Hoover Elite Rewind Vacuum Cleaner

Author's Rating:

Pros: Price, Bagless, cord rewind, works well.

Cons: Short accessory hose.

The Bottom Line: 
This vacuum works well, is easy to empty, and doesn't cost a lot. I highly recommend it.

Author's Review
After 15 years of service from our old vacuum, a new one was long overdue. The old one still worked, but not well. My wife researched the market pretty thoroughly and we decided to get the Hoover Elite Rewind Bagless Vacuum. We didn’t want to spend a lot of money, but wanted a bagless model, and this one fit the bill at a cost of about $100 at Best Buy.

Once home, I unpacked it and performed the minor assembly required. In about five minutes we were ready to go. All that had been needed was to put the handle on and snap one of the accessory brackets onto the body.

We eagerly plugged it in and pressed the foot switch to turn it on. The initial results didn’t wow us. It wasn’t the machine’s fault, though, we had forgotten to set the height adjustment! Once we realized this and set it to the proper height, it worked great. I ran it over all the carpet in the living areas, then decided to vacuum the walk-in closet.

Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm, I didn’t take the time to pick up an item of clothing that was hanging out of the clothesbasket on the floor. You can guess what happened next. I sucked the cloth into the vacuum, and instead of intelligently turning off the vacuum, I tried to drag the item out of the beast’s mouth with my foot. By the time I realized it wasn’t going to come free, I had broken the belt for the beater brush. Not only that, but tar-like pieces of the belt had become littered on the floor under the vacuum and left black marks on the carpet which I still have not been able to completely remove. Again, this was purely operator error, and in no way reflects on the quality of the machine.

I quickly drove to Wal-Mart and got a replacement belt and put it on. Replacing the belt was pretty easy and typical of other vacuums I have performed that operation on. I was once more up and running.


Description:

The Elite is a clean, modern-looking vacuum with a clear dirt chamber to allow viewing of amount of dirt in the chamber and a canister that holds one of the two HEPA filters just above the base. Another HEPA filter sits inside the dirt cup filter assembly. It has a vacuum powered hand tool, meaning the tool has a brush that turns by the vacuum pressure, not electricity. It also has the standard accessory hose, a crevice tool, a combination brush tool, and a headlight to see the area you’re vacuuming. Just above the dirt chamber, there is a flow indicator that shows yellow when the dirt cup is full or the system has a clog.

The power cord is stored on an internal reel at the back of the vacuum and automatically retracts the cord when you push the rewind button on top, hence, “Rewind” in the name. The On-Off pedal is located at the top rear of the base. Left of the on-off pedal and down is the handle release pedal that allows you to lower the handle to normal operating position or “low” position for reaching under low furniture.


Experience:

We have used this vacuum for about four months and have been very pleased with its performance. It has strong suction and the beater brush leaves a nice pattern on the carpet. It picks up the normal dirt that it runs over, but also picks up stuff next to walls that some vacuums have trouble with. The “low” handle position is handy when vacuuming under beds. It is not too heavy to carry up and down stairs, but it does seem to have a fairly high center of gravity because when using it with the handle upright, on stairs, for example, it is easy to tip over.

The dirt chamber is fairly easy to remove and clean, but should be done outside because the dirt drifts around when being emptied. The instructions in the manual for cleaning the HEPA filter in the dirt cup assembly say to use the combination tool brush to clean the filter, but the instructions on the vacuum itself say to just tap the filter on something. I use the tap method and it seems to be adequate.

This vacuum has a lot of nice features, but one it doesn’t have is an extension tube for the accessory hose, and it really needs one. The hose has a spring built into it, so it does extend if you pull hard enough, but it is always trying to pull back. When the hose is at its relaxed full length, it doesn’t reach far enough to vacuum the entire stair above the one the vacuum is sitting on. Also, I like to use a vacuum to clean the grill of the air conditioning filter in the ceiling and it doesn’t come close to reaching high enough for that.

The rewinding power cord is a nice feature. Winding the cord up on our old vacuum was a pain. The on-off pedal is easy to get to when the handle is fully upright, but once I let it down, I have more trouble getting my toe in the small space left.

Overall, we like the features and performance of this vacuum, especially for the price.