Customer Reviews

Eureka 6500A Airextreme 12-Amp Bagged Canister Vacuum Cleaner with Hepa Filtration

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought the Eureka because I wanted an 'upstairs' vac. You know, the machine that we just keep for the bedrooms. Well, I now use this machine all over the house. Here's what I really like about this vacuum:

fairly quiet operation
variable speed motor
excellent filtration
power nozzle seems self propelled
very large bare floor brush attachment

Now, things I don't like about it:

small bag capacity
flimsy, tiny little dusting brush - worthless (and it keeps falling off the holder)
made in China

The bags, while very small, are easy to change. And they are fairly inexpensive, so I can't kick about that too much. The power nozzle goes under very low things (like beds and coffee tables) and cleans very well. The carpet almost looks new again. The suction is very good, not outstanding, but certainly enough to clean well.
I wish the speed control for the motor was in the hose handle, and not on the cleaner, as I don't remember to bend down to turn the knob when cleaning throw rugs (which is what a speed control is made for), and wind up dragging the throw rugs across the kitchen floor.

All in all, it's a decent cleaner at a decent price, and I feel it will do the job I require of it for many years. For the average person's needs, and in a home less than 2000 square feet, with wall to wall rugs and bare floor surfaces, it's a fine vacuum. I did go to a vacuum cleaner service shop and bought a REAL dusting brush (round, with horse hair bristles) that works like a dream compared to the one included. Cost: $4.

This vacuum came today and since my house has not been vacuumed for about 2 weeks, I got it right out and started cleaning.

What I like:

It's very quiet considering the power that it has. You can actually have a conversation while it's operating. Also, the fact that the hose can rotate all the way around is great, the old one did not and that got to be a hassle. The hose is very long, much longer than one's I've used in the past. That comes in handy for doing shelves, picture frames, tops of doors, door frames, windows, curtain tops, you name it. It's very light and is easy to move from room to room. The power head has a light, and while I know that's been a feature on vacuums for the last 25 years, it's new to me since the vacuum I had was about that old. I like the fact that you can turn it off at the handle instead of on the machine part. I LOVE that you can amp up the speed via a power rheostat. That kind of control is unheard of on a vacuum. I like the air bag assembly, seems easy to use, but to be honest, I am not done with the first bag yet. I like the foot-controlled release on the power head to switch to the wood floor attachment quickly. I like the color a lot and the big wheels can go over the cord without getting stuck. Seems to steer fairly well. I like some aspects of the power paw, the fact that it can do curtains and some upholstery.

What I don't like:

Both the body of the machine and the power head have no rubber bumpers. I have some nice furniture and now have to be pretty careful on corners. The power head seems to rotate to the right and this is, I'm assuming, for ease on pulling backwards on it during use. But why doesn't it rotate to the left as well? Odd. There's no caddy (unless you count the odd one that attaches to the tube) for the attachments, especially the power paw. It seems that they could have easily made one for this machine. The power paw itself is somewhat misleading. There is actually zero electric power to it, it's driven by suction which makes the brush turn. However, if you are working on a semi-flat surface, that suction stops and thus so does the mechanism. Why didn't they just electrify it? I was pretty disappointed about that because it's one of the main reasons I bought this for 50 dollars more than the competition. So, Wind Paw? Yes. Power Paw? No. I found that the power head does not have nearly the cleaning power of my old one and I feel this is due to NOT having beater bars on the rotating cleaning brush. I'm hoping the better suction makes up for this but we'll see. The other attachments are just OK, but the crevice tool is not as long as my old one and the brush is not nearly as soft or nice, somewhat stiff, cheap plastic bristles. So, I'm keeping the old ones since they fit this vacuum. (Sears Kenmore Vacuum, circa 1979,for those interested.) I don't like the fact that they ship this vacuum with ONE bag and force you to immediately buy bags which, (as others have stated) are hard to find. Without the internet, I'd be sunk. I don't like the wood floor attachment as it is almost too wide and can't fit into any smaller spaces.

All in all, I'm happy with this and will get used to it's shortcomings. I guess they just don't make ANYTHING like they used to. I'd give it 3.5 stars if that was possible, so I guess you could say I like it more than I don't. At least now my house is vacuumed.

I'm not one to take the time to submit a product review, however I do read reviews frequently and in this case I read dozens of reviews before deciding on this vacuum. I spent at least a month researching the right vac for our house.

Bottom Line: Very good value for a very versatile vacuum. For $200 it's a lot of vac for the money. Finding a solid but affordable canister vac is a real challenge I think. Most models are really junk--even the pricier models. This little guy really came through on almost all levels and I'm very satisfied.

Pros:
1) Powerful: it has excellent suction. Extraordinarily so for such a quiet, compact little vac.
2) Quiet: it's much quieter than the Kenmore Upright I owned before. It's noticeably quiet. My kids and wife both commented that I could run the vac while they watch TV.
3) Light: my wife wanted a light vacuum. This guy is small but mighty. It's a good size for moving through a house or apartment. Really an excellent vac if you have a lot of tight spaces.
4) Well-Designed: yes, it's a plastic vac but the plastic is thick enough to withstand basic use. The hose is sturdy, the attachments less so but still very adequate. The body is solid enough to get dragged around the house. The point of attachment between the bag and the hose inlet is well-designed... much more effectively designed than the other canisters I looked at in store. The hose has a 360 degree rotating collar where it attaches to the main canister.
5) The Bag: yeah, it's small but it really packs a punch. I'm so cheap I use my shop vac to clean out my vacuum cleaner bags. The first time I cleaned this little bag I couldn't believe how much dirt was packed in there. Sound corny, I know, but it was super full--and super compacted. The bag is easy to change.
6) The Bag Compartment: the bag is enclosed inside a lighter plastic roll-cage. This helps the bag maintain its shape... very good design. I think this contributes to why such a small bag expands and fills so evenly. I've had uprights with much larger bags that didn't seem to fill evenely or fully before major loss of suction.
7) Hose: it's a good long hose and long enough for most stairs. The hose is made of a very sturdy material--feels very strong and not easy to puncture.
8) Features & Tools: the power nozzle is electric motor driven-- I wasn't sure about that when I bought it. It works well enough. It's only a single brush so it's probably not as effective as the double brush roll types like the hoover. But it's still good. The other tools are very useful-- bare floor brush works great, crevice tool, fabric brush. This vac also includes a nice air-driven hand-held roll-brush for getting pet hair off the sofa. This little guy works great but is noisy. The retractable cord is a nice feature. Tools don't store on board but honestly I think that feature is over-rated as they always end up falling off. The main handle & extensions are long and easy to use... they snap together.

