Bissell 3624 Spot Clean Professional Portable Carpet Cleaner - Corded , Black

I purchased my Spotclean on Amazon over a year ago (6/2013). It has worked almost flawlessly for my intended purpose. I use it to clean my carpeted stairs, stained carpet areas, upholstered chairs, and even my car interior rugs. I also just used my Spotclean to 'clean' up the mess left behind by my decrepit Bissell Proheat 2X steam cleaner. It had left awful dirt streaks everywhere. With the help of my 3 year old, we used the Spotclean to clean up the dirt streaks.The SpotClean is relatively easy to use and requires a little less effort to pull out, assemble and clean up than my Bissell Proheat 2X (which is being replaced). The suction on the hand tool is excellent. However, it DOES require a bit of hand force to extract the water. I don't mind because I want the area to dry quicker. Also, you will have to use your hand to scrub the carpet a bit if your stain is stubborn. I think some people may have unrealistic expectations concerning these machines. A hand tool does require your 'hand'. So, I consider these efforts minimal to achieve my desired results.The SpotClean has cleaned approximately 90% of the stains I have attempted to clean. I have a husband, 3 teenagers, a 3 year old, and a Cairn Terrier. So, I consider this a small feat. I have NOT used it to clean blood, wine, or ink. I really need to get a new upright steam cleaner because I can always tell where I've used my SpotClean because the area is lighter than the surrounding carpet. This is because the SpotClean did its job.The SpotClean is compact and easy to move around. It is compact enough to sit on standard stairs without toppling over. It has a bit of weight when the chambers are filled but not enough to cause fatigue by my standards. I am a 5'3 woman, and I don't lift weights. Some mentioned the desire for a longer hose and a retractable and/or longer cord. However, I think the hose length is adequate since you can easily move the SpotClean from Point A to Point B. If it is too long, then it is unmanageable to re-coil, then you would have another set of complaints from people. Also, if the cord length was longer, it would take more time than I care to spend to wrap it up. A retract feature would be one more thing to break and then we would really complain. Regarding the noise, it is louder than I would prefer but it may be just as loud as a standard vacuum cleaner. It does not bother me enough to do sound comparisons since I am just cleaning spots.I think the SpotClean cleans a decent area on one fill up. I admit, I do more 'area' cleaning than spot cleaning sometimes. Once you have taken the time to pull it out and assemble, you want to clean ALL the spots you see. If you are doing a full set of stairs, it will definitely require 2 fill ups. I pour the dirty water down the toilet instead of my laundry sink. I recommend rinsing the hand tool and the water chambers when you finish a job. I try to let the chambers dry overnight before re-assembling to put away. However, I have left the water chamber with the cleaning solution and water between uses without any problems. You will also need to spot check for lint build up on the red filter that is covered by the water chamber. You can wipe off the lint easily. These are all just precautionary steps to reduce 'yuck' build-up and musty smells. Remember that carpet cleaning is a dirty job. No matter how convenient the machine is, we still have to clean the filth collected from our handy little devices.My last recommendation is to use the recommended Bissell cleaning solution. It smells wonderful!!!! A little is all you need. Do not use more than recommended. As a matter of fact, I use a little less because I do not want excess shampoo in my carpet.

A carpet cleaner needs to do two things:1. Spray a controlled stream of cleaning solution onto/ into the carpet2. Suck that solution along with any dirt, back out of the carpetThis machine does both of those things well. It is intended as a small portable cleaner to spot clean as the name implies, but can practically be used to clean entire small rugs as well. It is small and portable and easily fits in my cleaning supply closet.I would not want to try to use it to do a whole room's wall to wall carpet, the suction hose is too short and the tank capacity is too small. You could absolutely do it and get great results but it would be a lot of uncomfortable work. Better to rent a commercial machine for that.Takes only a minute or so to fill and set up, so you can clean spills as they happen before they soak in, set and dry.So far (received it yesterday) I have cleaned two 5 x 7 area rugs. Each took about 30 minutes to do (getting as much soiled liquid back out of the fibers is the most important and time consuming part). Pre-treated obvious stains with Shout laundry pre-treater, then used the Bissell as instructed. Bottom line, both rugs are spotless and as new. Colors are again vibrant and clear. Probably will take 2 days or so for both to dry completely, then I'll vacuum to re-align the fibers. I may try OxyClean as the pre-treat in the future, though the Shout worked perfectly.The most satisfying part of using machines like this is dumping the soiled water down the sink. "Man, all of that brown gunk came out of my carpet?" Then you look at your refreshed, bright, clean rug or carpet satisfied with a job well done. The room looks brighter and the air smells cleaner.As I am a bachelor, my standard MO prior was to buy area rugs for $100 or less every 6 months or so. Nice enough looking but not too expensive, because I inevitably get spots and stains on them and just leave them on the curb for trash collection and replace them as needed. Red wine, food spilled, etc. I have 4 or 5 of them throughout the house. I had two such stained rugs rolled up in a closet that I've been meaning to toss, but instead bought this unit and cleaned them back to like-new condition. With this one purchase and 1 hour of effort, I saved myself about $200 in new carpet purchase which more than paid for the cleaner. I'd call that money well spent.One potential downside is that it is pretty loud- louder than a standard vacuum cleaner. You would really have to raise your voice to have a conversation above it. The motor's exhaust is on one side of the cleaner, so you can point if away from you to reduce the noise, but I'll probably use earplugs in the future just to reduce the nuisance factor. By design, you have to kneel down next to it no more than 3 ft away.2 year manufacturer warranty means that Bissell stands behind it, which speaks volumes to me in this "offshore cheap manufacture" world we live in now.