toothbrush or something similar to give it a good old clean once a month or so. Very easy to do!

The tools supplied with this model are quite handy really, and all fit quite neatly into the cleaner itself. We are provided with a little dusting brush, which I think is for using on curtains and blinds as well as a 'crevice tool' which is basically a long tube with a nozzle-shaped end, allowing suction to reach into lots of little nooks and crannies around the home. These tools fit quite neatly onto the end of the hose that is attached quite neatly to the base of the hoover. Said hose is fairly long in that it reaches all the way up and around the back of the handle - long enough to allow for vacuuming stairs or tricky areas. I find the length of the hose is quite useful for doing 'around' the furniture or skirting boards.

What I did find in terms of design faults with the hose is that it is perhaps a little too short for storage - either that or the 'hose retainer hole' on the base of the hoover is not designed well enough to secure the hose properly. This is quite a significant fault in my opinion as I often have to stop half way through vacuuming a room to slot the top of the hose nozzle back into the appropriate space on the base of the cleaner. This is not only time consuming but quite a dangerous flaw - more than once the 'nozzle' top sprung back out of the 'hose retainer hole' and caught my leg. (Ouch.)

One aspect of using the hose and attachments that I couldn't fault however, was when using the hose outstretched and in motion (when vacuuming the sofa, for example) didn't pose any problems in terms of the main body of the cleaner toppling over. This is a very evident problem with other vacuum cleaners used by me in the past, and it infuriates me. I did find that the Electrolux vacuum had enough 'weight' in the bottom of the cleaner to weigh it down sufficiently, and I think this is quite a relevant point to note.

The Electrolux vacuum cleaner purchased by me is actually a model that had an additional tool on board. The tool in question is called a 'Mini Turbo Nozzle' and is a little device that has been designed for use 'on upholstery, stairs and area rugs'. This attachment fits quite snugly onto the front of the vacuum cleaner, just above the dust cup.

I have long discarded this little device and in fact I used it only a handful of times. I found it to be quite useless in picking up anything, even small debris or dust and so I would wholeheartedly recommend that you do NOT pay more for a model with this attachment supplied. I found that it did nothing to add to the features of this cleaner and using it was a complete waste of my time and energy.

The tools as I mentioned earlier, all fit snugly into the caddy supplied with the vacuum. The design of this model means that said tool caddy needs to be fixed to the cleaner before first time use. There is also a storage facility or 'housing' for the flex/wire which needs to be fixed to the handle and main body of the vacuum.

I did actually manage to 'build' this vacuum all by myself, and I could never be described as any sort of 'handy person' so this will perhaps give you an idea of how easy this was to do. You will need a screwdriver, but all screws and instructions are supplied and I found everything to be pretty straight forward in terms of assembling the machine.

The weight of the machine is pretty much on a par with any other vacuum I have owned - I can manoeuvre it around the room sufficiently, but struggle when it comes to actually lifting it from the ground.

All in all, I wasn't overly impressed with this vacuum cleaner. It was ok and I have used worse, but I certainly wouldn't rave about it. I think for another twenty quid or so you would do much better, and I certainly wouldn't recommend paying a penny more than I paid for it which was a reduced price.

I was fairly relieved when this model started to 'cut out' during use, as it meant I had an excuse to start looking around for a new vacuum! This cleaner was acting as if the motor was overheating or something. I would find that if I left it for ten minutes or so, I would be able to get another few minutes use out of it before the power would 'cut out' again. This of course resulted in my good self getting rather frustrated at the machine and abandoning all notions of finishing the vacuuming that day, whilst returning the cleaner to the cupboard all the while voicing several obscenities at it... sigh.

So, to conclude, I paid around 60 quid for this cleaner and for that I got around eighteen months use from it, and mediocre use from it at that. Would I recommend it? I suppose so, but only if you had limited choice or a very limited budget. I really think I got my money's worth but I'd probably have been annoyed if I had paid any more than I did.

I think this vacuum cleaner deserves three stars from me, but definitely no more than that!

Summary: Probably not worth more than what I paid for it....

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Cleaning/Maintenance: