Talisman's Full Review: Dirt Devil Jaguar MCE6605 Bagless Upright Vacuum
After about 4 years my Dirt Devil steam cleaner finally gave up and I was in the market for a new cleaner. Being a Dirt Devil fan, I of course looked at the Dirt Devil's first. Upon inspection of the package description, the Dirt Devil Jaguar looked fairly similar to the Dirt Devil that I had recently gotten rid of.
According to the advertisement:
Features
Has 12 amps of power
Powerful suction pulls stains and dirty water from your carpets Five rows of rotating brushes
Tanks are easy to empty and fill
Includes 8' hose
Upon taking the cleaner out of the box to put it together I found that it did, in fact, not have "five rows of rotating brushes". It was at that point that I should have simply put it back in the box to return it, but being a Dirt Devil fan, I decided to give it a shot.
I have not cleaned my carpets in about 7 months and I'm not under any sort of delusion that purchasing a 100 dollar steam cleaner will give the illusion that I had my carpets professionally cleaned; however, this just didn't even come close to what I expected based on my history with products from this company.
As stated, the brushes do not rotate. Instead it is simply a row of fixed position brushes. The only way to allow the steam cleaner to "scrub" with the brushes is to push the cleaner back and forth, back and forth, over the same area. A scrub brush and a bucket of water probably would have proven easier. None of my stains are gone; they are simply a shade lighter than before.
The suction mechanism appears to be connected to the row of non-moving brushes and is not nearly powerful enough. I cleaned my carpets over 24 hours ago and they are still wet. Not damp wet, but a true "get out a fan and start drying these before they mildew" wet.
The only part of the advertisement that I feel didn't lie to me was that the tanks are easy to fill/empty. They both snap on and off with ease and fit under a regular kitchen sink to fill/clean without any problems. One problem I had with my old Dirt Devil cleaner was that the dirty tank would fill up before the cleaning tank was finished causing unnecessary trips to the sink to empty/fill out of synch. I did not find that to be a problem with this product at all. Both dirty and clean tanks were in synch with each other.
The Machine Itself
The machine itself is built like a traditional vacuum. There is a foot button in the middle to release the hand and a foot button on the left to turn the machine on/off. It was easily put together with a screwdriver and 5 screws.
The button to release the handle seemed to really need to be pushed very hard to get the handle to release. Once released I found the machine, itself, to be very heavy and difficult to maneuver.
I did not use the attachments that came with it so I am unable to discuss them.
Bottom Line
I think this machine could be a good addition to a household that is free from children and large pets. The dirty water was dirty, but the high traffic that my household sees from a kindergartener and a 2nd grader proved to be a better match than the cleaner could handle. The stains on my carpet are not gone, simply lighter in color. If I had the patience I think it could be possible to remove the tracked in dirt after using the machine, say...5 times on the same area.
The difficulty with maneuverability and weight of this product makes it something that I don't think someone under the age of about 16 could handle. It would be very difficult for an adolescent to grab this to do a quickie cleanup of a spill of soda, pizza sauce, etc.
Unfortunately, we decided to return this product this morning and now I'm back in the game for a steam-cleaner than can keep up with my family.
Please Note, as of March 2006, Epinions has this listed as a Bagless Upright Vacuum, it is indeed a steam cleaner, I have notified Epinions in an attempt to correct this.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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