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Consumer Reports’ New Vacuum Ratings

by on Mar 1, 2007

Lately, there’s been a lot of Curbly discussion concerning the Dyson. Comments in reply to the posts suggest either people love it or hate it. For a less polarized opinion, you might want to check out the March ‘07 issue of Consumer Reports, which rates 40 upright (plus 24 canister) vacuums.

This round of testing included, for the first time, pet hair pick-up-ability, which would suggest the Dyson Animal, marketed to eat up Fido’s fluffy leftovers, would do well in the ratings. It doesn’t. Among the 40 uprights tested, the Animal, which rated the highest of all the Dysons tested, came in around the middle.

Now, I’d LOVE to tell you what upright scored highest on the CR rating scale, which, in this case, was a 74 out of 100, but I can’t, as I’m sure CR would frown upon it. Let’s just say it rhymes with ‘Renmore’, and it comes in around 300 bucks–100 to 270 less than the three Dysons tested.

For more information about CR’s latest vacuum ratings, check out their March ‘07 issue on newsstands now for $5.99. Of course, the mag should also be available for your perusal at your local library. A visit to CR’s website will give you just enough free information on this topic to tease you, but there’s a great 6½ minute video that offers vacuum buying advice. If you want the full skinny on all the vacs tested, you can sign up for full access to CR’s ratings via the website for $5.95 a month or $26 a year.

Otherwise, you could visit a store that rhymes with ‘Rears’ that sells ‘Renmore’ as they should know the outcome of these rather influential ratings.

(BTW: the March issue of CR also includes surveys of other Curbly-type items, including wet/dry vacuums, HDTVs, and interior paint.)

Photo courtesy of Nine Inch Nachos @ Flickr.