Cons:

1) Small vac: for a huge house with wall-to-wall carpet and lots of pile you might want something beefier.
2) Short cord: the cord is long enough to suit me but I could see in a large open floor-plan you'd want a longer cord.
3) Accessory Tools Don't Snap or Click on: yeah that's a little annoying... the attachments just sort of "jam" into place. Probably the biggest weakness of this vac.
4) Bags are hard to come by: hard to find the Electrolux S / Eureka OX type bags. I ordered some from Amazon in mid June and they still haven't arrived by Aug. 1. Might want to look on another site for these bags.
5) Power Nozzle: the main power nozzle is good but the single roll-brush design could be a bit better but all-in-all it's been very effective for my needs.

In mind my, the Pros totally destroy the Cons. The cons don't really bother me a bit.

I'm very happy with the vacuum... it's more than I expected, especially for the money.

It's an all-around versatile vac that a good value.

--G Anderson
Emmaus, PA

My family and I have had nothing but problems with this model. After 10 years our previous vacuum finally kicked the bucket, and my parents decided on this particular model in hopes that it would be as durable as our previous vacuum. We waited over a month for it to arrive. My dad wrote a previous review on the poor service Amazon and Eureka when it still hadn't arrived, at which point one of the companies (not sure which one) messaged him and told him they would send him the vacuum if he could take the review down. We received our vacuum less than a week after that.

We were deceived by the unusually good customer service and found, much to our chagrin, that this vacuum is poorly manufactured and a lot of trouble to maintain. Not only are the bags nowhere to be found in any store within a 30-mile radius of us (We live in the Bay Area), but right after the warranty expired the vacuum wouldn't turn off even if you pushed the switch to "Off." You would have to unplug and plug in the vacuum in order to actually turn it on/off. My parents tried to send it back and have it repaired but we were told that the warranty was expired and they could not do that for us.

Now the vacuum won't even pick up dirt; intermittently if you jiggle or turn the hose where the vacuum connects to the main body then the wire might contact and the vacuum's pressure will resume; otherwise it's just the floor cleaning part that actually turns on. Once again we are going to try and contact the company and ask (again) to have it repaired, but so far we are very dissatisfied customers who were sent a shoddy and poorly-made vacuum just because Amazon and Eureka didn't want a bad review for this product, and in the meanwhile we cannot clean our own house because of all the trouble we've gone through so far. This is by far the worst experience I've ever had with any product I've ordered through Amazon.

I bought this vacuum because it was relatively inexpensive and got good reviews. I wanted something that would work on pet hair, hardwood floors, stairs, rugs, furniture and wouldn't make me sneeze and wheeze. It will replace an ancient Eureka upright that used to belong to my grandparents. I was amazed at how well it works on pet hair on rugs and furniture - it was like something out of a TV commercial! It is lightweight and reasonably well-made. My main complaint is with the attachment for wood floors, which comes off unintentionally and doesn't suck or swivel as well as I'd like. Other than that, it's great. And I hardly sneezed at all while using it, unlike the old vacuum. There is a cheaper place to order it I would recommend - BuyDig-dot-com where it was $159.

Just the right blend of light weight vacuum and exceptional filtration it really cleans up without returning any of the dust into the air. Our house has never been so clean and dust free.

This vacuum has good suction, it's fairly quiet and lightweight. It comes with an awesome stair attachment with great suction. It has two filters and a bag and it feels like a clean vacuum. The power switch and brush on/off buttons are conveniently located on the handle. The only thing I don't like is that the handle swivels a little when you vacuum (it doesn't lock in straight) and I wish the hose & wands were longer. All canisters are cumbersome but I needed one for my stairs that was not too big & heavy and this one does the job.

When in good working order, this is exactly what I wanted for a vacuum. It has good, strong suction which is variable. The attachments work well. The only problem is that it's a bit heavy and hard to move around, but that would likely be true for most vacuums. However, within a few months, the handle/latch to the chamber where dirt goes broke, and the chamber doesn't latch closed. It's still usable, but I quite unhappy about the construction of this thing since I was not pulling hard when it broke. I'd recommend getting a more sturdily built model.

Once you crank it up it hold on...lots of power. The big draw back is the "one defect" according to Eureka, and that's the hard to control handle. It's sort of tough to control guiding the handle and your hand gets a real work out.

The different levels of suction are great and easy to switch from carpet to floors is a plus.

I've had this cleaner for a month now. I was looking for a vacuum that wasn't heavy as we live in a multi level home with many stairs. Generally, this vacuum is everything I was looking for; it's light and easy to use -- although I was disappointed with how small the disposal bags are; the bag was so full and needed replacement before we finished using it a second time. (This may be due to the fact that this vacuum is very powerful and has great suction; my old vacuum probably hadn't properly cleaned the carpeting for sometime.) So far I am quite pleased.