Sad failure
Written: Sep 10 '05
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Pros: Works wonderfully for a short time.
Cons: Almost certain to fail within a few months and become junk.
The Bottom Line: Don't buy it. It is destined to be junked after the warranty period.
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| sheinegirl's Full Review: iRobot Roomba 3000 Robotic Vacuum |
Almost all positive reviews, whether from customers or magazines, come from short use.
When I bought mine, I liked it so much that I bought two as gifts. Unfortunately, their
useful life is very short. I bought mine about twenty months ago and with many
replacements may have had ten months of use. Now, it is junk.
There seem to be two reasons for the lack of durability:
1) roombas are not designed to work in a dirty environment, which is what vacuum
cleaners are supposed to do.
2) poor quality control and parts.
The best example of the first is the "circle-dance", the unit stays in one place and circles
about its center. It is unlikely that you will have more than 25 runs until this problem
develops. The trouble is dust in hard to access locations. If you are handy and read the
right places on the internet, you can fix the problem for maybe another 25 runs. Irobot
says that they now have fixed the problem. But, what about the half million previous
customers who have no remedy.
As for consequences of poor quality and parts, it is anybody's guess as to what will go
wrong. As an example, I was unable to remove the dust bin for emptying, even with the
advice of Customer Service. I junked my roomba recently because the socket into which
the brush fits was worn. Irobot does not sell replacement parts and has no repair service.
As long as you are under warranty, Irobot will replace your unit for almost any reason,
although it cost me about $20 each time that I shipped it back. After warranty, either you
can become a roomba repairman yourself, getting parts from dead roombas, or buy a new
one at their special replacement price. Roomba has no repair service and does not sell
parts other than the normal replacement parts, like filters and brushes. If they happen to
have a part that you need, they will give it to you for nothing.
Roomba is a product that I wanted to work, but unfortunately it doesn't. Sep 10 '05
4:22 am PDT
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 200
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Epinions.com ID:
sheinegirl
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Reviews written: 1
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