Customer Reviews

Hoover U8140-900 WindTunnel VS Bagless Upright Vacuum with Powered Hand Tool, Green

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

ARRGGGHHH! This vacuum is Lex Luther to my Superman! We bought this a couple of years ago when this was the near the top-of-the-line vacuums offered by Hoover. Really liked it for the first couple of months, as it cleaned really well. Then the 2 side intake chutes started clogging up on a regular basis. You have to pretty much take the &%#$*%& thing apart to get to the chutes to clean them out. You can sometimes take a straightened out wire clothes hanger and insert it in the chute to try and remove some of the clog, but that doesn't always work. I'm sorry, but you shouldn't have to spend this much time on your hands and knees trying to unclog your vacuum! This has been an unbelievable source of frustration for me, and I can't wait to buy a new Dyson. I am going to load this thing in the back of my truck and take it to the bridge over the Mississippi River and hurl this thing into it. But the police will probably see me doing it and think I've done thrown a body into the river and arrest me and bring me in for questioning, so I probably won't, but it is a recurring fantasy of mine (along with dropping it from a great height and watching it fragment upon impact.)

Incredibly frustrating! My family has owned Hoovers for decades, and I bought this with that formerly stellar reputation in mind. I've had this for 7 months, and, being a bachelor, have used it only 4 times(I don't clean much huh?) today it sucked up a penny and rattled for not much more than 6-8 seconds before I shut it off. It now will NOT agitate whatsoever, the motor spins and grinds the gears relentlessly, even after I tore it apart, lubed the gears and outer bearings with Dry-Slide, and rest the breaker. I can spin the agitators by hand, but this 12 AMP motor can't!. What a piece of s**t!!!!!

With 4 dogs' and 2 cats' worth of pet hair, our household is definitely a test of any vacuum's mettle. When the belt on our old Fantom vac broke and we found it difficult to find a replacement, we decided to look for a new bagless machine. I was drawn to the beltless design of the V2, since, I thought, it would eliminate the headaches of dealing with broken belts....

I was immediately impressed with the suction power and cleaning ability of the Hoover straight out of the box. I could see that dog hair got stuck in the brush rolls through the clear plastic, and decided that keeping it completely free of hair would be impossible, but that a good cleaning every couple weeks should suffice. This was my first hint that there would be trouble in paradise.

The hair was more difficult to remove from the V2, since there are 2 rows of brushes instead of a single brush. Well, it seemed to clean better with twice the brushes, so maybe it was worth it. It might have been if it weren't for the fact that hair and threads get trapped next to the bearings. Within a few months, I was noticing the distinct smell of hot plastic. End result-- the platic around the bearings melted, locking up the brush rolls, and even the gears that drive the brushes melted and locked up. This occured after only about two to three months of (heavy) use.

Of course it comes with a warranty, so we had the pleasure of dropping it at the service center (in another town), and waiting. And waiting. Let me tell you, a few weeks with no vacuum and a house full of pets and you forget what color your carpet was. When it finally returned from servicing, by the time I had vacuumed the accumulation of pet hair throughout the house, the familiar smell of melting plastic had returned. This time I knew what caused it and had it apart in time to prevent total melt down. (Removing the brush rolls is not easy, compared to vacs with user-replaceable belts.)

The next thing to break was the foot lever for locking the handle in an upright position. When I investigated the trouble I found-- surprise-- the "spring" mechanism that returned the lever to its proper position after being depressed was made of... plastic. Yep, a plastic _spring_ had broken. Shocking.

The hoover is now a bit more than a year old (out of warranty) and is limping along, slightly melted and unable to accomplish much before the bearings clog with hair and heat up again, rendering it practically useless.

This vacuum might be O.K. for households without pets, but the fact that the lever broke has nothing to do with my high-pet-hair environment and speaks to me of a complete lack of durability testing by Hoover. This vacuum was obviously designed by the marketing department, not by serious engineers.

Man this thing was great until I ran over a frail and stripped my front rotors on the left side. I was excited about the beltless feature so I wouldn't have to replace them after I ran over a string/frail. I noticed about 5 minutes after I removed the frail from my vacuum that the left side was slacking. About another 5 minutes and the left rotor is totally not working. So I ploped it open and walaa! The plastic/metal rotor was striped on the end facing the middle.

