WAAAAAAAAAA! What a noise this vacuumj makes:( (Typhoon Ultra-Lite VC9111)

Member Name: nickbrown60

Product:	Typhoon Ultra-Lite VC9111
Date:	21/03/09 (267 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Light

Disadvantages: Noisey, unreliable, loses suction, some badly designed parts

Hello everyone and welcome to this review,

Well, browsing eBay one evening and came across this Typhoon Upright traditional looking vacuum cleaner. It claimed to be very light and easy to use and included 10 free bags for the extremely low price of £9.99 with £3 postage, how could I go wrong?

Well the vacuum arrived after over a weeks wait, the sellers delivery times were absolutely ridiculous... If you would like to know the ebayers name please message me and I will let you know. Anyway back to the vacuum... The box was very flat and small at around a metre in height, it felt quite heavy.

What is this vacuum?
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This is an old styled vacuum cleaner with the bag on the front. The vacuum is designed to be light and easy to use with a lot of power. It is mainly designed for the elderly or people with physical issues.

Inside the box was;

The vacuums base,
A load of poles.
A handle,
A cloth external vacuum bag.
20 bags!! (The reason for the heavy box)
And a spare belt (Believe me, you will need this!)

The vacuum was very hard to put together, it was in around 6 pieces, mostly pieces of metal pipes and clips that had to be attached to the main vacuum base. It was extremely fiddly to fit the external back on the front using sharp pins, not very easy at all. It took around 30 minutes to put it all together and it was ready to go. We were pleased though.... The extra 10 bags included was a bonus, must have been the sellers error!


Before I even switched the vacuum on I noticed a problem, that being that the vacuum was bent! It was leaning forward and to the left making it impossible to stand upright. The vacuum would just topple over. I found that the main fan tube at the bottom of the vacuum was bent, obviously a fault in the manufacturing.


Time to switch the vacuum on
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The switch to turn the vacuum on is very conveniently placed on the handle at the top of the vacuum. The handle is ergonomically designed for comfortable use, just like the really expensive Oreck XL vacuums. As I said... The vacuums switch is very conveniently placed on the handle but believe me, you would not want to switch this on in a hurry! I turned it on and the noise was absolutely horrific, it was not just a loud noise, this noise is something else. Sounds almost like an electric drill drilling through concrete in a confined room. It is piercing.


We thought something may have been jammed inside and sent it back to the seller, he sent another and it was exactly the same. Not a defective machine as both were brand new and sealed. The noise was so bad that we had to use ear protection when vacuuming. I definitely would not recommend you even consider buying this if you like to clean in the evening or live in a terraced / semi detached house.


Time to vacuum, with the ear protection!
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Well considering the horrific noise I would have thought this vacuum would have great power, it's not terrible at cleaning but it certainly could be better. The vacuum cleaned hair and average carpet dirt pretty well, requiring around 3 passes to get it all. The vacuum was very easy to push as it only weighs 3.7 Kg's, it is designed to be light and quick, that is true I suppose.


The vacuum is said to be suitable for both carpets and hard floors. The carpet cleaning was acceptable but time to try the hard floors. I tried picking sugar up on a sealed wooden floor and it was a disaster, the vacuum spat the sugar all over my trousers and almost the full length of the room, definitely not very efficient. This was with a new bag too! Definitely not good at picking up on hard floors. It also seemed to mark the wooden floors. The wheels on the bottom are coated in a type of rubber, this however scuffs your floors when you turn slightly and the marks require a rub with detergent to remove.


The vacuum is even noisier on hard floors, the noise I mentioned earlier was on thick carpet but I really had a shock when we tried it on wood. The sound was terrible, that of a jet engine on a jumbo jet. So bad in fact that I thought it was going to explode, too scared to carry on so we had to unplug it.

One nice feature on this vacuum is the head light on the front, this is a nice and rather bright orange light and is very helpful when cleaning under furniture, unfortunately the vacuum was unable to clean under my bed which is over a foot off the ground. The bag bulges out when the machine is turned on and unfortunately when the cleaner is put right down the brushes do not touch the floor, meaning the floor is not being cleaned!


Faults and Problems?
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*On the first use the belt decided to slip off the main roller. We thought this was a one off until it happened 5 minutes after the first time, we then replaced the belt with the new on supplied in the box and guess what? It slipped again! Putting the belt back on the motor shaft after the slipping was not an easy job at all. Even though this vacuum is designed like an Oreck it does not have the belt door on the side of the vacuum. The whole bottom plate must be removed and there are 7 huge screws holding this is place, a real pain.


*The bristle brush underneath is really harsh on delicate carpets, the bristles are like stiff plastic and are very sharp, many threads have been pulled from rugs that we used this vacuum on. Definitely not much good on delicate floors.


*The vacuum uses a dirty air system... The dirt that is sucked up goes through the vacuum fan like the old type vacuums. This means that any hard object like a rock or paper clips can severely damage this vacuums fan. The fan on this is terrible quality and shattered to bits after a days use, we only picked up a few small gravel pieces from the fish tank!


*The vacuum has pretty much no filtration. The bags are extremely thin and dirt leaks through them into the blue outer bag on the front. The external bag has many gaps that dust can be seen flying out of when turning on. No good for allergy sufferers or anyone that expects a healthy atmosphere in their home.


*The bottom pipe on the vacuum base is bent, this is really annoying as the vacuum never stands up straight, I am not sure where this vacuum is manufactured as it is not state3d on the machine but wherever it is.... They are not good!


*The noise, this is terrible, I say you buy one of these just to hear the noise for yourself. You will not believe it until you hear it! It is so loud that we can hear it almost half a mile away when turned on outside. It is horrific.


Right... Onto some good bits, there must be some??
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Well it is very light and easy to use when it works, it cleans reasonably well but the disadvantages definitely out weigh the advantages and this is why I really do not recommend this vacuum. One good thing! A long lead of around 7 metres, very long compared to some vacuums and there is a cord rewind on the back. Unfortunately after the first use the top cable clip snapped which means we can no longer wrap the cord.

There is also a nice protective bumper around the vacuum, this is good for protecting your furniture but I cannot see it damaging furniture as it lasted such a short time.

The bag changes are also rather easy. The bags are very big and hold around 5 litres of dirt. That is very impressive for an upright but it really loses most of its suction before you notice the bag filling. The bag simply pops off and you pop the new one on the pipe inside the external bag.

Overall this is a really hopeless vacuum, maybe we have just been unlucky? But I think for the price we should have known. I really would not recommend and only give it 2 stars because it cleans reasonably well when it worked for a day.

Thanks for reading
nickbrown60

Summary: An okay vacuum but will not last long!

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