Customer Reviews

Jack LaLanne JLPJB Power Juicer Juicing Machine

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(58)

 

 

Overall I think it's a great juicer, particularly for the budget conscious novice; the price is appealing and the quality is good. There is no need to buy disposable filters and the main source of labor lies in washing which is initially something to get used to. The amount of juice it extracts is good as far as I can tell, though the pulp is not perfectly dry*, but the juice is thick and not clear, so if you want very clear juice perhaps this juicer isn't for you.

*Now for my explanation on the pulp. Apples for example, frequently result in very thin slices being discarded into the pulp collector. That doesn't thrill me. Also in general, despite the pulp being dry, I discover on dismantling the juicer there's a good amount of wet juicy pulp that's stuck to the inside (think: apple sauce). The TV demonstration's somewhat misleading on their claim of this juicer's superiority in extracting juice completely from fruits and vegies.

As mentioned by others, the parts are plastic, so take care in washing well. For me the green side (scour pad) of the sponge will remove a great deal of the staining, especially if you clean it right after using, but be gentle, because you don't want to scratch it up and create more crevices for stains to seep.

By the way, you do still need to cut the fruit, like large apples and oranges which cannot be fed into the chute. But of course, the preparation process is lessened as peeling and de-seeding is an optional step. Be careful when you use this juicer on harder veggies like beets, though. The way I get around this is by cutting them down and alternating with another type of veg/fruit. Fortunately I haven't had any problems by following the suggestions outlined by the LaLannes, but I can definitely sense there's a limit.

REGULAR or DELUXE?
Soon after purchasing my regular model I found the deluxe at the local wharehouse store for the same price. I bought that one, too, and compared. I discovered there is absolutely no difference in the machine itself. The deluxe simply comes with extras, which boils down to figuring out whether you find the price difference (if there is any) worth paying for the following:
- an extra blade
- a brush (very useful in cleaning the strainer, but a very generic kitchen tool)
- large measurement cup (again, useful, but generic and superfluous if you juice directly into your glass)
- juicer platform and overflow platform (these would be better if they latched onto each other so there's some stability and utility)
- an extra blade-remover
- a bonus book entitled TOTAL JUICING

It seems like a lot of these reviews are written by beginners who are reviewing the practice of juicing itself, rather than reviewing the machine for which this page is all about.

To new juicers who haven't ever juiced before: Yes, there is clean-up involved. Yes, there will be organic particulate matter in the juice-machine made juice (this is actually a good thing), much more so than heavily strained 'store bought' juices. If you're looking for a magic machine where you can throw fruits and veggies into a chute and out pops a bottle of Welches, sorry. That's Star Trek, not juicing... and even if that's what the juicer accomplished, if that's what you want, then why buy a juicer in the first place?

The reason we juice is because we want our juices to be totally natural, without additives and preservatives, and with all of the nutrients inherent to the fruit or veggie left intact. You do not get this when you buy a bottle of crystal clear juice at the supermarket. The sacrifice we make for the superior juice is effort and higher cost. The reward is juice that is hugely superior to anything you can buy in a bottle.

Anyway, on to the machine.

This is an exceptional entry level machine. If you buy one and find yourself so enamored by juicing that you want to totally incorporate it into your life, you can eventually consider moving on to a Greenstar or a Breville. For everyone else, this machine is a great starting point and for most of us, is the ending point as well.

I own 4 juicers, running the spectrum of quality from $19.95 to $300. The Lalanne has become the workhorse of the lot. In comparing the LaLanne Classic to the other juicers, it's very apparent that it seriously outperforms the lower quality juicers in the way of juice extraction, and is actually comparable to the higher end units- the difference certainly isn't more than their respective differences in cost. On certain online discussion forums, "Juicer Snobs" often laugh at the Lalanne, but I would wager that these people haven't ever compared one to their $400 unit. If they had, they might be regretting their pricier purchase.

