Over the past twelve years or so, I've owned three carpet cleaners - one by Hoover and two by Bissell. This cleaner replaced our first Bissell, which while it did a better job (in my opinion) than the Hoover was not nearly as good as this one. Our first Bissell (a ProHeat 2x) finally gave up the fight after five years of moderate abuse and refused to do anything, so we had to quickly replace it since we have two cats and a dog, and were getting ready to move.

Now that I have the introductions out of the way, let me tell you what we love about this Bissell compared to our last.

1. The larger tank allows us to clean more carpet before refilling.

2. The heater seems to have gone through some marked improvements, as the water stays hot for the entire time the machine is in use. Perhaps this was a defective part on our old machine, but we love the improvement nonetheless.

3. The hair basket seems to work great for us. Some still gets past it, but most of it is caught - eliminating the fear of clogging a drain and having to play in the dirty water to remove the clog.

4. The brushes do a better job of agitating tough spots.

5. And finally, the suction is stronger, making faster work out of what was really time consuming before and leaving our carpets a little drier.

Compared to my old Hoover, well, even our old Bissell beat it in terms of performance.

One thing I did like about my old Hoover though was the two tanks - one for clean water/chemical and the other for dirty water. That did make it easier to fill and empty. I wouldn't necessarily call Bissell's design messy, but it sucks when your dirty water needs to be emptied yet the clean water still has a little left. You pretty much have to dump everything and I don't like being wasteful.

There are a few other things we don't exactly love about the new Bissell.

1. The "Cleanshot" is kind of deceiving.
A. Lining up the stream with the spot is a bit of a challenge. On our machine we have to have the machine about 12" from the spot and sitting to the left of the spot by about 2" in order to get a direct hit. Yours might be different, I don't know.

B. As a housekeeping manager for a Marriott hotel, I became cleanliness certified through a combined Marriott, Windsor and Ecolab hands-on training that included a lot of post-classwork that spanned several months. One thing we learned is that there are three stages of carpet care: routine (vacuum), interim (shampoo) and recovery (extraction). For the most part, your household carpet cleaner falls more into the interim category than the recovery category, but when you use the Cleanshot to spray a direct line of chemical and water onto a section of carpet, let it sit for a minute or two, then apply direct suction to that area, you have entered the recovery stage. You don't want to enter the recovery stage for any section of carpet more than twice a year because the recovery stage significantly damages the carpet fibers. So, while I have used the Cleanshot, I don't recommend getting in the habit of using it if you don't absolutely have to.

2. The machine is kind of heavy even without water in it. It's not as noticeable for me as it is for my wife because, as I said, I work at a hotel and we use commercial machines that weigh a lot more than this. I think this one is light. She disagrees.

3. The location of the power button is awkward. Since we don't use the carpet cleaner on a daily/weekly basis, as we do the vacuum cleaner, it's hard to get this power button placement engrained in memory. Even the commercial cleaners I've used don't have power switches located half way down the front of the machine. It's just unnaturally weird.

For those who are saying that the carpet is left really wet, it leaves a lot of hair behind or that the stains aren't coming up, here are some tips.

You need to thoroughly vacuum the carpet before using the carpet cleaner. Take your time. Get in every corner and along every baseboard. Go over it at least twice to get as much soil, hair and dust out of the carpet as you possibly can. Once the carpet is as clean as you can get it by vacuuming, it's time for the carpet cleaner.

When you use any carpet cleaner, the natural motion for most people is push it forward, then depress the spray trigger and pull it back, then move onto the next section. That fails you on a couple of fronts. Number one, you aren't giving the chemical any time to break up the soil, so you're going to miss a lot. And number two, you're not giving the machine much of a chance to agitate the fibers or suck up nearly enough water to help your carpet dry faster.

