I’ve had the same Dyson upright for twenty years with no problems. Find the dust container very easy to empty - just tip it into an old supermarket plastic bag. The Dyson cleans away pet hair better than any other vacuum cleaner that I have encountered.
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I’ve had Dyson since 2000. First one was incredible, even my cleaning lady loved it. It was serviced for free when my neighbour borrowed it and broke it with something she sucked up. It had to have a new part fitted to the handle and I eventually rang up and said that I didn’t want to fit the new bit myself so they gave me the new Animal Pro at half price - $550. It is equally good and I empty straight into the rubbish bin. As I have a son with asthma and 2 dogs, I won’t be leaving Dyson. Thinking of getting a Dyson stick as well. Also thinking about a dyson fan when the current fans give up. I have used other vacs and nothing cleans like my Dyson.
I brought an old along model that worked great until it burnt out the motor. The last filter has two sheets of silk that you are supposed to wash out regularly. Except in Australia we have too fine a dust that refuses to leave, turns into a mud and blocks air flow until it over heats motor. Dyson replaced motor once I pushed the cause, their web page still has the washing procedure that creates it. Australia has too fine a dust apparently. I don’t know if the new ones have this last stage filter?
Cheers
The answer to the question is a definite NO.
You will notice in a number of the replies that there is mention of motor burnouts. Well the reason for this is that the Dyson vacs have two filters. (or at least the one that we have does) The second one is for the motor. It is hard to find and needs to be replaced regularly and not cleaned. They are not cheap around $70. This problem is shown on youtube by a service company.
Dysons are also hard to clean, very messy. A cleaner with a bag is much more cost effective and does a much better job.
We purchased a Bosch cordless (bagless) vac for work ( battery in the old Electrolux died) and then purchased a second for our other office because they were way much better than the ones we were using previously.
Took one of the Bosch vacs home to compare it with our Dyson. The result being that we now have a third Bosch.
The one we purchased for home is one of the very quiet bag ones. The one with the picture of the Tiger on the Box.
We tried a Miele in the store but it generated a lot of waste heat and made much more noise than the Bosch. The Miele bags cost much more than Bosch even though Bosch claim their bags are special.
We have purchased all our vacs from Harvey Norman.
Carpets and home decor have changed over the decades so take this for what it might or might not be worth in 2017. This was in the late 1960’s US and deeper pile wall-to-wall carpets were common.
I had a summer job selling a vac via at-home bookings. The sales pitch was to (with permission) throw some dirt and let the prospect vac their carpet with their vacuum, to their satisfaction. We would then talk about our vac for 5-10 minutes and then demo how much more dirt our vac could get.
There was always more dirt no matter how good their vac was. One of the reasons was that when they vacuumed it pulled the piles straighter and taughter than when at rest, so some dirt would get stuck in the piles. In the minutes between them and us vacuuming, the piles would release so a little more dirt fell loose and our vac would look highly capable.
The purpose of the power head rotary brush is not to sweep but to beat the pile so the dirt falls lose. The demo was most impressive if the prospect did not have a power head, and was less impressive if they had a quality power head, but regardless the demo was usually to plan.
If anyone wants to recreate this experience, run your vac and quantify the dirt it picks up from medium-deep pile carpet. Wait a few minutes and repeat with a clean vac and see how much more you get. Depending on how much dirt you started with the outcome will be more or less interesting which is why we started by throwing some dirt, not starting with their reasonably clean carpet.
I purchased the Dyson v6 Animal 1 yr back,cleans our wooden floor from the labs hair nicely,its light, easy to use,
no cord no bag easy to empty with a wooden skewer…love it for small areas…Jonny
‘The Advertiser’ newspaper in Adelaide had an article that claimed the $89 Kmart 1200 upright was as good as a Dyson for fraction of the cost.
I was in need of a new vacuum so I bought one. I was very impressed. It’s easily the best performing vacuum I’ve had.
But I’ve never had a Dyson so I can’t compare them.
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Noticing the reference to Kmart vacuum cleaners thought I would add this link .
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Bought our Dyson about 2003 and it has been wonderful, needed a new hepa filter in 2007 rang the dyson place up in sydney they sent me a new hepa frame with 2 new sponge filters for free, I bought the car vacuum attachments and found they didn’t connect, rand the same dyson place and they sent me free of charge a small connector attachment and everything works well, in 2012 bought a hand held with charger, discovered that it said will last for 8 minutes before recharging, after awhile it did all i wanted within the 8 mins and still does have it on wall mounted recharge base, is the best hand held vac ever gets golden retriever hair when molting with ease. all empties are into our compost area so never have any problem with contents being on the floor
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We have tried a range of vacuuam cleaners. We have 5 different Dyson models. They get used commercially. Some of them are easy to empty although the cyclone design does get caked with dust. We just invert the drum into a Woolies bag. The larger models are easier to empty and do a very good job but some of the smaller ones are a bit harder to empty and close again.
The biggest problem we have with these and some other brands is that the hose is too short making it extremely difficult to clean up high and on top of cupboards and it keeps the machine under your feet. We purchase 3-4 metres of vacuum hose and extend the suction hose. They all still seem to work just as well with this modification and it allows you to keep away from the noisy machine. I wrote to Dyson about this but had no answer.
Another problem is all models have different connection mechanisms so you cannot swap parts when one dies.
