Vacuum cleaner reviews: Reliability
Upright vacuum cleaner reliability
More than 3,700 members told us about the reliability of their upright vacuum cleaner, and nine brands including Miele, Hoover, Electrolux and Dyson feature in our upright vacs reliability table.
The overall reliability scores for upright vacuum cleaners are lower than for cylinder models – only signed-in Which? members can read the full reliability scores below.
There’s a big gap between the scores of the most and least reliable brand of upright vacs. The top brands received a reliability score of 96% and the least reliable scored 71%, so you’d be wise to choose your brand of vac carefully to best avoid reliability issues further down the line.
A brand's reliability is one of the things we take into account when awarding our Best Buys – only those with satisfactory and better reliability, or a market-leading warranty of five years, can be a Which? Best Buy.
More than half of the respondents to our survey owned a Dyson, making it the most-owned brand in the table. We’ve tested a number of Dyson upright vacs in our lab – to see how well they perform see our Which? vacuum cleaner reviews.
Common upright vacuum cleaner problems
- Belt 9%
- Hose 7%
- Suction 7%
| Upright vacuum cleaner Which? reliability index | |
|---|---|
| Brand | Score |
| Dyson |  |
| Electrolux | |
| Hoover | |
| Kirby | |
| Miele | |
| Oreck | |
| Panasonic | |
| Sebo | |
| Vax | |
Cylinder vacuum cleaner reliability
We received more responses from upright vacuum cleaner owners than cylinder owners, but our survey results tell us that it’s cylinder vacuum cleaners that are the more reliable type of vac.
Big names including Miele, Bosch and Dyson all feature in our table. We’ve tested models from all of these brands – to find out how well they perform see the Which? vacuum cleaner reviews.
Of those who responded to our survey, 50% have a Miele cylinder vacuum cleaner in their home. Dyson is the next most commonly owned brand. You can compare a range of cylinder vacs by visiting our compare prices and features page.
Overall reliability for this kind of cleaner was very good. A few brands returned excellent scores of more than 90%. At the bottom of the table, we have a brand which scored 79%.
Brands scoring below average for reliability can still have Which? Best Buy models if they perform well in our tests and come with a market-leading warranty of around five years.
Common cylinder vacuum cleaner problems
- Suction 5%
- Hose 5%
- Motor 4%
| Cylinder vacuum cleaner Which? reliability index | |
|---|---|
| Brand | Score |
| Bosch | |
| Dyson | |
| Electrolux | |
| Hoover | |
| Miele | |
| Morphy Richards | |
| Numatic (Henry) | |
| Vax | |