Customer Reviews

Hoover U831900 Windtunnel 2 Bagged Upright Vacuum Cleaner

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

SPRING 2011 UPDATE (3.5 years later)
It's hard to believe that I've had this vaccum for almost 4 years already and it's still going strong. I'll report back when the thing konks out (unless I konk out first). I'm hoping for an 8 year lifespan (on the vac, not me) - we'll see.

I've started using the allergen bags vs the hepa bags to save a few bucks but I still have hepa bags for when I really want to do a great job (still get the bags from amazon). Vaccuming after a christmas tree still yields that smell of pine needles from the vac regardless of whether it's hepa or just allergen (until I change the bag). Emptying the bag is easier with the self closing feature. String does get caught in the roller and you do have to clean that out from time to time with a knife to cut the strings and pull them out but that's with all vacs.

Much happier still with this upright bagged vac than with the canister vacs or a bagless ones I've had before. I'm sticking to bagged uprights and it's lasting quite well.

Overall, still hate vaccuming but I'm much happier vaccuming with a sensibly priced vaccum than with some $800 Miele or Dyson....this is a sound investment and at least mine has held up very well, no broken parts. Besides, no matter what vac you get, you're going to hate it right ;-) ;-) so why buy a $1,000 vac made by Swiss artisans.

Happy vaccuming.



ORIGINAL REVIEW


First of all thank you to all the reviewers of not just Hoover but Eureka, Electrolux, Dyson, Hoover, Orek, and all the other brands out there --- especially the critical reviews, they're the most helpful in my mind although - I'm writing a positive review. Its a tall order to the people who build vacuums though to build a perfect vac: a tool to help us do something that we inherently hate to do.

I guess you're getting old in life when you can say you've owned 6 vacuum cleaners in your life and having owned 6, I've been through it all: bagged, bagless, canister, upright etc....and I've used every single one of them until they dropped (I never buy to replace a working vac - run it into the ground). This is what my school of hard knocks has taught me and why I bought this one and what I like dislike about this vacuum.

Canister vs Upright
My last vacuum was a Hoover canister and I bought it because I erroneously thought it had more suction than an upright -- actually most uprights are more powerful and better for carpets where canister vacs are more maneuverable and better for hardwood floors. I have about 50% hardwood and 50% carpet but I mostly use the vac on the carpet and use a broom, mop as needed on hardwood so for me carpet cleaning power was the requirement.

Bagged vs Bagless
Bagged vacuums tend to lose suction as the bag fills up -- so your first vacuuming on a clean bag is great and then things go downhill as the bag fills the dirt and mess gets compressed in the bag and you lose suction. Bagless vacuums retain suction throughout the filling of the container but and here's a very important but, you have to empty the container very very regularly, almost a container per room sometimes and emptying the container is always always a dirty affair --- not as bad as empting a shopvac but definitely not what the commercials/informercials show or fail to show and you cannot cheat on NOT emptying the container regularly as the penalty is a time consuming and messy affair to clean gobs of gunk out of your new and sometimes $700 expensive vac that looked so pretty on that commercial --- so if you go bagless empty the container regularly or spend most of your time unclogging your vacuum vs vacuuming your house. Sealing and seating the container is also very important or you can wind up with lost suction or a mess. Also, if you don't empty your container after you finish with a bagless, you create an environment from which dustmites etc can escape etc....and lookes very ugly. Other than that, bagless vacs tend to look prettier (is that possible) no, it must be the marketing talking there but in my experience they're as reliable as bag vacs but no more. All that said, bagged vacs don't need changing as regularly -- you vacuum multiple times (sometimes I change a bag every several months when I notice I'm not cleaning as good as before) so at least to me, bagged works best. I'm not messy and my place stays fairly clean but enough that I'd change a container a couple of times during an average housecleaning.

Cheap vs Expensive
Price seems to be somewhat overrated with vacuums (although $200 is pretty steep in my mind)...Consumer Reports had some great ratings and rated this vacuum 2nd place just under a Kenmore on a variety of tests and much more expensive vacuums were rated less favorably. That said, different people have different tastes and if getting a premium brand vacuum makes you happy - by all means. But in my experience (crosscorrelated with Consumer Reports) price does not correlate well with quality, dependability, or cleaning ability in the vacuum industry. Salesmanship, Marketing, Advertising and cost dictate price in my experience. If you just got an $11million condo, you probably have help and probably aren't shopping for a vac so that particular issue is moot - the rich don't buy vacuums (really) and vacuums are not a class statement in my mind -- so to me, buy something that works, is reliable, and is easy to clean empty.

