Ah vacuums! I feel like every dog owner out there is on a never ending quest to find “the” holy grail vacuum. You know the one. The one that isn’t insanely expensive, that sucks up all that dog hair with ease, without getting clogged. The one that isn’t too heavy, too fragile, so on and so forth. For years now, in dog groups, owners have been recommending Dyson vacuums. I tried out the Dyson DC41 Animal Complete vacuum. For just over 5 years it was my only vacuum. I hated it. There, I said it. Well, wrote it at least.
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Not worth the price (in my opinion)
I bought my Dyson animal vacuum way back in 2014. It (thankfully) came with a 5 year warranty. Almost exactly 5 years after I purchased it, and right before we moved, I ditched the Dyson. With the state it was in, it just wasn’t worth it to me to go through the trouble of bringing the Dyson along on our move. I know that people always seem to rave about Dyson vacuums, especially pet owners. But after 5 years of using ours I’m not sure I’d be quick to invest in a Dyson again.
Dyson vacuums are worth their inflated cost, or at least I don’t think they are. I found the Dyson DC41 Animal Vac on Amazon for $800, even though I’m pretty sure that the DC41 is now an outdated model. Looking at the Dyson website, their updated version of this vacuum seems to be the Dyson Ball Animal 2. It currently (at the time of this post) retails at $599.99.
Get the warranty!
Over the 5 years of using my Dyson I was SO thankful that it came with a warranty. The first time I needed to use it was about a year in. The acclaimed ball on my vacuum kind of just…fell apart…and I had to have it repaired/replaced. I remember the Dyson rep didn’t want to let me ship my vacuum in to be repaired. At the time I didn’t have a car, so I wasn’t able to take the vacuum in to a repair shop.
Despite its high cost, most of the parts of my Dyson seemed to be made of cheap plastic, which made it prone to breaking. Over the 5 years I had it, I basically rebuilt my entire vacuum, piece by piece, as each piece broke and had to be replaced.
My Dyson lost suction.
I’ll admit that when we first got it, our Dyson vacuum did an amazing job of getting all the pet hair off my rugs. Five years later though, it did a horrible job. If I went over the same spot on my rugs about a million times, I could get them to look pretty clean. However, upon close inspection I could always see remaining bits of dog fur and such (see the photo below, it was taken right after I vacuumed!) stuck to my rugs. This was especially true when I didn’t have a ton of time and only went over the rug once or twice, instead of a million times.
The ball is destructive
I found the wand, and to some extent the vacuum itself, clunky and awkward to maneuver. The ball on the vacuum is supposed to improve maneuverability, and I felt that to some extent it did, however it doesn’t come without its share of problems. Perhaps you can chalk this up to human error, but I sometimes ran over the cord of the vacuum with the ball and nothing good has come of it. The cord was so damaged that I began to question whether or not it was safe to continue using the vacuum.
Besides the cord looking like that, the ball on my vacuum was missing one half of the cover because it fell off and I couldn’t figure out how to reattach it securely.
I will 1,000% be the first to admit that I’m rough on my vacuums.
I mean, I don’t use them as punching bags or anything crazy, but I use them a lot, usually at least once a day, and I’m not always super strict about keeping up on maintenance when it comes to deep cleaning each part. But for $500 plus, I expect a product to have some longevity. While I did still have a semi-working vacuum after 5 years, like I mentioned above, at that point so many of the parts had been replaced that it was essentially not the same vacuum it was when I bought it. Despite many of the parts being newer than 5 years old, what I was left with didn’t work all that well anymore.
Personal Preference?
I don’t want to discount all the accounts I’ve heard/read of people having excellent experiences with Dyson products. Perhaps a lot of my issues come down to user error, and/or personal preference. I think the main con, to me, is just that these vacuums, at regular price, are so expensive. To pay that much for a vacuum with parts that break often is frustrating to say the least. There are quite a few competitive brands out there that are a lot more affordable. From my experience, they also seem to be more durable. If you’re lucky you can find a Dyson on sale. Then perhaps the cheaper price point makes any issues later on a bit more tolerable.
The 5 year warranty on new machines does help lessen the blow a bit when you need replacement parts. However, at least on the machine I had, it’s a limited warranty so not everything was covered. If you need a replacement part that doesn’t happen to be covered, it probably won’t come cheap. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that, whether you get it under warranty or pay for it out of pocket, getting replacement parts shipped, or a repair, means you’ll have downtime which, in a house with a heavily shedding or otherwise messy pet, isn’t very fun.
Are you supposed to use the warranty this often!?
While I was appreciative of Dyson’s warranty, I had to use it SO many times over the course of 5 years. I feel like using a warranty on a product should be the exception rather than the rule. It’s nice to have if you need it. But when you pay so much for an item you don’t usually expect to have to replace parts so soon, or so often.
I’ve had much better luck with much cheaper vacuums.
I think the main con of the Dyson vacuum I tried just keeps coming back to it’s price. After we moved, sans the Dyson vacuum, I picked up a much cheaper $150 vacuum during an Amazon sale. I don’t even remember the brand of the top of my head. I just really needed a new vacuum, and didn’t want to pay a ton for it. Three years later that cheapo sale vacuum is still going strong. I still use it almost daily, and have never had a single issue with any of the parts breaking. It’s crazy to me that a cheap, no frills vacuum has been holding up way better than my Dyson did!
What do you think? Have you ever tried a Dyson product? Was your experience similar or different to mine?
22 Comments
Nice Re-Review Post. I was always curious about the quality of Dyson, since the price was so high. I appreciate your honesty in this review, it is all good information to think about. It is a shame that vacuum cleaners don’t last as long as they should. For the last few years, we use the Shark Vaccum and like it so far.
