I already have a Trillium Juiceman Jr and Moulinex Le Juicer. They both work, but they have small feeder capacity & are hard to clean, and plastic parts stain. So I shopped for a better one, regardless of expense. The Breville Juice Foutain Elite 800JEXL seemed to be it, based on many reviews. Surprise! Immediately two problems - one of which makes the machine outright unacceptable. It seemed generally to be better designed than my old ones, but my old ones actually juiced better. Problem 1 - the stop button didn't work. Once I started it, only unplugging it would stop it. Not a good indicator of manufacturing quality control. Problem 2 - unacceptable - about the last 1/8" of whatever you are juicing (eg carrots) does not get juiced, but instead shoots out of the filter basket and into the waste bin so hard, there is a loud bang and the machine shakes on the counter. Annoying as that is, you've wasted the last part of that veg or fruit. If you are juicing leafy greens (eg parsley), it doesn't juice at all - the leaves are coursely shredded and spit into the waste bin. In addition, even when vegetables were being juiced, it seems like some of the juice was being left in the ejected pulp (more than my old machines left). I got this result regardless of whether the machine operated on low or high speed.Being a technical guy, I took a close look at what might be going on and I saw the cause immediately...there's about a 1/8" gap between the bottom of the feeder tube and the bottom of the filter basket (where the teeth are). On my old machines the clearance is almost non-existent, so the veg must be completely & finely shredded to leave the basket. There is no way the Breville can juice properly (and without undue waste) with that large gap.

Either the people who like the Breville don't care about the poor efficiency (or don't realize it), or the Breville quality control is so bad, that some machines are made with a large gap (like mine) & others aren't. It is impossible for a machine made like mine will perform properly.

As soon as I had these problems, (5/15/08), I contacted Breville Customer Service. They apologized and arranged a replacement. They had no explanation for the bad OFF switch and no explanation for the juicing problem or the gap. They confirmed I had put it together properly. I will try a new one and see if it is built differently. But if not, I'm getting my money back and staying away from this company's products.



Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 299.00