What was I looking for:
-I've come to realize in life that the honeymoon period for a vacuum is extremely short, much shorter than the 6mos with me and a new car or the 2years with my average house....its more like 5 minutes so knowing that my love affair would be limited to reading the reviews on Amazon after my old vac broke and a brief consumation of the first vacuuming, I settled on looking for these qualities:
1) Something that worked well
2) Reliability & Dependability (works well for years)
3) Clean (not have to empty the bucket every 3 minutes)
4) HEPA
5) Carpet cleaning Power
6) Low Hassle

What made me buy this:
1) Bag (in my experience, they're less hassle overall and neater for me)
2) Carpet cleaning power
3) Autorewind of power cord (I know I'm lazy)
4) Dependability and Reliability
5) Consumer Reports
6) The 10 gazillion reviews on all vacuums here on Amazon (yes I read them and some of them are amazingly insightful and there are some people here who must be paid to write reviews and thankfully they are easy to spot. I found some of the more critical honest reviews useful and sometimes comical....especially the electric shock defect on one major and highly advertised brands...I was laughing at your pain fellow reviewer but seriously thank you for bringing it to light and steering me from some a $600 mistake...as a disclaimer, I'm not paid and I am an owner of the U8311-900....btw, one easy way to tell most fake reviewers is to look at a reviewer's other reviews and if they only have one or review 6 vacuums ask yourself the question....the real reviewer will have a healthy body of reviews on different products they buy for our homes and personal use after all, we're just living our lives out here)

How I've fared with the Wind Tunnel 2 Bag vacuum;
1) Setup was very easy - two screws to attach the handle
2) Came with 3 HEPA bags (1 installed, 2 new)
3) Was vacuuming in 5 minutes
4) Has a clean dirty indicator (its more of a gadget...small optical eye...in reality, you can hear if you're picking up dirt or not usually but it looks neat)
5) The wand and accessories are right there (it makes it easier for me since with the canister vac, changing from floor to accessories was a chore)....granted, the only real accessory I use is the edge cleaning wand so I can get my edges clean....overall very happy to be able to use it readily
6) Not too loud -- quieter than manhy of my other vacuums
7) Wide -- its not a small beast, you can tell this is a vacuum for a 2+ bedroom abode with carpet but not too heavy - average for a large upright.
8) HEPA bag - I am not a clean freak but knowing I'm not putting dust back into my air is good to know
9) Self Sealing Bags -- again not a total clean freak but good to know I don't have to stick my fingers into the mess or breath the dust when I change the bag.
10) Easier to store over a canister vac -- put in upright position and roll into closet vs bending over to pick up canister dragging huge hose and then pushing the whole thing into laundry room and 5 minutes later hear the clack as the vacuum falls over if I don't secure it right.
11) Manual heigh adjustment for my type of carpet

Pet Peaves:
1) The cord's position makes it so that you run over it with the left back wheel if you don't clip it to a provided clip (very minor and the engineers thought enough to put the clip) but if it breaks, I can see myself vacuuming with one hand and holding the cord with my left.

2) The cleaning wand is the handle and it telescopes with a little pin (kindof like the type that modern aluminum crutches have) you push the little pin and it telescopes out but the result is that there's just a little bit of play as you push and pull the vacuum (almost unnoticable) but its there, I noticed it when I first assembled the vac and then forgot about it once I started vacuuming but if you're overly obsessive compulsive, I can see how if you fixate on that, it could drive you nuts

3) Its not self propelled but then again, that's a whole other mess of things to break that sometimes works and sometimes don't work.

4) Its no where near as maneuverable as a canister vac but I knew this going in -- have to move the coffee table vs going under it with the old canister vac. I traded the maneuverability for the benefit of better carpet cleaning and the forgotten benefit of having attachments onboard.

5) Not a Pro or a Con - but this is not a small vac - so if you're looking for a small vacuum for small abode, might want to look at another option.

