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QUESTION: This past weekend, I had a Kirby salesperson over to our place to
demonstrate vacuum and shampoo our living room carpet. I like the machine
but the price seemed a tad expensive, for the others in my family it was
outrageous. The cost of the basic model was $1995, the shampoo unit and
a special brush costs, $400 and $100, respectively. The deluxe model comes
with everything and attachments for wood floors but that costs about
$2695. Like I said, I like the Kirby because it does seem to have a lot
more suction power than the hoover we have and there seems to some nice
features to it but is it really worth it? Are there any other vacuum
cleaners that offer similar things but not as expensive? After
incentives and discounts, he said I could get it for about $1900 + tax,
this is the basic model, plus shampoo unit and special brush and trading in
the hoover. Btw, the hoover is about 5 years old, I'd really like to get
rid of it...8-).
The salesperson will call back in a couple of weeks to see if I'd be
interested in getting a rebuilt older model for a cheaper price about $900
with 3 months warranty.
I have a couple of co-workers that have older Kirby's and they like it but
even they said it is expensive. I'd like to find out from others if
Kirby's are really worth it or are there other vacuum cleaner alternatives
that can do the job...cheaper.Any ideas ?
ANSWER: A former Kirby salesperson just mentioned to a group of us the other
day that you should be able to negotiate them down quite a bit. I
think he said the lowest they would go was around $900. You could
check around to local vacuum shops. They sometimes have refurbished
Kirbys for better prices.
that's over TWICE the price of a new one! If you buy it at that
price you've got SUCKER written all over you...
Also...I owned a Kirby Heritage for over 8 years..it was a piece
of junk..oh sure it ran fine, but the belt kept wearing out and had to
be replaced and all of the attachments were *minimal* at best
at doing what they were designed to do. Also the bags are
expensive and hard to replace and the outer bag blows dust
all over room...additionally if you need to lug it around the house,
you'll quickly find that it's *very* heavy to carry up and down the
stairs..
Riccar makes *excellent* vacuums and can be found in vacuum
speciality stores (look in your yellow pages)..and they're 99.9%
dust free...they run in the $300-$500 range and are much lighter...
*AND* have much better suction than a Kirby..
If you're still stuck on buying a Kirby, buy a refurbished one at
a vacuum store (Vacuums Unlimited here (Va) sells tons of
traded in Kirbys)...and you'll probably pay less than $200 for
one.
I would invest that money in a vacuum cleaner endowment
fund and use the interest earnings to buy a good new vacuum
cleaner every year or so, whenever the bag gets full, or
whenever you feel like a change. You could do that in perpertuity!
There's plenty of good alternatives. Check Consumer Reports.
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