Kirby Sentria Vacuum Cleaner: Great Product, Poor Sales Experience

We had had our door knocked on many times by many Kirby salesmen during the first year of owning our home. It was mostly at inconvenient times. One all but begged us to buy the $2,000-plus vacuum because he was one sale away from winning a vacation! We promptly showed him the door and wished him luck at the next house.

The salesmen who finally sold us the machine told us about the benefits to us rather than himself, which sat better with us. But he did tell us one lie, which unfortunately went unpunished. We bought the machine for $1,300, which we were thankful to have talked them down so much. But he told us that we could do anything, our kids and our pets could do anything to the vacuum for life and any part would be replaced. He went on to demonstrate how we could use the vacuum hose for resistance training or jump rope and that if the hose broke, it would be replaced free of charge. Well, 2 weeks after buying the machine, my cat chewed the hose. I called for my "free" replacement and the person at the store said "abuse wasn't covered." He didn't care what I was verbally promised. Besides this, the salesman was in our home from 8 PM until well after midnight, and we had 3 year and 18 month old children that they were keeping awake with all the vacuuming. The saleswoman even asked to eat some our dinner! That put me off but I liked the benefits of the vacuum.

As far as performance, we were misguided on how to use it, so after a bit of wear and tear on our carpet and much experimentation, we figured out what worked for our carpet and haven't had any problems. As far as cleaning quality, it appears to work about as well as other vacuums, although I'm told we just can't see the difference but our carpet will supposedly last years longer. I like how compact you can make it to vacuum the furniture and mattresses.

I do love that it has a carpet cleaner and vacuum use. Besides that I was told it has 13 other uses, like painting(?!), blowing air for filling a mattress or balloons...other random uses I have never and most likely will never use, but the 1 time I may need that type of thing, I'm sure I'll be glad to have it.

Overall, I really love the machine but did not enjoy the sales experience and have never called the business again after how it responded to the condition of the cord. Another pro is that those Kirby guys still come door to door, so I know if I ever need anything, I just need to wait a few weeks because there will come a knock on my door.