GV Kirby Ultimate Vacuum Cleaner w/New Tools (Renewed)

The vacuum works great, it arrived nicely packaged only had to click a few parts into place, the appearance of the vacuum was top notch considering it is refurbished, the suction power and the power drive is why I wanted a Kirby and this vacuum didn't disappoint me, I almost pulled my carpet up because I had it set to low into the pile and with the power drive I didn't feel any resistance as I pushed the vacuum. Also wanted to give Great Vacs a big thank you, they didn't have the vac I ordered in stock (the ultimate) so they upgraded me to the Sentria model which is about $100 more in price for no charge:) Nice to see a company nowadays that still think the customer is #1 and will do everything in their power to make the customer happy

Pros: The suction is excellent. Metal parts so its very durable compared to vacuums with plastic parts.Cons: The only thing that’s a hassle is to use the hose to vacuum you have to remove the belt/roller attachment and set up the hose. It’s quite the process. I like to be able to detach the hose and vacuum up a corner and then go back to regular vacuuming, but not happening quickly with the Kirby. It’s also very loud. Not that impressed, but I’m sure I’ll have It for a long time.

So far, so good. This is our second Kirby. It works like a brand new one. We bought our old one new, 25 years ago. Have had minor repairs done to it, twice. When it wouldn’t start, I went ahead and ordered a replacement, at a fraction of the cost of a factory new one. Meanwhile, I replaced a couple of parts and the old one is up and running, like new. The only down side is that most of the accessories are not Kirby brand. They are functional, but aftermarket. I would buy it again, but now I have 1 more than I need. I will give the old one to the first daughter that moves out.

