Kenmore Elite 81714 Pet Friendly Ultra Plush Lightweight Bagged Canister Vacuum with Pet PowerMate, HEPA, Extended Telescoping Wand, Retractable Cord, and 3 Cleaning Tools-Champagne

Wonderful Machine!
I grew up with Kenmore in the 90’s & 2000’s. I always remembered how well they worked. I’m a bit of a vacuum enthusiast. I own most of the big brand machines e.x, Miele, Kirby & Sharks primarily. We recently moved into a new home & my Miele was starting to show signs of wear. I wanted something for everyday cleaning that would do extremely well on both carpet & bare floors. The barefoot tool could be nicer but, overall for the value of this machine can’t complain. I already saved a ton by getting one open box through Amazon. It’s very versatile as you’d come to expect with a canister unit. It goes under furniture, around etc. If you live in a house with furniture which pretty much every human does it’s the way to go. It gets under beds, sofa’s, chairs no problem.My favorite feature by far is the lighted wand! It’s wonderful for sweeping my hardfloors in particular where it’s dark & challenging to see. The power nozzle a little bit more plastic than they used to be but, still works exceptionally well. The dirt it pulled out from the dark corners with the lighted wand wow!!! Couldn’t see that cleaning bare floors with the Miele. The main body is kind of a “whale” but, it pulls right behind me just fine. I personally love bags this is another huge plus for allergy suffers like myself. An it’s quiet with variable suction right at the handle. I would say definitely buy again! Kenmore just came out with a new pop & go series not on Amazon yet with a lighted power nozzle & anti tangle feature. I’m looking out for it Amazon!!!If you need a good sweeper that will last with regular maintenance look no further!

Works as advertised, but slightly awkward and heavy
I bought this vacuum for its advertised ability to clean high pile carpets. It does indeed allow for push and pull across my plush carpets. I gave up on my former vacuums – high priced rechargeable stick vacuum and high priced upright, as they were useless and impossible to push across my carpet. My back just could not take the strain of trying to push these types. The power heads of both these nationally touted vacuums just flat out stopped working on thick pile. The Kenmore, however, just glides across the pile, with no straining required. The power head is specifically designed to handle this type of carpet, but the set up and use of a canister vacuum is a little awkward, after being used to sticks and uprights. There is a bit of a learning curve with this vacuum, as opposed to the point and shoot stick vacuum. My main wish would be that they could have designed the handle and tube to be a little lighter. The Kenmore is robust and engineered to stand up to significant wear and tear, but is somewhat over engineered, as the extendible tube and handle are significantly heavier than many competitors. I expect this vacuum to last for many years, so I guess my compromise is between a light vacuum that doesn’t work and a heavy one that does. At least I will have clean carpets with the Kenmore.

I’ve purchased and used a lot of much cheaper machines from Walmart and other stores. All of them performed just okay when new but none of them lasted very long due to poor quality plastics and pieces breaking. I remembered my mom’s Kenmore WhisperTone that she has had for 25 years and it is still running great and looks great too. Here in Canada, Kenmore was available at Sears but there are no longer any Sears stores in Canada. I looked at the Kenmore site and found that I had to buy it on Amazon to avoid paying duty charges. I chose the Series 700 Ultra Plush for its features such as the HEPA bags and filter, the powerhead that steers and does carpets and hardfloors and has a LED light, the tools all fit inside the canister, it has a bag-full LED, an extending wand (that locks at 4″ increments), and it comes with the small powerhead that is good for stairs and car floors and it fits inside the canister too. The bare-floor tool and the small brush tool have horse-hair bristles, not plastic. The machine looks very classy with the shiny champagne color. It has tons of suction without being too loud. The rear wheels are big so the whole thing rolls pretty easily. A word about the hose, where it plugs into the canister, it has a nice swivel joint. If you see photos or videos of older machines, the joint often is seen having an elbow, like a 45 degree bend in it and you can tell that it swivels. The photos of this newer version show the joint is straight so I was concerned that it did not swivel which I thought would be stressful on the hose. I’m happy to report that there is still a swivel joint so the hose will not tangle if you walk around the machine. The entire machine and the tools are built well and I expect that this machine will last for many years. Thank you Kenmore!

This vacuum was a “recommend” in Consumer Reports, behind a couple Miele vacuums. Those ones cost three times as much; this Kenmore rated not far behind those ones. I suppose those vacuums may be better, but this Kenmore delivers everything I’m looking for.