Free to a good home....or even a bad one.
Written: Apr 03 '01
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Pros: Picks up a majority of visible dirt.
Cons: Durability, poor construction.
The Bottom Line: With many vacuum cleaners in this price range, I would recommend sticking to the competition.
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| menomonee1's Full Review: Bissell 3540-2 Pure Air Bagged Upright Vacuum |
A year ago when our previous vacuum cleaner started acting up, my wife found the Bissell Pure Air 35402 advertised in a Fingerhut catalog for $129 with a free dustbuster. Sounding like a good deal, she purchased it.
When it came via U.P.S. in a square box, I just knew the job of putting it together would fall into my lap. At this point I had just two questions. Could they have managed to send it in more parts? Just who writes these instruction manuals? 30 minutes later it was together and time for it to go to work.
At first it appeared to be a very good vacuum cleaner. It was easy to operate, and picked up dirt. Then came the first real problem. It was time for me to put a new bag in it. No big deal, I have been putting on new vacuum cleaners bags for years and have never had problems before. Twenty minutes later, and on my third bag, I had the job done. The problem was that the bags have a cardboard tab that you have to slide over the dirt outlet. They were too tight and kept on tearing the tabs from the bags.
The second problem came while trying to use the attachment hose to vacuum the stairs. It is a 9 foot hose, but every time you pulled it more then 5 feet from the vacuum it would disconnect from the base. The problem was that it screwed into the base with just flimsy rubber, and when ever pressure was applied to the hose it would bend and pull out. OK, they gave me a dustbuster. I guess that is what I was to use on the stairs.
The third problem came when the vacuum was about 6 months old. No matter how tight and well sealed the vacuum cleaner bag was on, every time you turned it on, it would shoot a cloud of dust out of it. By the time you were finished vacuuming the house you had to dust it.
The final straw for this vacuum came when it was about one year old. While vacuuming the house the handle broke in two.
It appears that it was just glued together. We tried to super glue it back together, but that seemed to just eat through the plastic and it would fall apart again.
Ok, on to the features.
1. 12 amp motor. Seemed to be a strong enough motor. Picked up most of the visible dirt on the carpet.
2. 9 foot cleaning hose. Well as I found out, this was really only a 5 foot hose.
3. 4 quick reach cleaning attachments. The attachments were good for cleaning furniture and hard to reach carpet. As for quick reach, they were meant to attach to the back of the vacuum but kept falling off. They were kept in a kitchen drawer.
4. Easy change bags. (well Bissell claims that they are easy to change)
5. 25 foot power cord. I must say that I never had a problem with the power cord.
6. Filtrete™ filtration technology from 3M. I am sure this was meant to keep the air coming out clean. I could not tell through the dust.
I have had other Bissell products, such as their Little Green Machine, and have never had a problem with their products before. I believe that the Bissell Pure Air 35402 was just poorly constructed.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 129.99
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Epinions.com ID:
menomonee1
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Member: Alan Wenberg
Location: Olathe ks
Reviews written: 82
Trusted by: 72 members
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