The Kirby vacuum does what everyone says it does. It cleans great. But there are drawbacks to it that you need to be aware of before buying one.

First one is the attachments. If your cleaning the carpets in a room and need to get right up to the baseboards, you will need to take off the power head and put on the hose attachment. This can be a pain. So you need to plan out your cleaning before you start so your not having to take off and put back on the power head in each room. Having the attachments attached to a vacuum so you can just reach down and use them as needed, is one good feature of most other vacuums.

I know many are sold at how much it picks up that comes out of your mattress when running it in convertible mode. But make sure you try it yourself after the salesman shows you how it's done. It's not an easy choir for the average woman to do because of it's weight.

If you live in a two story home, you want to make sure you can carry it upstairs yourself. It weighs about 24 lbs and is quite heavy. Usually the salesman does it all and never asks you to try it except to push it on a flat floor, when it's in drive mode. So you never really get the experience of seeing how heavy this vacuum really is until after he's gone and you do it all yourself.

There is a filter under the tank of the shampooer that has a tendency of falling out and slipping into the hose. When that happens, it won't make the foam that it does when it's in. All you'll get is about a one inch piece of foam the length of the room. You may have to put a piece of scotch tape on it to hold it in place. Also make sure you clean both filters after using it or it won't foam right. Some shampoos foam better than others. The shampooer works nice, but don't pay a high price for this vacuum because of it. You can buy a good shampooer for about $200.00.

You need Kirby filters for this machine and if you don't have a Kirby store in your town, you'll need to buy them over the Internet as I haven't seen any department store selling them. So don't wait till your down to the last one to get more.

Now you know the draw backs of this vacuum. Still, it does a great job of cleaning almost everything you want to clean in your home. It works great on the inside of your car too. It can pull the dog hairs off the seats, dust from the dash and get into ever cranny in your car to pull up all the junk that gets onto the floor, around and under the seats.

It is well built and should last you a life time with some maintenance.


The final price you pay will depend on how much you can haggle with the salesman. You can save hundreds if you persist on saying it's to expensive. To heavy and point out the disadvantages, such as having to change the power head and hose attachment. Believe me, once he uses it in your home, it's no longer new and he will do almost anything to get you to keep it, which means dropping the price by hundreds. You should never pay over $1,200.00 for it and I see where some have gotten them down to $700.-$900.00.

Be aware of the advantages and draw backs of this machine and know how to haggle with the salesman and you won't have any regrets later if you decide to buy it.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1,100.00