The feed chute is nice and large, and the powerful motor is strong enough to really wring out the fluids. No, the pulp doesn't come out 'completely dry' (as they suggest on TV) but the machine does a very good job in separating and anyone who is used to a cheapie juicer will be very impressed.

Clean up isn't that bad on the Lalanne. One thing any long time juicer will tell you is that clean-up should always be done right away. The moment you are finished juicing your F&V's, toss the components into the dish washer and clean your blade immediately. Trust me on this- it will save you a lot of time and headache. What takes two minutes to rinse and scrub off immediately after juicing can become a 1/2 hour chore if it's left to dry and stick.

The machine has a lifetime warranty on the motor (which is the only part you really have to be concerned about) but bear in mind that the warranty is for the original purchaser only, so if you get one as a gift, you will definitely need the receipt. If you get one second hand, you're pretty much out the warranty (I've never had to use the warrant service, but reports have it that they're pretty good and relatively quick). The "return postage fee" for motor service is $29.95 plus another $20 that it will cost you to send it in, so I would suggest that if it ever does break, keep an eye out for a new-used one, rather than having the old one rebuilt. You can get Lalanne juicers that were very lightly (if ever) used for $50-$60 on Amazon, Craigslst and other sites... Juicers suffer from "Exciting Kitchen Appliance Syndrome" where a lot of people buy them, use them once then stick them under the counter and forget about them. This is good for second hand buyers.

Anyway, that's all. Overall, four stars of five. It's not a $400 juicer, but it's very close and of course, it doesn't cost $400 either.

***** Edit- 2 1/2 Years Later ***************************

My machine is still going strong, but I did feel compelled to come back and edit this review with an update.
I purchased one of these as a Birthday gift and it failed straight away. I bought at the retail level, so I took it back and got a new one. That one has been going strong through daily use for 6 months now.

Perhaps the LaLane Juicer People found a new workshop in Asia to make the newer units, but I must admit, the initial- almost instantaneous- breakage bothered me a bit, especially since I've been such a cheerleader of these for so long now. As such, I'm updating my review and lowering my star rating from Four to Three Stars.

In reading over the other reviews, it seems that the product line suffers from significant, erratic quality control issues. If you get one that works, you're really in the chips with a fantastic product... If you get one that breaks, well, yeah. You're going to consider it junk and tell anyone who will listen.

Product manufacturers are smart people. They read these reviews.
I would suggest to the manufacturers of the LaLanne Juicer that some books be mandatory reading at their overseas workshop.

- Everything ever written by W. Edwards Demming; focus intently on those passages that relate to industrial quality.

- Kaizen: The Key To Japan's Competitive Success

If you start making a juicer that rarely breaks- as opposed to a juicer that is a crapshoot right out of the box- you wouldn't even need Jack LaLanne to endorse it. It would sell itself. The design itself is really great, but your implementation seems to be dicey, which is seriously impacting you reputation and goodwill with your customers. If you don't think quality control is important, perhaps a conversation with American auto manufactures might help you see things a bit better.

Anyway, this still does come highly recommended, but now, I would suggest that you only buy at the retail level, where you can take it back if you get a lemon.

Several years ago, after watching the famed strongman sell his product on an infomercial I decided to make an investment in my health & I purchased "The Power Juicer." Initially, I was impressed. All claims seemed to be confirmed, quiet, powerful, and I wasn't naive to the amount of cleaning that would be required & quickly adapted a routine that made the cleanup fairly painless. About 2 months after my purchase, I noticed the plastic screw that the blade connects to, was cracked. I talked to the Power Juice people & they sent me a new one after returning mine to them. I recall being quite pleased with the way this was handled.

Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago. I hadn't used The Power Juicer for some time & when I started assembling it I heard a crack when I started screwing the blade in - you guessed it, that very same screw had completely cracked off.

After considering the effort in contacting the Power Juice people, packing up & mailing said juicer along w/ $30.00 for the return, I made a bold move. I went online & purchased a used juicer for $10.50 + 15.00 shipping. The pictures looked good & it was missing the pulp basket. WHAT A BARGAIN! When the juicer arrived I unpacked it & immediately inspected this screw. It was cracked.