Overall
- Very happy with this vacuum. I can say its the best vacuum I've ever owned and I've owned expensive, cheap, bagless, canister etc as I mentioned above.
- In my experience, the honeymoon is entirely over
- I wanted to give something back to the Amazon community (both paid and honest reviewers)
- I bought from Amazon, Great Store
- Avoided most of the marketing I thought
- Good luck out there and happy vacuuming (if there is such a thing)....mine is happily in the closet now and will get pulled out everytime I have to do penance.

Ok, I bought this monster because of the good ratings it received in a renommated consumer magazine but I must say I wish I had purchased a different vaccuum. The first one arrived defective and was returned. The second one arrived with a scratch on it and I did not want to fool with returning it again so I kept it. It vaccuums great but dust is blown ahead of the unit, making pet hair vacuuming not always effective (if it's blown onto a table, the vaccuum won't be effective). The unit is very heavy and difficult to maneuver around tight spaces. Hauling it up and down stairs is cumbersome. I like the dirtfinder and the attachments but was disappointed that the attached brush rotates not because of its own motor but because of the suction flowing through the device, meaning that when you press down on it, the brush won't rotate anymore.
It's a three out of five.

I was interested in getting a new Windtunnel II as soon as I found out about them. I loved my current Windtunnel, but I was anxious to get the updated on-board tools and I wanted a model that had automatic brush shut-off when using them. I'm a loyal Hoover customer--not only my current vaccuum was one, but my previous (and first ever) vaccuum too. They have wonderful suction!

So first I bought the red "Extra Reach" Windtunnel II canister model from Target. I loved the suction performance and the on-board tools are great and really easy to use. The problem was that the surface where the canister attaches to the body is a very large area where the "self-cleaning Hepa filter" (a paper wheel with deep folds) resides. This area allows dirt and pet hair to collect on the sides of the pocket which holds this filter. Then, when the canister is removed for emptying, this dirt falls out onto the vaccuum body and can be really messy. After 3 months of using the machine I found that tons of hair and dirt were stuck in this cavity and could be picked out with my fingers. Also, the powered pet hair tool was very weak and the brushes would stop if the slightest pressure was applied.

On the off-chance that this was a glitch with the one I had, I returned that one and ordered the orange "Complete" model with all the bells and whistles from [...]. This machine was a lot more expensive, but also had problems. The "leakage" of dirt up next to the filter was immediately apparent, plus the "Embedded Dirt Finder" light wasn't working.

Completely disgusted with this bagless design and the notorious "Self Cleaning Hepa filter" I decided to return that one and give the bagged Windtunnel II a try. Lucky for me, this machine is free of the design flaws of the bagless, Hepa filter models. The bags are the filtration, so that problem is solved. Plus, the bags are inserted and removed really easy and are automatically sealed when removed (a sliding plastic top does this) so that there's no mess.

The tools are the same really easy to access ones as with the previous 2 machines, but this time the powered pet hair tool works correctly. Also, the "Embedded Dirt Finder" light functions as it should. The only thing is that the belt (I think) makes a little whine when I lift the machine while it's running.

So basically I'm happy with the performance and still loyal to Hoover. Unfortunately though the "Wal-Mart" phenomenon is obviously affecting the manufacture and assembly of consumer goods to the point that, although design and technology can be impressive, things aren't made to the quality standards that they used to be. :)

I do most of the vacuuming. My wife's only request when I went looking for a new model was that it use a bag. She absolutely hates the bagless models and doesn't want to see what we're pulling up. We have two dogs (an Akita and a Golden Retriever) to contend with and during shedding season the vacuum is running at the very least once a day. So after searching I find this model. I researched it to death and just as my wife was ready to kill me I take the plunge and order it from Amazon. Now the order status said it would take 12 days to get here and I was shocked when it arrived in 4. The big thing I like about this unit is that the bags it uses (although a little hard to find)have a handle on the top that seals up the dirt as you remove it from the machine so you never have to see or touch the dirt. The unit is a little heavy but moves around quite well. And boy does it clean! Our rugs look fantastic!
One complaint I have about it is that when you bring the unit into the full upright position the beater bar shuts off. Another would be that you cannot turn the vacuum on unless its in the full upright position..I know its a safety feature..I just don't like it. The pickup tube is built into the handle and when fully extended is great for cleaning the blinds and ceiling fan blades. The little power head unit was great for getting the dog hair off of the curtains and the side of the sofas.
Overall I would buy this unit again and my experience with buying a high ticket item from Amazon was so positive that I've purchased other items and make it my first place to look now.