UPDATE AGAIN: The vacuum now sits in our closet, unmoving. Suction is almost nothing. We’ve gone through 3 brush heads because they slip just enough that the rubber bands that hold them will wear a trough in the wood. Eventually, they slip enough that they start to burn, so we have black ends on the wooden brush heads. The final step comes when the ends lose enough thickness that they can’t turn at all because they’re too small in diameter for the bands to pull them. I truly hate this thing and am in the process of shopping for a new Miele to replace it.UPDATE: I’m really hating this vacuum. It was great the first half year we had it. Then all the cons kicked in and I’m wishing this thing did not live here. So, what’s got me down on this Kirby?1. You have to vacuum in stages, you can’t just move from one end of the house to another. That’s because swapping out the head for the hose is a royal pain in the patootey - especially when you have bad knees and a herniated disc like I do. It really requires getting down on the floor in order to line everything up when swapping the head for the hose and vice versa. So, first you do everything needing the hose, then you swap and do everything needing the head.2. I have to move my furniture - every time! It doesn’t go under furniture well at all. The head is just too tall. So, getting the parts of our rugs that are under chairs or the couch means moving all the furniture off the rug, vacuuming the rug, then moving the furniture back. With my Miele, you just move straight through the house, slipping off the head to grab something with the wand, then clicking the wand back into the head to move on. Furniture? Just turn the power hose sideways. The head has a nice low profile and slips under just about everything except a couple of very low chairs that we have. No furniture moving at all.3. I can’t get it to suck dirt consistently. If I push it even the tiniest bit out of the angle it likes, I either lose suction or end up with too much. We’re also on our 4th roller brush. Who makes roller brushes out of wood and then has them turned by a rubber belt? Wood burning 101! And that’s exactly what happens. Eventually, the belt burns a channel into the wood and it quits spinning properly because now the circumference is just a bit too small. And the smell! Burnt rubber and wood! I really do hate it. My husband won’t let it go, of course. He keeps saying it needs service. I told him I’m done with it, so, if he wants it serviced, he’ll have to find somewhere and take it in himself. That pretty much guarantees that it will never get serviced.So, I’m back to my Miele canister vac which had moved upstairs after the Kirby moved in. We’ve had it since 1998 years, and it’s still going strong. I replace the filters regularly, keep it clean, change the bags frequently, and get it a new power hose every 5 years or so and that’s all it needs to keep cleaning our house. Put a fork in that Kirby, it’s done!ORIGINAL REVIEW:Many years ago, a Kirby salesman came to the door and went through the whole demo in our house. It was impressive, but when he quoted $3500 for the vacuum, I had to sadly turn him down. He ultimately came down to $1500, but, at the time, that was still too much for us. Eventually, we moved up to Miele at just under $1000 because no Kirby people were coming by anymore, and my allergies and asthma were at the point where HEPA filtration was a must. Plus, Amazon was just in its beginning stages with mostly books and toys - so not an option for Kirby yet. We have owned that Miele for almost 20 years - changed the belts when they needed it and replaced the power nozzle once. It’s done a great job and is still going strong.But, we have also always had Malamutes, and they are hairy. We don’t have dust bunnies in the house, we have dust tumbleweeds, especially those two times a year when they blow their coats our in chunks. So, I’ve always longed for Kirby with suction that will pull the nap right back up on our area rugs after being trampled and rolled on by the dogs and will even pull dirt out of the cracks in our hardwood floors. So, after doing lots of homework, we decided to spring for this model of refurbished Kirby, and I’m so happy we did.It arrived promptly and well-packed. There was no manual (which I’m seeing from other reviews is not unusual), but my husband is an engineer and got that baby put together lickety split. It’s really not all that hard to figure out in terms of getting the dust bag in and operating - just took some pressing of various levers and observing what happened next. Then came the vacuum test. While I wasn’t surprised, I will warn you that this sucker is loud! Not the vacuum to be using late at night, that’s for sure. It’s also heavy and a bit awkward, especially for someone used to a canister vacuum that goes everywhere easily and can be changed out in terms of attachments and heads on the fly. But, man oh man, did it clean! We have orientals for area rugs and one of them had just collected too much doggy essence, in spite of our rug guys taking it back and ultimately cleaning it three times. It went through our current pair as puppies, so there was lots of grotty stuff ground into the rug. Even clean, it still carried a fug reminiscent of moldy cheese - in fact, that’s exactly what made us to decide to spring for our Kirby. Well, I ran the Kirby over that rug really, really well. You do need to be VERY careful of fringe - Kirbys eat fringe for lunch. While I was vacuuming, the perfumy smell of the sanitized bag (I hate that cloying smell) first gave way to the smell of the horse soap our guys use on our rugs (I know - sounds weird but does an amazing job with no perfume - perfect for someone like me who is allergic) followed by fuggy, doggy aroma (oh, man, that was stinky). I finished that rug and then took the Kirby to test on our entry area rugs (basic polyester rugs but always dirty and hairy) and then our kitchen area rugs (nap hasn’t stood up in years and always look a little dirty even when clean). They all passed - look better than they have in quite a while. Plus, when I went back into the room where I did the first rug? No rancid cheese smell! It was gone! Yeah, baby! Not having to send my two rugs from that room out again for cleaning was worth the purchase price of this Kirby alone.Is it way better than my Miele - not necessarily. They both have their pros and cons. The Miele will be going upstairs for use in bedrooms. I really needed to be vacuuming up there every 3-4 but didn’t because I hated schlepping the vacuum up and down stairs. Now I don’t have to - I’ll have the Miele on the floor that has less daily traffic and the Kirby on the main floor that sees a ton of use. So, here are the pros and cons of this vacuum:Pros:1. The cleaning! Wow, this sucks up everything and leaves nothing behind but clean floor and clean smell.2. Filtration. The bag is HEPA certified (I checked) and the inner dust bag holds very well. Just don’t run it to capacity or you will get spillage when you change bags. For me with dust allergies and asthma, it’s perfect.3. Attachments. There are lots, including tubes that will snap together and fasten to the hose at one end and the attachment at the other. This will let me also do furniture and mattresses. I even vacuum my pillows, and the power of this vacuum will pull any and all dust, particulates, and dust mites out of even the oldest of mattresses and well-used of couches. We have two chairs the dogs sneak into when we’re asleep that will benefit greatly from some attention from old Kirby.4. Speed. Even though I needed to move furniture, I still got my test rugs cleaned in less time that with Miele, simply because I had to make so many more slooooow passes with my Miele in order to get the dog hair. Kirby did it quickly, as thoroughly (if not moreso), and restored walked down nap on a runner that I had given up on.5. Thoroughness. My husband took his shoes off and walked on the first rug I did. I went over that one a lot because of the fug. Not only does it not smell now, he said it felt “squeaky”, it was that clean.Cons:1. Heavy and a little awkward - I’m going to want to move furniture out of the way before vacuuming as it doesn’t go under and around things like my Miele. I also am not going to want to move it up and down stairs as this thing is a tank. You buy steel, you get weight. That said, there is a nice handhold halfway down the upright portion that makes it easy to quickly lift to move onto a rug or shift to another spot.2. Switching out accessories is not seamless. With my Miele, I can easily drop the power bar for just a nozzle, quickly separate the long tube from the short piece at the immediate end of the hose for doing close in areas, and pop the top and quickly put on a brush or furniture head. Not so with the Kirby. It just means that, rather than make no more than two passes through a room (one with nozzle only for dust tumbleweeds, one with powerhead and attachments for rugs, floor, and furniture), I’m going to have to vacuum in stages - use nozzle for dust tumbleweeds, use attachments to clean furniture, go back to upright mode, move furniture and vacuum floors. A bit more work but so much cleaner in the long run.3. Loud!! Did I say this was loud? With the Miele, you can vacuum and still hear a knock at the door. Not so with the Kirby. My dogs were shocked when I fired it up - no ignoring this vacuum. With the Miele, I could vacuum around them and they’d be fine. My pair spent this test run keeping firm eyes on the vacuum, going into play bows, and then charging it as I moved around the room. Once they decided it wasn’t any fun, they went outside until I finished. Unless you live on acreage, you’re not going to want to use this late at night, unless your neighbors are all night owls.4. No manual. Easily fixed by downloading from the web, but it would have been nice to have from the start. This is just a quibble but figured I should mention it.Bottom line: If it continues to perform as it did for this test, I’m going to be a very happy camper and my house will be so much cleaner - due to Kirby downstairs and now the permanent residence upstairs by my Miele. And when you have serious allergies to dust and dust mites, that really counts for a lot.

I am a vacuum freak - I have 2 electrolux - I am head over heals for this gorgeous piece of machinery- my first KIRBY. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this product - its gorgeous, basically brand new

This vacuum will outlive you. Get it. You won’t regret it. The seller was out of the one I purchased so they upgraded me. I am very grateful for that!! I purchased another for my daughter that has the hairiest dog on the planet. She needed a boss of a vacuum and this is it.

It has a lot more suction than my old vacuum. I had to down load the manual. Not included but shown on the site. There was no handle for transforming the floor vacuum over to one that can do stairs and mattresses. Good value for the money as a new Kirby would cost over $1,000 dollars. Hopefully this one will last for a while.

When I ordered this it just said "refurbished". I have bought refurbished items before but what they should have called it was "used"! There is nothing about this vacuum that I have not had to fix and for $600 it was not worth it at all! Feel 100% like I was taken on this! Don't waste your money on these "used" and (not lightly used either) vacuums. Sorry I did not buy new!