I have to say I was more angry at "The Power Juice company then the person I purchaed this juicer from. I've seen this in other products as well & it absolutely drives me bonkers. Think about this, the very powerful motor- which it is, and that they guarantee for life, is transferring its energy to the blade that pulverizes any fruit or veggie its way, is depending on a plastic screw to hold up under not only the incredible downward force of the food being jammed into it, but also the constant screwing & unscrewing of the blade. THEY EVEN GIVE YOU A SPECIAL TOOL TO TIGHTEN THE BLADE DOWN ONTO THIS FLIMSY PLASTIC SCREW!!

I've heard the defense before that "it's to keep costs down" or "it's the only way to make the product affordable." Well, The Power Juice people have come out with their new & improved stainless steal models. I haven't inspected the inards of these models but I bet they still have that poorly concieved, mis-engineered, flimsy plastic screw just waiting to fail for anyone willing to plunk down $150.00.

Joe-South Carolina

I purchased this unit for our house to make juices,smoothies etc. for the family.

Being an engineer, I am immediately skeptical of EVERY product on an infomercial but decided to order this one ONLY because of the sentence in the comercial where Jack states that "if it is made by man- don't eat it".

With that said, I was expecting something "cheap" and junk and was pleasantly surprised.So far, mine has had almost daily marathon usage and been washed, steam cleaned and put thru the dishwasher in excess of 100 times now.

The unit is very well made, and really does make a lot of juice.

There ARE some "things" the prospective purchaser does need to know.

This unit has several safety interlocks on it- you MUST assemble it correctly and aligned or it will NOT power up or the cutter will bind.

you need to clean the cutter with a toothbrush because water does not always get all the pulp from the small holes( if they clog, it will simply pulverize the object and not juice it)

Do NOT put over-ripe fruit or banannas in it( see above-it is in the manual- but I didnt read it until after I did it)

Lastly, you MUST start the unit and let it come to speed before inserting any fruit- this normal because any high RPM low voltage motor sacrifices torque for RPM's

I had this juicer for around two years, and it just broke. I am not writing this review to bash it for this reason. But rather to tell my experiences and impressions of the machine for the time I had it. With that said, this was also my first juicer so I have nothing else to compare it to.

Initial Impression: The first time I used it, the motor was quiet. However, after several more uses, it seemed to get louder. Much louder than I expected. The "Whisper Quiet" really threw me off. You usually have to speak at the top of your voice if someone tries speaking to you while you're juicing (no joke). When you watch the infomercial, all you're hearing is the juicer through lav microphones. So it really does seem quiet because it doesn't pick up the authentic noise of the machine. If they actually put a handheld up to it, the machine would be quite loud (especially while juicing). The cleanup of this machine was more than I expected as well. Again, the infomercial stretches the truth. It just shows them rinsing it under a faucet. In reality, there are a ton of tight areas where fruit/vegetable remnants get stuck and are difficult to remove (The accessory brush may help, but I never bought it). However, it always did a good job of making juice so I was overall satisfied.

Continued use: The motor definitely seems to weardown the more it's used. At first, it had no problem with any item. But, thicker objects like carrots and certain apples started to have trouble going through after a while. The juicer would jam and make extremely loud noises. In order for it to actually juice them, you'd have to turn it off and clean out the filter several times over. And that's just for one cup of juice. (Softer items like grapes and strawberries had no trouble). But again, as long as I ended up with juice at the end of the process, I was happy.

Finale: The other day, after juicing, I went to clean it. So I removed the blade from the machine and the plastic threaded piece that you screw and tighten the blade onto broke off.

Final Thoughts: I used this juicer almost everyday for the past two years. Although that may be a long time for a cheap As Seen on TV appliance, I was still a bit disappointed. I expected much more being that La Lanne was willing to put his name on it. This item would be good as a first juicer or maybe even for the occasional juicer. Using it daily? Get something better. The company offers a lifetime warranty on the motor. They can do that because the rest of the machine is made of plastic, which will surely go before the motor.