I liked my Shark when I had one. It lasted me quite a few years before I got a Dyson and gave away the Shark. I wished after that I had just stuck with what I had but oh well. I’m thinking of trying Shark again after we move.
Great post, honest and to the point. I got a Dyson as a gift, it is good but not the greatest and have been looking at others lately for a smaller lighter pet friendly one which is not over the top price wise.
Thank you. I’ll be in search of a new one soon too. I’m for sure going to go with something cheaper this time. At least that way if it breaks it’s not as big of a deal.
Really helpful to read a re-review after realistic use. I have used a Dyson, but only in a light-use, vacation rental type situations. Appreciate the insight.
Ours worked SO well at first, but definitely wasn’t nearly as good after awhile. For how expensive they are, the amount of time it worked well was disappointing.
I haven’t tried a Dyson yet. The price point has been a deciding factor for me in not trying it. We are probably not as hard on our vacuums, but we have had a Shark Pet Hair vacuum for 5 years and it is still up and running. The biggest problem we have is my hair (rather than cat hair) clogging up the roller.
I know what you mean about people hair being more of an issue than pet hair. My hair tangles the roller on our vacuum too. I had a Shark before my current Dyson and was happy with it. I gave it away when we got our Dyson, as it was still working well. I’m heavily leaning towards getting another Shark after we move.
I gave up on Dyson years ago, after my new and very expensive vacuum had a fatal encounter with a very small cat toy. I have a Black and Decker Pet cordless vacuum that I love. Once you’ve used a cordless vacuum, you’ll never look back. And this one picks up astonishing amounts of cat hair.
I’m glad it’s not just me when it comes to Dyson. I’ve never had a cordless vacuum before. I’m going to look into them…not having a cord to run over would probably be a big plus for me!
I loved loved loved my Dyson. I think I paid around 400$ at Sams Club. I had it for nearly 10 years and honestly I did no maintenance other than pulling the fur and whatever cat toys it ate out the pipes. It might have lasted longer if I was better about caring for it. But it had a hard life too in a house with 10+ cats. I couldn’t afford to replace it when it died so I got a crappy 79$ vacuum at Walmart. It probably won’t last a year but I won’t feel bad when it dies.
I wonder why they last long for some people but not for others? So weird, especially since it sounds like you really put yours to work too. At least for $79 it won’t be a huge deal if the new vacuum doesn’t last forever. I know you can sometimes find Dyson’s on sale which helps with the cost a bit, if you ever wanted to get another.
Overall I am disappointed with our Dyson too. It doesn’t do the job it should, and so many of the little plastic things have broken over the years. The canister is tough to open now, which makes it a pain. I don’t think I’ll be purchasing another Dyson.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one whose had issues with them, judging by the comments here. I have issues with my canister too, even though that’s one of the parts on mine that we needed to get replaced.
So far we haven’t found the ideal vacuum cleaner. Either they’re heavy and clunky or they don’t do a good job. My dream is to have the vac built into walls.
It’s especially hard with pets. The perfect vacuum would be a godssend, if it ever exists. I’ve seen those built in vacs before, but I don’t know too much about them.
Well, I have to admit… I love my Dyson! I’ve had it for 2 years now and it’s never broken and I use it daily. Until very recently we had a long-hair Chi, as well as a long-hair Shih Tzu and another short cut Shih Tzu. Plus, I have long hair. It works like a wonder and just keeps on going. I paid a lot for it, about $400 if I recall – but it is worth it to me. Wouldn’t it be nice if companies let you take home trial vacuums so you could get an idea before you plunk down a lot of money!!
That’s awesome. I’m glad they seem to be great for some people, especially for the price. I feel like people seem to either love them or hate them, and I have no idea why some just seem to not have good luck with them. I have long hair too, plus two dogs – one who is an Alaskan Klee Kai and a very heavy shedder. I just feel like I never had very good luck with my Dyson. It had issues since year 1, and now that we’re 5 years in with it, it just doesn’t do a great job at all. I will always say, though, that at least they do honor their warranties.
I bought a Dyson last year. I’m impressed with it so far, but I’ve noticed my Persian cat’s fur tends to roll around the roller and I must stop and untangle it.
I have to do that a lot, only with my own hair lol. My dogs shed a lot but they don’t have crazy long fur, so it doesn’t so much get caught in the rollers. I saw Shark has a new model with self cleaning rollers that I’m kind of interested in.
Oh vacuums! And with five Huskies over the years and all that infamous Husky-shedding, finding a good vacuum (for my specific hairy needs) has been a challenge! I used to love the “Boss” upright, but burned out one in a year, then purchased a new one (because I thought I loved it), and thanks for all that fabulous Husky “glitter” it broke again shy of a year. I’ve had a Shark…a few actually. My daughter had a wonderful model that worked well, but when I went and bought the new pet model at a price tag higher than my daughter’s Shark, it was cumbersome, although it did work well. Sadly, I broke the handle on it and the suction tube along with it. Finally bit the bullet and bought a Dyson…and love it! Makes me wonder what took me so long! And when I look back at all the $$$ I spent on all those other models, I should have just purchased the Dyson to begin with! Great product discussion post!
I can’t imagine how much 5 huskies must shed! Fen sheds SO much, and he’s only 11 or 12 lbs. I’m glad to hear that Dyson does work well for some! I don’t know if maybe the model I selected wasn’t the best, I didn’t take care of it well enough, or maybe I just had bad luck with mine. I really wanted to love it, but it’s been such a hassle having to get replacement parts shipped etc and even with the new parts just doesn’t do a good job at cleaning my rugs anymore. I’m not sure I’ll ever find the perfect vacuum haha, but I think the Shark I had before came the closest. I really like our shop vac too, but use that more for spot vacuuming rather than on the rugs.