Vax U91-P1 Power 1 Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner

The Vax U91-P1 upright vacuum cleaner is rather like a Citroen which has received the Max Power treatment: brash, loud, cheap and plasticy, but by jove it gets the job done!

It arrives in a small box, which initially got me thinking that it was some sort of miniature thing I had ordered accidentally! But after some fairly straightforward assembly, it all slotted together nicely. One word of advice - you have to really push the main upright part on to the motor base in order to locate the screws properly.

The build quality isn't brilliant - the handle is click, cheap plastic with no grip on it whatso ever, the mains lead is too short and badly placed at the bottom of the unit, and the dust containment unit is a bit fiddly to remove and replace. Its also quite large and ugly, though it is pleasingly lightweight, certainly compared to Dyson's of similar size which tend to be much much heavier. I was displeased that there are none of the usual brush tools you normally get, just a couple of pipes to go on the end of the hose. But then, how often do you actually used those tools anyway?? I luckily kept the 'Turbo Brush' from my old Hoover and it fits on to the end of the Vax's pipe, so that was a pleasant surprise.

When you start it up, the Vax sounds like it could suck up the entire Earth in to a black hole for the amount of racket it makes! Luckily I don;t have much carpet, because if I had to use this thing for more than about 15 minutes I'd be worried about developing tinnitus! However, I'm not sure that its a great deal louder than most other cleaners at this price.

The big question is - how's the suction? Well - I'd only just vacummed the carpets with my old Hoover the day before, but I thought I'd give the Vax a quick test drive after I'd assembled it. It picked up an astonishing amount of dust and hair from my 'clean' carpets. I was shocked! The Vax also made my Turbo Tool spin at a much faster rate than the old Alyx Hoover, and it was sucking up cat hairs from all over. I really can't fault it. Whether it will maintain this performance is to be seen, but having used it around 6 times so far I haven't noticed any sort of drop off in suction power, so fingers crossed. My only final comment is that the filter in this is very large so requires much longer to clean, though it is somewhat easier to clean than the much smaller ones too.

I'm pleased with my Vax!!

UPDATE: 19th June 2009 - For no discernible reason the suction of the main hose (i.e. the flat bit that runs along the floor) has stopped working - the bar won't go around and there's virtually no suction. This is quite strange as the hose attachement still works perfectly fine! I'm a bit annoyed if the drive belt has broken already, after just 2 months' use. I will check for blockages as the Vax website suggests, but this is a bit disappointing, especially as I have been quite meticulous on cleaning the filter. I will update if/when I get the situation fixed.

FURTHER UPDATE: It turns out the drive belt on the brushes had broken for some reason, and these apparently are very important in terms of picking up more debris. So I eventually managed to find a replacement on the Vax website (hint - email them, cos its a nightmare finding the right part) and managed to fix it, though it took me a while to get the thing open. It worked perfectly again, but then I sucked up the edge of a rug and the belt melted again! Luckily they send the belts out in packs of two, so here's hoping that its 3rd time lucky!

This vacuum is such a joy to use and im amazed how cheap it is!! It is the best value vacuum i have ever seen, especially for a Vax! in my opnion after owning many vax's over the years, i have found, however expensive, the amazing suction is always the same, so you dont need a high end one, this model is perfect, i used it after previously vacuuming with my old one and still found the barrel full of dust! and fluffed my carpets up beautifully like new! It's very satisfying!

The weight is relatively light, and compact, initially there is a fair bit of simple assembly, the usual attaching the handle and adding the barrel and you do need a phillips screwdriver for a couple of little screws - but it is all simple and takes 5 minutes, then you're ready to go and comes with all the usual attachments.

The only difficulty was actually locating the power button initially! It's down the bottom and i was used to my old vacuum being up the top and on my first few go's i did hit the foot-release instead of the power and vice versa, but it's easily overcome with practice! Also the cord is long for most standard rooms but we do seem to have an overlly long living room so we did have to change sockets half way through, but all over rooms it is fine, so if you have a more square than long rectangular room you should be fine and it probably won't be a problem!

Fantastic hoover! amazed at the bargain price, i'd of happily paid double for it! Highly recommended to everyone!

I purchased this cleaner because I needed a lighter one
it cleans better than my big one its easy to empty
the only fault no brush was supplied for doing smaller area,s
like stairs otherwise I am happy with it