Electrolux EL7070A Ultra One Canister Vacuum

The motor burned up on it's second use.

I have one of these overly expensive vacuums from several years ago. I broke the handle on it and have been trying to repair it. Good luck finding any repair information, as that apparently is just too much trouble for a $450 vacuum (what I think I paid for it).The operation of the vacuum is weird at best. The rug attachment on mine turns only in one direction (to the right). Perhaps the engineers that designed the rest of this thing thought that made sense. Then it is sort of bulky and inclined to run into things, so you need a pretty clear room to use it without endangering furniture. It actually vacuums OK, though it is sort of noisy.The vacuum has a cheap clamshell case, a couple of screws to hold it together once again being no doubt just too expensive to spare. After popping a couple of cheap, unrepairable plastic hooks, I managed to get it apart. Just to get the handle off, it appears to me the thing needs to be completely disassembled first.If this cost $85, its design might be excusable. The old Electrolux made in the USA from the 30s up through about the 80s is a far better design than this, though I think the marketing name was bought back by Electrolux a while back. The USA version is now called Aerus I believe. I haven't looked at one of those for some years, but I think they splurged on a couple of screws so that it can actually be disassembled and repaired.

It works well, is amazingly quiet, and does suck up cat hair. But my wife complains that the strange handle arrangement is not very ergonomic and makes her forearms hurt.

Strong suction, great overall user experience but a few things need to be improved. The handle buttons are a nice touch once you get used to them, but seeing as how the only indicators are on the cannister you have to look at that, anyway. The various buttons and levers are designed to make them easy to use with your foot as well as your hand, which is a plus. The 3-in-1 tool leaves much to be desired, though. There used to be a long-nose wand for cleaning crevices and corners. The 3-in-1-tool now handles that role, but at 6", it can't reach into the same tight spaces. Still, it's quieter and stronger than my previous Electrolux cannister and is the 3rd one my family has had over a span of 40 years.

Electrolux El7070A great vacuum

I agree with all of the positive comments of other reviews. It is on the heavy side when you carry both the power brush and canister together - I would guess over 20 lbs. as the ship weight was 30 lbs. It is not an issue though when vacuuming as the canister easily "follows" behindMy one caveat is that the one I received was defective - the power brush would shut itself off and would not stay on. Deciding not to take a chance on a replacement on such an expensive purchase, I returned it for a refund. In this price range, I decided on a Miele which is more expensive but has better reviews on quality.

I had a chance to test the Electrolux EL7070A UltraOne this past weekend. I was interested in it since seeing the ads here. It really looks cool but did it have the features I need and want? Well it seemed to do well as far as basic rug cleaning (I tested in a store that had carpeting and some area rugs on top of that. I didn't notice any problems, and moving around with the vacuum following me was pretty smooth. I was particularly interested in the switches on the handle. Like the high-end (and overpriced) Miele UniQ it has all controls right on the handle just a finger touch away. This is something I really want for ease of control for different vacuuming situations. Also you can turn the motorized head and the entire vacuum on/off from the handle. I want all that, but very few vacs have it. Only a few including the ultra-high end Miele. I should mention the Electrolux EL7066 also has the same handle controls and is about $200 less. But I scratched that one off the list for other reasons.The touch controls on the EL7070A worked fine except you have to look on the canister to see what setting the "suction power" is set at. But it was very hard to see, they have a light the slides across the display but it doesn't light up well enough to see unless you get up close and/or bend down to get closer. I think in dim light you might fare better. This kind of defeats the purpose of the finger tip control by making it difficult to tell what the setting is without bending down to look at it. The UltraSilencer model EL7066A just has numbers from 1 to 5 and is much easier to see then the graphic slider setting on the UltraOne. It boggles my mind that they would manufacture a high end machine and put in such a weak feature. I suppose you might get used to telling what the suction power was by the sound of how loud the vacuum was but you would need to not have a lot of background noise. I was disappointed on that account.On the plus side the telescoping wand was really smooth, I found the Miele's was a bit sticky, and changing attachments was easy as well. The hose was fine and a good length. I found the Miele hose was a bit stiff and one time actually curved up rather than hanging down loose. Also the Miele hose seemed shorter, probably because the hose on the Electrolux 7070 comes out of the front.Other than the suction display it seems like a nice vacuum, there's something inside me that really wants one of these. But the other draw back is the wand is not a standard shape or size, it's somewhat rectangular, which may account for the smoothness of extending it, but as far as I can tell there are no "extra" or special function attachments available. One of the strengths of the Miele, although you pay handsomely for, is you can get all types of extra attachments, such as longer and/or flexible crevice tools, or various brushes if the on-board attachments seem inadequate (which they are). The on-board attachment (there's only 1, a multi-function tool) with the Electrolux seemed OK, nothing special, but would be nice to have additional options available as I could see the need for it. Like a longer crevice tool.I had a chance to test another one of these at another store. It was a floor demo. When pulling back on the carpet the motorized head bumped across the carpet. The sales person tried to say it was because it was indoor outdoor carpet or that I was pulling up on the wand causing the head to tilt forward putting more pressure on it. But I tried it on their thick pile carpet and intentionally made sure I wasn't pulling up and it did the same thing. He was offering a very good deal on it though and I'm still considering it.After getting a look at this and the Miele UniQ, both high-end models, I am now really considering the Panasonic MC-CG983. This is very much like my current 10 yr old vac which has worked very well. I have been rough on it but it takes the punishment and never had 1 single problem. After 10 years I was wanting something cool and sleek, but the Panasonic MC-CG983 is only $400, and if it does as good as my current one than why stray from a good solid reliable vacuum cleaner. Plus it has good attachments and I'm sure I can get other 3rd party ones if necessary.

This vacuum is a eureka, with an Electrolux of Europe logo on it. Does it make sense to buy a Eureka vacuum at an inflated price because you think you're buying an original Electrolux vacuum your mother or grandmother owned. If it doesn't look like your mother's Electrolux it's probably a wolf in sheeps clothing. There are plenty of other vacuums available. You work hard for your money, don't be the patsy. All these Eureka/Electrolux of Europe vacuums are prone to failure and poorly built. Be smarter!