Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Despite the fact that this cleaner got one of the highest reviews at Consumer Reports, I am disappointed. I have now had this product for 2 years, so I have plenty of experience with it. First the good: 1) It does a good job of getting the floors wet 2) It does a good job of spreading the shampoo 3) It does a reasonable job of getting stains out if you are persistent and use the attachments 4) It does an excellent job of rounding up pet hair 5) The attachments do a good job Now the bad: 1) It is very bad at picking up the water. I can use an entire gallon of water and it will only suck up about 10% of that. So mostly, it is just getting my carpets wet. 2) Although it does a good job of rounding up pet hair, it does not suck them in, it leaves it all in messy wet clumps on the carpet that you have to go running around picking up 3) It uses a LOT of soap. If you use it the way the instructions say, you will be out of shampoo within 10 minutes at the normal (not high traffic) setting. You have to use that trigger button very sparingly. 4) It breaks. I have had to have mine repaired twice in 2 years for a total cost of $125. Six months of that was just sitting in the basement because it was broken, and once I got it fixed it broke again in a couple of months. 5) It is hard to tell when you are out of water. Supposedly the sound of the cleaner is supposed to change when it is out of water, but I think the sound changes all the time, so that's a bad indicator. 6) When you stop the machine, it dumps whatever water is in the brushes onto the carpet, so you have a wet filthy dirty line as wide as the machine on your carpet. If you turn the machine back on to suck that up, it will just do it again whenever you stop the machine. I am now in the habit of stopping the machine on the hardwood so that I can mop up the mess afterwards.