So I just wrote Hoover an email telling them that this will probably happen to every vaccum using the beltless feature and also asked for replacement rotors. Maybe if they used reinforced rotors with better materials than low temp rated plastic they would withstand more than 15 minutes. I'll keep you guys posted if they tell me anything good.
This vaccum is awesome except becaful around your rug frails =/

Like another said, it has issues. It has the best suction of any vac I've ever owned. I love the bagless, and it has a large collection cup on it, plus no belt is a plus. Unfortunately, one of the dual motors just died on me, which is why I am here shopping for another vac. But before it died on me, one side was always getting clogged up, which was annoying. I used the crevice tool to vac out the clog from the bottom, rather than a coat hanger (I tried that too.) Another issue is the hose attachment, which pulls out easily, and is hard to put back without using a screw driver. Trying to get it to stay is impossible, and I ended up taping it up. Also the upholstery attachement with the agitators no longer works, and the plastic cover where the attachments are won't stay close. Duct taped that too. For what I paid for it, I expected it to last a lot longer. I was very disappointed with it. Think I will just buy the cheap vacs from now on.

I can't tell you how much I loved this vacuum the first time I used it. We have two dogs and this sucked all the hair out of the carpet. However the second time we used it I noticed a burning hair smell. I looked at the rollers and there was hair wrapped all around them. I took the hair off. The next time we used it, I noticed the same smell but also a burning plastic smell. I took the rollers off and noticed that the plastic had melted around the metal retainer that holds the rollers. I was severely disappointed after spending so much money. The final straw was when the rollers quit turning all together. I took it apart and found that the gearbox that spins the rollers and the gears inside had actually got so hot that they fused together. What a piece of junk. DON'T BUY THIS VACUUM.

I will not forget the first time we pulled this out of the box. It looked like a mean, green cleaning machine w/ all the rotating neon green brushes, plus bagless AND beltless! My excitement level has since subsided. We have now had it for approximately 5.5 - 6 months and for the last 3 weeks it has been sitting in our garage waiting to go to the service center (2 hours away). Just like previous reviewers, 2 of my rollers have melted where it attaches to the mechanical drive, thus rendering it completely useless! Not to mention, before we had problems with the rollers, it constantly clogged up with lint, hair, etc. especially in the hardest to reach areas in the vacuum! So you would have to figure out a way to get the clog out without taking the whole thing apart. Just very inconveinient! For the hefty price, I was expecting greater quality. We often joke about missing our previous vacuum which cost around $60 and lasted 7 years! I am really disappointed that Hoover has not pulled this peice of junk off of the market with all of it's recurring problems. I will never buy a Hoover vacuum again.

Bought it because of the two brush design. Hand tool failed after the second use and had to completely disassemble it to remove the hair that stopped the brush from rotating. Two months in, the pet hair wrapped around the spindle and starting to heat the roller brush and melted/stripped one roller. Took it into the Hoover dealer to get it repaired and he indicated that this was the most returned vacuum he had seen in a long time. That was allI needed as I quickly returned it to the store for a refund. For the price, it's nothing but a huge piece of junk.

Do not buy this vacuum if you own Pets !
We purchased it two months ago. We liked it very much until we found out that Dog hair (2 Labs) becomes tangled in the roller brush mechanism between the mechnical drive spline and the roller brush. Three of the four rollers have melted where they attach to the mechanical drive due to the dog hair heating up and melting the plastic. We had another Windtunnel for 6 years with no problem. This new V2 has a major design flaw. We are returning it ASAP and need to look at a different design. If you have pets, take it apart and see if yours is melting as well. I consider it a major safety concern and have written the company.

Considering this vacuum was $200+, I was hoping to get at least a couple good years out of it. As with all expensive vacuums, it worked increadibly well for the first month (funny how you see all these great reviews from people who have only owned their vacuum for a few weeks). Unfortunately it started loosing suction power at after about 6 months of occasional residential use and was pretty much worthless after 8 months. You could see through the clear portions of the ducting on the main portion of the vacuum that it was clogged with hair and dust. You would think that Hoover engineers might have forseen this clogging problem and come up with a good way to easily clean the inner workings of the vacuum, but they did not. It was impossible to get to the clogged portions of the vaccum without ripping it entirely apart. The vaccum is now in the garbage dump. I am going with a bag model Eureka this time -- it has worked great for the first couple weeks -- we'll see how it does long run.