Thought I may as well bung this in this thread:
I've owned an Earlex wet and dry cleaner for years and it's always performed well - but what I really always wanted was a proper Vax that washes as it goes, rather than a unit for just sucking up dirty water.
I missed the deals on the Vax 020 (?) last year and after considering a 6131 I found the
Vax Essentials VEW001 for sale on Robert Dyas.
The first unit arrived damaged - the clamps that hold it together had broken off. Robert Dyas customer service dept. were very polite and efficient and exchanged the unit, no quibbles.
So today I tried it out.
Here's what you get for your money:
The unit opened
Large "dirty" tank - the "clean" tank is that removable white bottle
The Manta has mid-grey Recaro seats that tend to look yellow with age - similar to tobacco staining you normally get on headlining in a smoker's car. The carpet was also pretty grubby so this was the first test of the Vax.
The idea is to fill up the removable white reservoir with water (I used cold - can't see why you couldn't use it hot though) and a capful of Vax carpet cleaner. I suppose you could substitute this with APC, TFR or whatever else you fancy trying.
Then you fire it up, and hit the green button to start the water
The water is piped out of the reservoir to the head, the head does the scrubbing and the waste is sucked back down into the dirty reservoir.
A point to note - this machine has a relatively small clean water tank - 4 litres does not last as long as you may first think! I used 1.5 tankfulls to do the carpet and seat on one "corner" of the car.
Once I had fully washed my chosen areas, I went over it again with the water supply turned off to suck out any excess water. Leaves it slightly damp but far from wet.
So here are the before and after shots:
Carpet before:
Carpet after (ignore the rust stains on the carpet mat, not got round to those yet!)
Seat base before:
Seat base after:
In the pictures it doesn't look very impressive at all. In real life, the difference it is far more noticable, but on this colour seat it isn't exactly night and day. I think on a cream carpet you'd really reap the rewards.
The real proof, where you realise just how much dirt has been removed, comes when you empty the dirty tank:
Nice:
Conclusion? Well worth the £55 purchase price, especially if you have carpets and carpeted stairs in the house (which an upright cannot handle)