Having used Hoover products in a commercial environment for many years I have had great service from them, providing many years of dependable and powerful operation. We were excited to try out this "new" Hoover model. One of the first things I have noticed about it over the previous Windtunnel Model is that it is heavier when you release the handle to vacuum. This may bother some, but I see it as a testament to it's improved build quality over the Gen.1 Windtunnel. This machine is very powerful and it's dual turbine motor has a confident sound. I'll be curious to see how reliable the cord rewinder is. It is a nice feature though. I'll post back after the machine has had more use to see how reliable it is.

**UPDATE**

After having spent some time and use with this machine here are my experiences...

Two very glaring problems with the machine are that it

1) Lacks a bag full indicator. The bag filled on this machine, and then busted (unknowlingly) at the top around the bag collar. "Stuff" went all over the inside of the bag chamber and sucked into the motor filter. It took another vacuum to clean the mess up. In the future I will be more attune to the sound of the vacuum and the weight of the handle, indicating how full the bag is getting.

2) The cord rewinder is a nice feature, but truly lacks quality. It will not hold the cord unless it is placed in the cord keeper on the back of the machine and also fails to fully rewind without assistance. A stronger recoil spring would really make a positive difference.

3) Dust and dirt get lodged under the pulley guard on the main vacuum head, not that it presents a problem, but it's unsightly and the bottom plate must be removed from the machine to clean out the dust.

Beyond these minor issues the machine continues to perform well and without problems or breakdowns.

Wow, does this machine get out the dirt! I went over an area of my carpet that I'd just cleaned with my old vacuum, and it's as if it had never been vacuumed before.

This machine is very intelligently designed. The attachments are convenient and easy to use. The pet-hair attachment doesn't have its own motor, but it still does fairly well on stairs, etc.

As others have mentioned, the vacuum is heavy, and using it is a workout experience, which is how I treat it. I vacuum a little with each arm and take a break about halfway through (my entire house is carpeted).

I only wish that there were a way to control the amount of suction. One can raise the "carpet height" and that helps a little, but there's still too much suction to use on rugs, either with the base or with the attachments. I would suggest a little valve that one can open somewhere on the shaft. That would take care of the problem.

On the whole, though, I'm very pleased with my new vacuum.

THIS IS A GREAT VACUUM, YOU CAN ACTUALLY FEEL IT SUCKING THE DIRT OUT OF THE CARPET, THE ONLY BAD THING IS THE BAGS ARE HARD TO FIND, AND ARE A LITTLE PRICEY.

I recently purchased a new Hoover Wind Tunnel vacuum when my old Hoover died after almost 14 years of flawless service. My new vacuum even outperforms my older vacuum. I am amazed at all the wonderful features it has (automatic cord rewind, extensions so I can clean my ceiling fans, pet hair attachment etc. etc.). I am a firm believer in Hoover vacuums and wouldn't own any other brand. I even check out the Orecks, but this Hoover is superior to all other vacuums on the market today.

One Satisfied Customer!!!!

UPDATE 6/4/07 -- Not so satisfied anymore. Right after I reviewed the vacuum, it completely died on me. That was on April 27, 2007. The vacuum has been in the 'Authorized Hoover Repair Shop' since that time (5 weeks and running) and I can't get anyone at Hoover (or Techtronics Floorcare - Hoover's new parent company) to tell me what's going on other than the fact that they're waiting on a part. Everyone just keeps passing the buck. I spoke to other repair shops and it's the same everywhere. Bottom Line: When Hoover vacuums work, they are phenomenal. When they need repairs, don't expect them back any time soon.

One 'Not So Satisfied' Customer.

About the only improvements I can think of would be to make the hose longer for greater reach, and to increase the strength of the cord winder that is weak. The replacement bags are more expensive because of the convenient design, but hopefully the cost will come down when more of them are sold.

Overall it's a good machine, good design, great suction! If you buy it, you'll be happy.

I purchased this Hoover to replace my 15-year old Hoover. I read all the reviews and felt this would be a good purchase. Boy, was I wrong. It's too heavy, noisy, maneuverability is terrible. I was very interested in the retracting cord. That still works, but I prefer it not retract while vacuuming. Suction is terrible, so I never have to worry about something being sucked up that shouldn't be. I miss the quality and performance of my old WindTunnel. Save your money.Hoover U8311-900 WindTunnel 2 Bagged Upright Vacuum Cleaner