Customer Reviews

Eureka 431BX Optima Lightweight Upright Vacuum

5 star:		(113)
4 star:		(72)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(33)
1 star:		(51)

 

 

I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical of this machine. My wife and I moved to a new house with more carpeting and, after 16 years, had to retire our old Hoover. We looked at Dysons and a few other full-size vacs. Problem is, they all weighed a ton. (Well, not really a ton...but a lot.) Seeing that we have to lug the vacuum up and down stairs constantly, we wanted something lighter weight. Then we saw it...a mention of the Eureka Optima in an issue of Oprah magazine while visiting my sister and her family on vacation. We went to the local Best Buy and checked it out. After vacuuming up a bunch of junk on the floor of Best Buy in Nyack, NY, we took the plunge. The vacuum is a breeze to assemble. It's even kind of cute looking. And it does have a great deal of suction. The lack of a HEPA filter may be a drawback to some, but we went from an old bagged vacuum to this bagless...so it's a huge improvement for us even without the HEPA filter. The Optima is a bit harder to push than our old vac, especially on thicker carpet. But our rooms aren't terribly big, so we look at it as an opportunity for a bit of exercise. The incredible weight (or lack thereof) of this machine, along with the low price, more than makes up for the little bit of effort required to push it. It's easy to empty, too. And the telescoping handle is great! Put the handle all the way down and you can store this vac in just about any closet. We've even stored it in a large kitchen cabinet. I'd recommend this vacuum to anyone. Or you can spend six or seven or eight times the money on a Dyson. The choice is yours!!

I am a vac expert. Over the years, I have purchased MANY bagless vacs (including various 'Fantoms' when the bagless craze began years ago), both large and small, from MANY manufacturers, and have given out some well-deserved 5 star ratings here. I have had both good luck and bad luck with Eurekas, however this 'Optima' vac falls short in some important key areas, which may not affect your needs. It feels a bit chincy and cheap when in use, tracks with much resistance (compared to many other easier gliding vacs, including other better Eurekas such as the excellent 'Maxima 5550A'), has a much too short cord and cheap, small plastic wheels that bog down on carpet, comes with just two infrequently used accessory tools (should have come with a more practical 'flat floor tool' for stairs/floors/hard to get areas under furniture, etc.), and does not have ANY carpet height settings (which of course, does affect rolling resistance). Even on hard floors like wood or tile, it tracks like a cheap child's toy. Maybe larger or rubber wheels would improve this vac a bit. In addition, the motor's strong exhaust wind is blown IN FRONT of the machine close to the floor, thus often blowing and dispersing 'dust bunnies' and other stuff to be vacuumed all over the place or even up into the air! You have to thus inconveniently angle the vac upwards a certain way to minimize this problem. On the positive side, the 'Optima' is compact, lightweight, and very portable, and a good way to vacuum in 'tight spaces' where larger vacs don't fit. Suction is EXCELLENT as well. If and when Eureka improves upon this current design, this vac will easily merit 5 stars. So overall, if some of the above shortcomings won't affect you, I would recommend this vac if you need a small and highly portable unit. In that regard, and after using this vac extensively for a few weeks now, I am upgrading my rating to THREE AND A HALF stars. This is a VERY GOOD small, portable vac that will more than suffice for most users.

We had purchased a top of the line bagless with all the power you could want, and it did a great job. This little mini power house "out cleans it hands down". My wife always complained about the weight of the full size vacs, this one is about half that weight. It is absoluetly amazing how well it has cleaned our older carpets. With two Labrador Retrievers who have tha run of the house this little vac is put to a tough test. After one pass, I can roll all around our Living room floor in a white t-shirt and there is not one hair from the pups to be found. Do your-self a favor and get one of these little vacs who thinks it's one of the big boys. It's amazing that the price is so low on such a great machine.