Verdict: 2.5 stars out of *****.

I just ordered a Breville 800JEXL, so I will write a review on that later in time.

It will do anything that has a consistency even remotely close to an apple. Any of your solid fruits veggies, carrot, cucumber, beat, kohlrabi, potato, fennel anything like that. Now it dose have some draw backs, the screen gets clogged on a regular bases, the entrance mouth thoe nice for hole things dose not like small stuff. Parsley for example needs to be put in densely or waded up, even then there is still a good about of pulp from small stuff you put it. The pulp that comes out if farley dry, but when the screen gets full the pulp is typical of low end centrifugal juicers.

Now here is what I like, IT'S QUIET!!!, no really you can actually use an "inside voice" while juicing (a vary pleasant surprise that, that was true), POWER it's got power to spare the base IS the motor, one big induction motor. It has not slowed down excessively yet, not one time. From what I've used in the past it's short comings are made up buy how easy and fast it is to clean. I only juice about a glass at a time so this may not apply to you... but for me it takes every bit of 8 minutes to clean AND dry after juicing total. All you got to do is use the sprayer before it dries up. Also it seems to be holding up to stains, but again I fully clean it soon after juicing.

I've seen many juicers and had a few my self, this is not the best one but for around $100 it not a bad deal for moderate home use.

Very good juicer, does everything it says on TV. Quiet, powerful, juices fruits and vegetables quickly and easily with a high yield of juice. The metal handle that clamps the top in place has to be positioned exactly a certain way, or the juicer will not run, and it often requires two or more tries to get it just right. But it looks like there is a new stainless steel model where the handle goes on more easily. My only problem is that after a few months I ordered an extra filter basket (which comes in a kit). This was ordered directly from the manufacturer. They told me it would come in 4-6 weeks, which it didn't. I kept calling and they told me it would be shipped within a few days. I finally got it four months later and it didn't fit right. Then they overcharged my credit card. It took more phone calls to take care of it. They should have handled it quickly and efficiently, but most of the people I spoke to were either discourteous or incompetent or both. Eventually I got somebody who was able to fix everything, but it took about six months from the time I ordered the parts. This is a fine product, but the customer support leaves much to be desired.

First of all, I would like to suggest that you should live next to a farmer's market or grow your own veg/fruits, otherwise the cost will add up quickly. I just made a 1-1/2 gallons of juice last night for the equivalent of about $20 (all sorts of veg/fruits). Like I said, find somewhere to get your ingredients cheap or just eat the food normally.

Second, as other people have commented, this juicer does not like small pieces (get thrown into the pulp collector) or as the book states, soft fruit (turns into the consistency of baby food=almost no juice).

Third, you should like to bake, as this creates a lot of pulp.

Fourth, one of the main problems that I have had with this machine, is that it continually shut down on me (like every 10 minutes or so). I am not sure if there was too much pulp in the filter or whether it was actually getting too hot, but none the less, it was a pain having to wait for the machine to operate again.

Finally, the juice is obviously the best part! It is very thick and delicious.

I am however, going to be returning the unit, as it requires citrus to be pealed (Rind is bitter tasting), and I have access to an abundance of oranges that can be juiced on a machine that costs about 10 bucks.

Not worth the hassle!! I bought this juicer and less than a month later the motor blew....when I called cutomer service the guy told me to THROW IT OUT...and he would send me another one. Lucky for me Im not stupid! I called 15 days later, after never recieving ANYTHING from them, and here the guy never put another replacement order through! The second customer service rep. told me I had to ship the dead juicer back for a refund and she sent me a return slip, I waited another 15 days and again, nothing showed up at my door. Just got off the phone again, with a very unfriendly woman who put yet ANOTHER return slip in the mail to me, and here I sit. So please ladies and gent's, save yourself the hassle!!

Motor blew out when juice ran out sides and into machine!
Plastic parts do not fit tightly. Struggle to operate!
Waste of money! My old Panasonic juicer worked well for 30 years!