James JVP180 Vacuum Cleaner

James is a very "useful vacuum" (if you get the Thomas the Train reference)Pros:Light, powerful, quiet, top quality materials, simple to use from operating, to cord management, to replacing the bags.Cons:none so farSummary:We have carpet, rugs, tile, and hardwood. I was hesitant James would work for our deep carpets because he doesn't have a power/roller head. However, the suction is so powerful that it doesn't require a roller head. This is one of James' best features, you'll never have to clean a nasty roller wheel covered in hair and it won't ever get jammed by bits accumulating. For all the $1000 high end vacuums out there, James is a better, more durable, easier to use vacuum. We have had Miele, Kirby, and commercial Hoovers and James tops them all.

The wand connections are either too loose and falls apart, or is too tight and difficult to take apart quickly. During our first test, on the second stroke on a carpet, the wand separated. The tapers in the steel pipes are improperly shaped. What's needed is a snap approach, not a force-fit.To solve the problem, I had to very forcefully push the pipes together. But now, which you want to change to one pipe instead of two, or take both pipes off, it requires so much force my wife can't do it.We immediately decided to return it as defective. It took several minutes of extreme force to separate the two pipes to put them in the box.Then today I discovered we are being changed a restocking fee of $154.06 !!! This is nowhere mentioned on the Amazon product page. Since the item is defective, this is a rip off.We purchased this for $308.12 on September 28, 2023. Today I notice the price has been raised to $379.00. I wonder if this is because they are now getting so many returns they have to charge more.As an alternative, we went with a Miele Complete Hardfloor Bagged Canister Vacuum Cleaner, C2 Hard Floor, Tech Blue for $499.00. It is much better: Snap wands. Adjustable length wand. Quieter. Six motor speeds. Spring return cord instead of manually wrapping up the cord around the top. A light comes on when the bag is full. The three attachments snap into a compartment in the vac, by simply opening the compartment lid. The vac stands up and the floor attachment slides into a slot on the vac side, for a well-designed storage system. Overall, it's a dream to use. By comparison, the James is a stone age contraption whose only good point is its cute face and name.

Why buy an ugly vacuum cleaner that looks an aerodynamic car part when you can buy a good ol' fashion canister vacuum cleaner with a cute face on it? You don't.We had an old upright Hoover Windtunnel from the early 2010's. It was a loud, heavy, and ugly thing. The Hoover mainly sucks joy, and a bit of dust and debris if you go over things a few times.James is surprisingly quiet and has as much better suction than our Hoover. There is a simple adjuster on the handle to adjust suction level. At full suck James can suck up all the debris in cracks of hardwood floors, which was exactly what I needed to deal with random bits of cat litter.It looks like a basic shop vac, but it is much much quieter. It works like a shop vac where everything is a bare minimum. You have to unwind Jame's cord manually. It's not a biggie, and it's just one less automatic thing to break in the future. I have a feeling James will be with us a very long time.Just a heads up that the James I got does come with a yellow cord, and I think it looks much cuter with the blue than if I had the black one. So I'm really happy with it.

The 400 pound tank from Sears has been banished to the basement.Some have complained about loose hose connections--the connections are very different than we are used to and require an extra bit interposed (which comes with the vacuum) and they work fine. As other reviewers have noted the head works best on the pull back rather than the stroke forward and seems to be designed to. Very light and quite.