I live in a downtown urban setting where my street level, 4 level condo has each room on a different floor. My front room & kitchen are hardwood, my 2 bedrooms are carpetted, and my 2 bathrooms are tiled. I also have an exposed brick wall in my front room that (as you can imagine), gives off debris every now and again. I'm a pretty strong girl, but lugging my vacuum up and down the stairs just wasn't my idea of "fun" (if cleaning is fun). Neither is messing with a vacuum that doesn't have an easy option of switching from hardwood/tile to carpet. I read the reviews on this vacuum & made my own assessment since everyone's living arrangements are very different. This works so great in our place! First of all...it's suction is so powerful that it took some (slight) exertion to move it across the carpet...which is OK because it picked up all the pieces of fuzz my upright didn't touch. I was constantly bending over to pick up what was left behind. THEN...I moved to the hardwood. With the click of a button I was vacuuming my hardwood. But the thing is...it was sucking up the dust bunnies before I even ran over them...when I got about 5" from them. Now the stairs. Because the handle is adjustable, you can adjust it to the shortest setting and there's actually another little handle down lower to grab so you can easily vacuum the steps without switching to the brush/hose attachment. Now for the host attachment...even that's great! You turn a dial & your hose is ready! It's small enough for storage - almost 1/2 the size of my Dirt Devil Featherlight that's not even a full size upright! I love this vacuum. And with the price...if I even had to buy a new one every year - it would be SO worth it. Some negative reviews mention a short cord. It's a decent lenght and so what if you have to move the plug to another outlet. Another was emptying the canister. It's a little messy because it's not all contained in a bag but duh...it's bagless! And no offense...but wash your hands! What was another one? Oh, the wheels and the fact that it doesn't roll easy...that's because the suction is so strong! All the negatives I read were WELL outweighted by the positives...especially after I used it myself. Lastly...the funky green color got slammed but we have nicknamed ours the "Green Machine" which just adds to the fun of sucking up junk!

I spent a lot of time looking at the high dollar vacuum cleaners for my new house. I looked on many web sites and consumer reports. I made the assumption that I would need to pay $200-$400 for a good vacuum cleaner. One day we were in best buy and saw this little green thing and my girlfriend demanded that we buy it.

I must say, I never imagined it would work so well. It is very small, light, and has a ton of power. My house is 90% hardwood floors and it will suck up things 2 feet away. It also does very good on our area rugs and on our carpet.

One thing that many people may view as a problem is the canister/filter part of it. Dumping the canister is easy, but cleaning the filter (Atleast the way that I do it) is messy. I am in the habit of just taking it outside to dump, and I beat out the stuff from the filter while I'm out there. If you wanted to do this inside, it could get a little messy. One bonus is that the filter is washable, so that could eliminate the potential mess. One more complaint. The exaust is in the lower front of the vacuum, which tends to blow things away from the vacuum when it is in the full upright position. This can be eliminated by leaning the vacuum back a little while using it.

All in all, I am very very happy that I purchased this item. If it breaks in a year, I'll just go buy another one just like it. It's so cheap and works so well for what I need.

I read the reviews posted on here, and thought, gee, this seems like a pretty good vacuum. Quite wrong, I can assure you.

I have never left a review online. However, this product was *so bad* that it overpowered my laziness and forced me to rate it. I just finished "vacuuming" (and I use that term loosely), and I must say, other than the lines on the floor, you really couldn't tell. I ran over the same little piece of string on my carpet about six times before bending over and picking it up. And yes, all of you naysayers, I did have the thing set to suck through the floor and not the tube. And suck it did, but not in the way that I purchased it to do.

Avoid this product.

I read all the review of Amazon.com about this item prior to making a purchase, I have also waited for about 2 weeks and at least 5 cleaning cycles before reviewing this item.

I can only say one thing: "I love this vacum". It's the right size and it sucks up dirt and cat hair like no other vacum I have owned (full zise included). My husband and I now argue who gets to use the vacume, we both love using it. I have found that the best way to clean the filter is to run it under warm water and let it dry over night. I also wash out the dirt recepticle with warm water to get rid of all the dust. As with any bagless the best way to empty out the recepticle is to do it outside.

Two weeks later, 5 vacume jobs (includes both floors and stairs in our townhouse) this thing is still going strong, I would not hesitate to recommend this vacum to anyone considering the purchase. Well worth the $60.

****************

3 years later still going strong!!!

My brand new 431A seems like a powerful well designed machine, however when I studied the Owner's guide I noted no mention of a drive belt for the brush...so I called Eureca's customer support (after finding no listing for a replacement belt on their web site and no directions for replacing one in the Owner's Guide.