Bags are certainly cleaner but get expensive in our business. They tend to push out fine dust when the bag gets filled. Especially when the machine is started. There is a tendency to keep using bags until they are very full which reduces suction. Plus if you accidentally go over spilled water (eg vacuuming hair in the bathroom) a paper bag gets clogged quickly.
Dyson’s seem to be over priced for what they are but I guess that reflects the cost of all the patents they have and their TV advertising.
The big thing in Dyson’s favour is their customer support system is excellent and often sends out a part free of charge if you have a genuine complaint.
We have started to use a 20L drum vac sold in Bunnings. They are very cheap, use big bags that you can use with a sponge post filter and a post filter nylon bag that reduces dust in the exhaust. They handle wet areas and have excellent suction. They do heaps of work before they have to be emptied. Noisy as though but with our 4M hose extension they are kept well away from the operator.
Tonyco - we have had one since 2003 and it is still going. We also have a newer model purchased last year. no complaints. I can definitely say the service from Dyson, even after warranty has been fantastic replacing some items free of charge.
I love my Dyson stick vacuum. I had a problem with it cutting out. Dyson said it was because the battery wasn’t connecting with the contacts. They replaced the battery, didn’t even ask for the invoice. Didn’t cost a cent, fantastic service and product.
We have a Dyson and it performs so much better than anything else we (or our friends) have had.
My Dyson V6 animal does what is says, cleans pet hair very well, thanks Dyson…
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Looks like Dyson is also getting into the automotive business.
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… I bet it will suck 
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Our Dyson v 6 stick vacuum is 35 months old. The battery failed the other day not a peep out of it. Rang Dyson support who told me the battery is not covered regardless how old , under the warranty .and that we had had a good run. And charged us $85.00 . I can’t remember reading or being told this in the shop. Is this right and should Dyson add it to there advertising spiel.
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Did Dyson have it written into the warranty conditions as excluded?
What ever they say verbally over the phone, unless it is in writing in the manual and point of sale warranty doc, the battery would be included. Our Hoover stick vac died after 11 months on 3 weeks on a 12 month warranty.
We had to return the whole vacuum, charging dock and power plug pack, as it is never absolute what has failed. And yes we had the unit repaired under warranty - and it is still working a year on. Although it took many weeks before it came back to the retailer to pick up.
It’s possible it may not be a battery fault with the Dyson?
A faulty switch, contact or charging base or wiring could deliver similar symptoms. Assume you have some additional information that confirms it is a battery failure?
Has it been assessed by Dyson?
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That would clearly be misleading information under the Australian Consumer Law, so I suspect anything he may have told you should be equally suspect. If your product was fairly new and the battery failed it would be incumbent on Dyson to replace it. Read the ACL if you have not.
Every product I have w/a battery has a separate warranty for the battery. Dysons warranty information I could find has no specific reference to batteries being special, but the AU warranty appears to be only 2 years.
I think it would be unusual for a battery to just fail as described and think @mark_m might be onto something with a bad charger, charging circuit, broken wire, or bad switch. A failing battery will normally show its impending demise by failing to hold a charge although there are indeed failure modes where lithium batteries will unceremoniously fail without warning.
3 years is not a bad life for a battery if you use the vac regularly; it can be as much about charge cycles as anything, but regardless of the merits or lack thereof of what Dyson told you, the Australian Consumer Law matters and Dyson cannot and do not claim their warranty or company policies abrogate your legal rights. To wit, from their web site bold added ‘A Dyson guarantee is in addition to your legal rights as a consumer.’ Many companies cleverly state that to suggest their guarantees or warranties are in addition to your rights, but the reverse is normally the case.
You would have to establish that a reasonable product life considering the price, claims, other Dyson products (same model), and so on suggests the battery should last longer than 35 months.
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1,000 recharges at least if used once every day for 3 years (I am assuming the device is put back on the recharge device after each use). This is a lot of recharges that potentially wears out a Lithium battery. Some say that between 300 to 500 100% discharge/charge cycles (Depth of Discharge or DoD) is the expected lifetime of many and some others have figures around 2,500 cycles (more likely multicell Li-ion batteries). Most battery chargers are not “intelligent”, that is they do not detect a fully charged battery and then cut the charge cycle off or down to a very small trickle charge, and so continue to supply a full charge voltage to the battery. This overcharging also leads to premature aging of a battery due to heating of the cells and the “aging” of the materials.
If discharging to a depth of 60% of capacity used seems to give a lifetime of about 1,500 cycles, 80% about 900 cycles, 10% has a lifetime around 6,000 cycles and 40% around 3,000 cycles. Therefore small usage with the least amount of DoD possible gives the best lifespans with heavy usage paying a bigger price in terms of longevity. Removing a battery from charging as soon as possible after full charge also helps increase the lifespan, most Li-ion batteries lose very little charge as they sit unused perhaps around 1% of charge per 24 hours or so.
So all in all 36 months of usage seems quite decent but depends on your usage and storage conditions eg hot or cool storage area. The sudden failure however as others have said is not the normal failure pattern with the performance decreasing over time rather than a sudden cessation. However if it is a multicell that has had a failure of one cell then this could be seen as abrupt depending on how each cell is wired together with the other cells. The cell may have been failing for some time but the other cells may have been performing optimally and so the failure may not have been noticeable until it was complete.
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