"Rant" is perhaps too strong, but I realize my words will be a little emotional here.

I've just had a rather unpleasant interaction - yet again - with our local electrolux people. I'm sick of this and the bottom line question is: if I were to consider switching brands (and I am doing that), what to switch to please?

I saw this thread and the link referenced there from weedmeister to a site that does testing for allergy sufferers of vacuums; I'll peruse that.

But first, back to electrolux and some general questions. Didn't they get sold a few years back? Has this impinged on their quality? How about what they sell? It would seem the latter at least because what I saw on weedmeister's site at a quick glance shows lots of less-than-thousand-dollar vacuums.

Which brings me to the rant, and some historical bemoaning.

I'm from one of those families where the newliweds in the 50's were given an electrolux canister vacuum and it served them well up until such time as the daughter (me) left home and was presented with this hand-me-down. It still worked well for years and years. Then we entered the modern world.

Maybe 18 years ago now? (geesh) I got talked into buying a new electrolux canister vacuum. And since then I will readily acknowledge that I have not cared for it as I should entirely; by now the hose is pretty well failed. This machine has a filter and it hasn't been changed in a couple years (I know: my bad big-time. I called a couple years ago for new filters and was stood up by the company, was very irked with them and set it out of my mind and that's about the last time I even thought about this. Bad, bad girl). And now the wands are broken - really, I can't use it at this point.

So I called yesterday to ask for a wand and they sent a lady over to my house today.

But of course when she gets here all she can do is diss my old vacuum and my treatment of it (doesn't she know this is an emotional thing? She's selling electroluxes - these are inherited items, as is the company-loyalty. Non-stop complaining about my treatment of it and the low-endishness of the model and on and on is not going to engender a good response). She goes from 0 to 60 trying to sell me their *gorgeous* brand new high-end silver-and-black machine, etc, etc... I tell her I might be interested in the low end and she asks me what I paid for this one. Ans: shy of 1K but that was the ballpark I think. So she sniffs, tells me she'll pretzel herself six ways to sunday to take the price lower and brings in a new boxed machine for $1100. Meanwhile I just want a new wand.

In fairness at this point as she's ripping open a new box and going on and on about it I tell her I'm not prepared to buy a machine today; I'm interested to see the new and its comparison with my beat-up old, but I'm just not going to buy this today. It seemed the fair thing to say. I haven't researched this at all, haven't been in the market for ... 18 years. All machines have improved, anything new will be far superior to anything old, independent of this 'improvement' parameter, even. I need to know about these things before I shell out a grand.

So she stands up, shocked, and launches into this "never in my 16 years of selling has anyone said this .... blah, blah, blah" on and on and on - about how she has never seen anyone with a machine in such bad repair as mine not want to buy a new machine, and on and on it goes. For 20 more minutes.

I was trying to be polite and fair to her and tell her where my thinking is at ... which is mostly that it isn't; I'm not prepared to spend $1000 much less $1100+tax on anything, just like that. Absolutely no way. That seems reasonable to me.

But she went on, repeatedly, about how she has never, ever encountered anybody like me in all her long years of selling these machines.

Whew. It was so uncomfortable! I was not in any way agitated or angry in my comments, I was just almost whispering that this was all very well and good and I was interested to see it, but know in advance, I'm not buying today.

Wow. So uncomfortable.

She packed everything up without ever showing it to me ("I'm not going to turn this on then") and when I told her I still didn't know the cost of the wand that I was wanting; that this is what I called for, she proceeded to detail costs in the range of $500 for service, new parts, a new wand, new hose, new floor brush. Now, some of all of this I do need for sure for the machine, if I keep it. But all of this, and this sort of cost, again confirms that I am back to the drawing board in terms of figuring out what to do here.

And thus I'm back to GW, happy for any and all thoughts.

Is electrolux still an amazing brand? Can it possibly be worth its price tag?

What are these lower-end electrolux brands? Looks to me, on first glance, as if if you buy from a rep, price is >$1K on up. If you buy online it's half that. Are the machines comparable? They look different; does this matter?

When I bought my electrolux years ago, my high-end cousin berated me for not buying a Miele which was more expensive at the time. Plus I hadn't heard of it but apparently if you are in the high-end market, this makes you an imbecile. I, however, was in the "hereditary" market ... and that's what seems to have changed.

And that's what this lady had zero clue about. She was so shocked that I, having a machine "this old", could possibly not be happy about its current state and my options, being in a position to have to buy a new machine. She had absolutely no inkling, seemingly, of that "hereditary" market -- of which I am presumably the last remaining, museum-worthy specimen.

So all this must be hallmarks of how the whole scene has changed completely, starting, presumably, with the company's ownership. And -- I know -- the world is different, more finicky and electronicky and machines break sooner. etc.

I'm not actually *angry* the machine is essentially "totaled" -- but when she tried to sell me a $1100 machine (magnanimously lowered from $1500) and pulled out a book to give me the "blue book" value of my old machine and offered to offset the price by $25 ... I'm sorry, but that really offended me. Why bother for twenty five dollars? That's just insulting.

Anyway, onward.

Can anyone suggest how to proceed? Should I write off electrolux? Look at the lower-priced online models? Are they comparable? Should I service the old one for $500? Should I not service it and just get it working again with a wand for $25 and filters for $35? That's not chump change either...

Should I think about Miele? Is there something else comparable? I like the canister style because what you vacuum with, the wand, is so light-weight then. But I know there are other styles.

I guess my real question is: is this attitude and treatment from electrolux at all supportable? Am I way off-base in the sense that they're maybe running a service for ultra-high-end people of whom I am not one and so our expectations are just completely missing one another? Did they change or did I just miss this earlier; has it been incremental?

I'm actually a little bewildered and happy for some correction and any suggestions here. Whew - I don't really feel like buying a new appliance. Plus, the washing machine's not too happy either. Gotta get out my soldering gun for that one I think (I fixed it a couple years ago - cracked solders I think, but it may need a new coating ... or maybe you can only do this once?)

TIA - and thanks for "listening". I know this is a little over-the-top.