Their Service Rep told me they didn't want customers to attempt to replace the belt because "there are a lot of little parts that just get lost" so you should tke it to a Vacuum Repair shop to have a professional replace the belt (evidently the belts are not made of Kevlar and do need to be replaced).

I also noted that the 431A is a new model and Amazon reviews only go back about five months. I called the two Vacuum Repair shops. The first didn't sound enthusiastic about working on Eureca Vacuums but the second said he thought he could handle it and altho he had never worked on this model, he didn't think it would be "very expensive since most belts only cost a dollar or two".

I have owned a number of floor vacuum's over the past 50 years and sooner or later have had to replace one or more belts. It's not brain surgery (and I'm a surgeon), and I have never had to take one in for service to have it done....yet.

Just thought I would mention this to prospective buyers.

The Eureka Optima vacuum replaced my broom!
Review of the Eureka Optima, and Review of the Reviews


I bought this thing after reading the reviews here at amazon.com and the only ones I paid any attention to were the negative reviews. But after reading reviews for several vacuum cleaners I found that all of them had some bad reviews. The Eureka Optima had many good reviews compared to bad. So I said what the heck and got one.

I was amazed at the power of this thing it really did pick up like an upright. Even though one reviewer said it didn't, it really does. It picked up everything, didn't miss nothing. It has power to spare.

I was worried about the air coming out of the front that people were talking about and yes tons of air comes out of front of this thing. It blew a dust bunny so far away one time I couldn't find it, but the suction at the floor more than makes up for anything it blows away.

I was worried because some reviewers said it would over heat. It does get warm, but I clean my entire three bedroom house with it and it didn't get hot. It doesn't over heat. Maybe people who live in Arizona shouldn't buy it. I will have to see how this thing acts in the summer. But for comfort reasons im not going to be doing any household chores in summer heat.

Another problem is long threads or hair getting caught in the rotating beater bar. I think that's the curse of any vacuum. I lost my full sized Panasonic because of hair getting caught in the beater bar. If you have long hair and think hairs not going to get caught in a beater bar wake-up, hairs always going to get caught in there and its always going to be impossible to get out no matter what vacuum you buy. The only thing you can really do is turn off the beater bar.

My final concern was that the main complaint of the Optima was the filter getting clogged. The filter does collect a lot of dust and that's the flaw of this product. Not as much dust as people are saying. You can get plenty of cleanings without needing to do anything to the filter. The vacuum is designed for the dust to go to the bottom of the cup and spin around and most of the dust does. Very little try's to attach itself to the filter, so I was relieved about that.

All in all this is a great vacuum I have wood floors and it's completely replaced my broom. I also have bird and this thing picks up all the birds seed on the floor even gets the edges. I don't know if I can recommend this product because even though it works great there are a million vacuums out there and I have tried like three or four of them. So there may be a much better vacuum but for the money I spent I couldn't be happier with this product.

I just got the vac today and so far so good. I'm nowhere near a vacuum expert, this is actually my first upright so based on that here are my first thoughts:

Pros: suction is crazy, I was a bit afraid to get sucked in... The Optima's pretty small too so storing it in a closet shouldn't be a problem. I gotta say that it does look pretty nice too, feels sturdy despite the plastic look and has thermal protections and advanced features as such. It also comes with extra filter (normally $15 from Eureka). The filter can be washed (not dishwasher) up to 6 times according to the manual though I'm sure it'll take a bit more abuse (but we'll see).

Cons: the powercord is a bit on the short side (barely reach the other side of the bedroom w/o changing outlets).
Feels a bit heavy to maneuver around, and the floor nozzle (brush part with the wheels) doesn't have a manual release mechanism (though I'm guessing most uprights are like this). In any case when it's upright it's a bit harder to get it loose.
Also the vacuum does have amazing suction which is definitely a plus but you gotta make sure that towels and things aren't lying down on counters or else it'll be sucked in... I'm not kidding, this thing's got some power!
Finally the vacuum is a bit on the loud side but again you're not gonna spend your life cleaning so hopefully that won't matter much!

Overall this product is pretty descent so far. I'm definitely not dissappointed by the purchase. I only gave it a 3 stars rating because of the short comings though I have no doubt other vacuums in the same price range would score equally if not less!