Instead, do this:
A. Slowly push the machine forward while depressing the spray trigger.
B. Allow the chemical 15-30 seconds to work.
C. Slowly pull the machine backward over the section you just sprayed. Do not depress the spray trigger.
D. Repeat steps A-C over the same area.
E. Examine the strip you just cleaned for any remaining spots, move the machine up to them and agitate the carpet some more. Do not depress the spray trigger.
F. Slowly push the machine to the top of your cleaned strip and pull it all the way back. Repeat this 3 times. Do not depress the spray trigger.
G. If there are still spots that didn't come clean, push the machine to those spots and use a 2-second spray with the Cleanshot. Leave that section and start the next one.
H. After following steps A-C for the next strip return to the spots you used the Cleanshot with in step G. Do not depress the spray trigger. Just agitate the carpet and suck up the water from those spots. If the spots are still present, they most likely will not come out with your machine. It will require a professional machine or replacing the carpet in that area.
I. Return to the strip you started cleaning and pick up with step D.
J. Repeat steps A-I throughout the entire room.

Cleaning your carpets shouldn't be nearly as fast as vacuuming. It takes a while to do it right and it takes the carpet a few hours to thoroughly dry. But, if you do it right, you shouldn't do it again for three months.

Even though this is interim care, it still damages the carpet fibers. If you apply too much chemical, or leave your carpet too wet, the fibers get damaged even more. Routine care damages the fibers also, but not as much as interim care. Recovery care has it's place and is necessary, but it really damages the fibers, which is why you don't want to use it very often. If, however, you don't properly care for your carpets the soil will shred the fibers faster than you'd believe - that's why it's important to use all three stages.

For the best care of your carpet, follow these guidelines:
Vacuum at least once a week - daily in high traffic areas. Blot spills as quickly as they happen and use light spot treatments as necessary. Use your Bissell once every three months over the entire carpet to remove soil and dust from deep within the carpet. Use a professional carpet cleaner (extractor) every 6 months in high traffic areas and every year on the rest of your carpet. Good quality carpeting should last several years if you treat it right.

Engineer here...or should I say Engine-nerd? We have two Golden Retriever puppies and after several rainy days we decided it was time to buy a carpet cleaner. I searched high and low on the Amazon reviews to find a good carpet cleaner. Some said they were noisy, others talked about leaks, and more leaks, and other various problems. I didn't want to mess with leaks. I settled on this carpet cleaner after a ton of research. I have not been disappointed! This thing works great and I will never have to make a trip to the store to rent one since this cleans as good as, if not better than anything you can get at the store. We had not cleaned our carpets in 10+ years and the water was dark muddy looking water. This unit has a little "squirt gun" so you can aim the cleaner at any tough spots and give it a steady pre-soaking stream of cleaner. The dual brushes do an outstanding job deep cleaning the carpet fibers as is evidenced from the dirty water that is vacuumed up. Even though we vacuumed the carpet thoroughly prior to using this cleaner you will see that these dual brushes pick up a ton of embedded dog hair and leave little piles of this that you have to pick up. It's designed to vacuum up water so it will leave some piles of dog hair behind as it deep cleans. The separate upholstery cleaner also works well. We used it to clean the fabric seats in my sons car and it also worked well. There are some clunky aspects that could be improved like: 1) Directions are really poor. In the digital age I still don't understand how manufactures can make such poor directions. 2) Placing the tank but into the cleaner is a bit awkward until you get used to it. And 3) When you place the tank on the counter while filling it, it doesn't sit flat and firmly. But, overall,we are very, very please with how well this beast cleans! Oh, I almost forgot...Our friends borrowed this cleaner to clean their carpets for an upcoming family event. We got a text message from them on how impressed they were at it's cleaning ability. A few weeks later, they returned our carpet cleaner and literally bought the same unit.

Purchased this to clean both the carpeting and upholstery that gets heavily soiled by two large, hairy dogs at my son's house. The cleaner has been used only on the upholstery at this point in time but it did a fabulous job! We used it on two heavily soiled couches that they received from another family member to use in their finished rec room. I did the actual cleaning and was amazed at home much dirt this machine picked up. The end result was better than I would have expected. The couches are off white micro fiber - they looked rich and clean when done. I included a picture before/after. I was surprised that this is not a heat/steam type of cleaning machine and was concerned that it might not do the job - but I was wrong. Set up and clean up was very easy. We did not have the bladder problem some commented on. I will report back when it gets used on the carpeting.