VAX Air Stretch Pet Max U85-AS-Pme Upright Bagless Vacuum Cleaner - Silver & Purple

Author: Shed In A Box

Rating: 5

Review: Fantastic buy. We have a Border Collie and a Cocker Spaniel so carpet and hair is a real problem. This copes so well. Can't understand why certain ones have issues with the airflow slider, ours is simple to use. Then the brush scours the hair off with ease. We don't have a large room, but after doing a Dyson run, this superb machine filled it's 1.5ltr bin in about 5 minutes. No more will we buy the terrible (over priced) Dyson, yellow, purple, blue or whatever. Bee Bee

Author: User unknown

Rating: 2

Review: Mainly bought this because of the advertised long power lead and hose. In use, the power lead is actually a bit long for regular room sizes. It's actually a bit of a safety (trip) hazard when plugged into one room but allowing you reach to another room, especially when upstairs and the lead is running past the top of your staircase. However, if you have very large rooms you will find the length quite useful. For me, turns out, I probably didn't need so much. It is a shame the lead doesn't auto-wind or stow away neatly, but there's so much it's not surprising. Would also be nice if the lugs you wind it round were a tiny bit bigger, rather than just big enough, but I can live with that and having to manually wind it. The hose is downright annoying. I'm not convinced the advertising picture showing it's length reaching the top of the stairs is genuine. Reality is that it might, only just, get to the top step but it would definitely pull the vacuum over before doing so. The hose really doesn't want to stretch and is always fighting to regain its original shape. You'd think going back to the original (pre-stretch) form would be a good thing, but the result is a hose that is always fighting you. For a hose, that also makes it feel heavy. Seriously, I've tried putting my foot on the middle and stretching it as far as possible but it simply goes back to the original form. Should that be a plus mark? Yes. Does it feel like that? No. You can get a good workout trying to get it to stretch but it just will not give you the slack that might make it feel less restrictive. I really do find the hose the most annoying thing about the machine. It needs to be longer or less resistive to stretching at least. Too easy to pull the unit over without stretching to full length. Another annoyance is the method of changing from upright to hose use. You have to unclip the hose from the base brush unit and clip it onto another hose attachment on the main unit. This sounds trivial but it is a frustrating task in practise. You'd think a better design would simply be that the hose nozzle (it is the handle), when seated inside the main cylinder, would just direct the vacuum suction down into the base unit for upright use, and when extracted from the unit it could then function for hose use. Even a switch that flicked between either mode would be good. The manual changeover, even if trivial in description, just feels unnecessary or like the manufacturer couldn't be bothered to do it better. And while I'm thinking of the base roller unit, so upright position use, a plus mark is that is has great suction and does a good job of getting the dirt out of your carpet. Unfortunately the downside, as far as I can tell, is there being no easy method of removing hairs (wife and daughter have long hair) wound around the roller. My previous Dyson had a couple clips that could remove a section to better expose the roller. Best you seem to get with this is trying to fit some scissors through the opening to clip away, if you can get the angle. The dust collector unit is also annoyingly small. I've seen similar sizes on other units so maybe it is some industry standard but, since the unit is great with suction and getting dirt out of your carpet, it fills up quickly. Expect to change it a few times if going round your whole house. Or, maybe my (no pets but two kids) house is just really dirty. Finally, although some superglue fixed the situation, after not having it for more than a few weeks, the plastic clip attachment on one end of the hose fell off disabling hose use. I would have expected it to be attached in a more robust way but assume it was either held together by pressure or some small element of glue before. As said, I was able to fix with glue but it doesn't add to wanting to recommend this item. The vacuum works so I'm not sending it back for refund, but I do question that decision each time I use it. And, for anyone wondering about my wife's assessment of it - she hates it and wants to pinch my Karcher vacuum I use for DIY purpose instead.