They were made extremely cheap... meant for the college student crowd or a 2nd vacuum to have for a specific part of the house where a person didn't want to carry their main vacuum etc. In order to keep the price around the college student budget a lot of sacrifices were made such as cheap bearings and chassis that had minimal seals but instead relied solely on chassis rigidity (which it didn't have lol) in order to prevent vacuum pressure leaks (thus why so many people had issues with dust flying out of areas around the hose coupling, motor housing, etc. In order to give the vacuum adequate suction power while at the same time keeping the price at a minimum they used a tiny motor which of course they had to set it to run and excessively high RPM's which would destroy the cheap bearings pretty quickly and also in many cases cause a terrible squeel as the bearings would cry out in pain indicating they were on their death bed. The tiny motor run at such high RPM's already made for a high pitched noise that bothered a lot of people about this vacuum but when it was coupled with a bearing starting to go bad (which some people experienced after just a few weeks of owning it) many people would either return it to place of purchase, attempt to fix it (which they usually gave up on since accessing the bearings and servicing them is best left for someone with experience in such matters) or out of frustration they would just toss it or donate it to a thrift store. That being said, I've reconditioned several of these and improved on all of the known issues (other than putting in a bigger motor which would be ridiculous considering these sold for around $60 new) and then sent them on their way to be put to good use but most of all, to keep them out of landfill. Basically, from a design standpoint (there's no way Eureka didn't know these things would happen very quickly), these units to be used for a few years and then once it started falling apart, trashed and added to your local landfill to decompose over the next several hundred years and then replaced with something else (talk about environmentally unfriendly) at which point, you'd probably be close to finishing college anyhow and probably able to afford something a little better at that point. Fortunately this design was discontinued not too long after its inception and next versions although a little more costly weren't as junky as these ones.
Thanks I never knew the rubber part on the end of the cone came off
Biggest piece of junk I ever owned. Impossible to get the funnel back in.
They were made extremely cheap... meant for the college student crowd or a 2nd vacuum to have for a specific part of the house where a person didn't want to carry their main vacuum etc. In order to keep the price around the college student budget a lot of sacrifices were made such as cheap bearings and chassis that had minimal seals but instead relied solely on chassis rigidity (which it didn't have lol) in order to prevent vacuum pressure leaks (thus why so many people had issues with dust flying out of areas around the hose coupling, motor housing, etc. In order to give the vacuum adequate suction power while at the same time keeping the price at a minimum they used a tiny motor which of course they had to set it to run and excessively high RPM's which would destroy the cheap bearings pretty quickly and also in many cases cause a terrible squeel as the bearings would cry out in pain indicating they were on their death bed. The tiny motor run at such high RPM's already made for a high pitched noise that bothered a lot of people about this vacuum but when it was coupled with a bearing starting to go bad (which some people experienced after just a few weeks of owning it) many people would either return it to place of purchase, attempt to fix it (which they usually gave up on since accessing the bearings and servicing them is best left for someone with experience in such matters) or out of frustration they would just toss it or donate it to a thrift store. That being said, I've reconditioned several of these and improved on all of the known issues (other than putting in a bigger motor which would be ridiculous considering these sold for around $60 new) and then sent them on their way to be put to good use but most of all, to keep them out of landfill. Basically, from a design standpoint (there's no way Eureka didn't know these things would happen very quickly), these units to be used for a few years and then once it started falling apart, trashed and added to your local landfill to decompose over the next several hundred years and then replaced with something else (talk about environmentally unfriendly) at which point, you'd probably be close to finishing college anyhow and probably able to afford something a little better at that point. Fortunately this design was discontinued not too long after its inception and next versions although a little more costly weren't as junky as these ones.
J A - Dang, sounds like you work for Eureka! You certainly know your stuff!