I purchased an Electrolux vacuum cleaner several years ago and subsequently discovered that they have no service departments and no interest in after sales service. The company passes repairs to independent “repairers” who in my case did no repair work at all. Instead, they simply replaced the faulty component with a brand new one with no actual repair involved at all. In my case the diagnosis of the problem was incorrect anyway which meant that the wrong part was replaced and it took many weeks to convince Electrolux that they simply haven’t got a clue about customer service or repairing their own products. It’s a long story.
I have since moved on from that having resolved never to buy Electrolux again, but last week the power head died and I was forced once again to seek some sort of resolution. Again, it turned out that no-one would repair the head and instead told me that I would need to purchase a brand new one at a cost of $160 !! A steep bill when one looks at the value of the cleaner, and most people would simply ditch the cleaner and buy a new one rather than spend that much on one part.
As with most things in life these days, I turned to my closest friend Mr Google where I discovered a video which not only described what caused the failure but also how to fix it. All it was was a broken drive belt, a cheap replacement being available on-line. I followed the video and my vacuum cleaner is now working again without my having to waste resources or outlay $160.
The moral of the story is that these companies have none, and that lots of problems can be solved by a little bit of independent research. Before you throw things away, just have a look and see if there isn’t a more environmentally sound and economically preferable alternative than just throwing things away. All I am now adding to landfill is a tiny broken rubber drive belt rather than a complex and expensive motor and assembly plus probably the rest of the cleaner as well.
Your experience varies from mine. I have had two Electrolux vacs plus a handheld over a decade. The first had a problem with the power head going dead. I rang them, described the problem, and they drop shipped a new one to my door in 2 or 3 days.
The second one had a problem. This time they asked me to take it to a local shop for repair but did not realise this was only a retail shop and not a repair shop. It turned out if that company did the repair it would have had to be sent off. I rang Electrolux service who chatted to the rep at the shop who confirmed a fault in the wand. Outcome was a 2nd day delivery of a new wand.
Never a truer statement has been written about modern things where most (all?) are not designed for an easy or any repair, and the “art of repairing” seems long lost, and that if parts are available. It is also common that having a repair is not cost effective unless you can do it yourself, which is another part of the issue.
Your experience varies from mine. I have had two Electrolux vacs plus a handheld over a decade. The first had a problem with the power head going dead. I rang them, described the problem, and they drop shipped a new one to my door in 2 or 3 days.
You were certainly luckier than I was. In my first encounter they told me that the filter needed changing, and as I didn’t know better I paid for a new one even though I saw nothing wrong with the original. On the second occasion, I put a new one in just prior to handing it to the service agent, and he later rang me and told me it needed replacing. When I got to his home (he had no shop) I found he had replaced my new one with an old cracked cartridge which he used to demonstrate why it needed replacing!! When challenged he did not dispute the fact that he had lied. The saga was protracted, and Electrolux refused to do anything about the attempted theft and deception. Electrolux later told me that my power head was fault, but replacing it made no difference. I had to Google the problem and it transpired that the extension tube handle was the problem as it had an electrical circuit issue. Nothing about my encounter was professional or ethical, so you can consider yourself fortunate!
When faced with a “rogue” agent some companies will just quietly let their contracts expire rather than to have an unpleasant situation. Do you know if Electrolux still uses that (not a) shop? The agent sounds really dodgy.
Re the filter, we missed cleaning one that was not obvious to us. The symptom was loss of suction and overheating. We thought we checked everything including for a block in the hose, but. Phone support walked us through where it was and how to clean it. After the hand holding we found the instructions in the manual. Our bad. On the second vac we are careful to watch all the filters and keep them clean.
The easy test for whether it is the head or the wand is to plug the power head onto the handle without the wand in between. Been there, done that. I’m surprised they did not ask you to do that.
The wands are not easy to figure out how to take apart without instruction, but once they are apart they are simple to fix as it appears you found out.
I hope your future vac experiences are much better. Cheers,
Nope … looks like he’s not listed any more, so you may well be right! However, Electrolux loses points in my book for being in total denial about the issue. My machine was under warranty, and yet they tried to get me to pay for the faulty tube and in the end they begrudgingly gave me a new one but told me to go away and never come back!! An amazing performance by such a well known company. You are right about the easy test to isolate the problem, but their agent obviously had no clues as to what was wrong. His skill set seemed limited to ordering new parts rather than figuring out what was wrong. Once again, Google was my friend.
However, I do feel sorry for those of us who either rely 100% on the honest of others or who don’t have the skills to repair things themselves. I must have saved a fortune over many years of repairing unrepairable things!
