I purchased my Oreck XL2 U4090H2 vacuum on 23 Jul. I purchased it for two reasons. 1) my wife wanted a lighter vacuum. 2) The unit had a 10-year warranty and free Tune Up program.
There were other light vacuums on the market. I chose this one because the salesman convinced me that for the $399.99 I paid I would own a "brand-new" vacuum for the next 10-years.By brand-new, he told me that when I brought the machine in for its annual tune-ups, if anything were wrong with it they would fix it free of charge. The local dealer (Bill) lived up to his word every year. He replaced worn brushes, electrical cords I had run over and worn through (obviously my fault), the fans that generate the suction when they cracked, and the outer bag when it frayed. He even put a fresh filter bag in every time I went to his shop - something he did not have to do.
When I brought my vacuum to the shop this year, Bill was no longer there (Vienna, VA store). The new manager took one look at my vacuum and said, "That will be about $126." I said, "What do you mean?" He proceeded to tell me how the suction fan was dented, the fan housing was cracked, and the rotator brush was worn. He told me I had obviously sucked up something hard which dented the fan and broke the housing and I had obviously been running the brush at high speed over wood floors which wears out the bristles. At this point I told him about my previous excellent service and asked him why things had changed. He promptly showed me the warranty which clearly says what is and is not covered.
He won the battle, but lost the war. After spending so much on a vacuum, there was only one thing that would cause me to purchase another - excellent and hassle free customer service. The first store manager delivered for 5-years. The new store manager failed. I chose not to pay that manager the $126 to repair my vacuum. I fixed it myself for a few bucks instead. More importantly, I will use this vacuum until it completely falls apart, then I will purchase something besides Oreck. Simple.
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