[Phillip Mold]

Just as a point of clarification, the pictures are of the machine being discussed, the same pictures were sent to Mr Rochester along with a full written report, why on earth would I post them otherwise!

Nick

I have followed this on both channels as it were, and now that it is confirmed that the pictures at the head of this thread are those on the machines in question I now feel able to add my own comments, I shall post this on both channels.

I was incredulous when I saw the pictures. The dirty water I can understand. The damage shown is clearly significant. The build up of crud, fluff on what I assume to be the vac intake I found incredible. If that happened on one job it would have been visible on the surface of the carpet, I assume that any one with a bit of common sense would have dry vacd first to keep it out of their machine. If it was a build up then I am not qualified to say how many jobs must have been done without the most superficial clean or maintenance of the machine, but the answer must be lots.

At least once a fortnight I rinse and wipe down the inside of my machine and rinse it, as much to keep it from smelling as much as any other reason. Surely too the reduction in performance and change in machine noise would have been obvious as the build up continued?

Before anyone accuses me of being blindfolded or a member of the World of Clean fan club let me make my position clear - I do not use their machines, but a Ninja 400 PSI. In five and half years of ownership I have lost one vac motor. Maybe this is because of luck, the components, regular servicing or just my basic maintenance?             I  do use Solutions products, I simply find they work for me and the number of repeat bookings show I must do something right. If any other chemical manufacturer would like me to use their products then feel free to send me a sample, if the results are better then I will switch suppliers.

I do not wish to be part of a slanging match, have no "axe to grind", but would be interested to know if the machine use did have any basic cleaning on a regular basis? If not then there is a lesson for us all, if so then can anyone identify the cause of the problem?

[Radek Jablonski]

Im surprised there is still no word from Ian on those pictures!!

Last Active:    Today at 02:22:37 pm



easy to abuse someone else, harder to explain yourself

[Paul Moss]

Where are the pics?

[Phillip Mold]

on cleantalk.

[Paul Moss]

Can some one transpot them over here

[*Hector*]

[*Hector*]

[*Hector*]

[*Hector*]

[*Hector*]

That is all 4 of em..

[JandS]

Beat me to it Hector.
Can't understand how fluff as got onto the cut
off float spindle.
Surely there's a filter on top of the stack.

[Chris Straker]

Probably just stopped there as the stack top filter is the one completely covered in first photo 

[Len Gribble]

So Ian it looks like you sent your machine (from the top of England to the bottom) without cleaning it first, if that the case you should be stuck off the TACCA membership. Very bad form

Came across this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCinkFlnA_Y (another badly maintained machine

[Carpet Dawg]

Im surprised there is still no word from Ian on those pictures!!

Last Active:    Today at 02:22:37 pm



easy to abuse someone else, harder to explain yourself

Ian run's quite a large cleaning company, I can asure you he's too busy to reply the exact second he see's a post!

I love some of the excuses that have been mentioned by the CT boys regarding vac motor failure lol The FACT is that the Jag clearly has problems and should STOP being sold untill this issues have been sorted. If they can be fixed that is!!

If you have a Jag at the moment, I recommed having a word with Nick to see where you stand incase you have  problems in the future.

Russ, The best company in the carpet cleaning industry?? really?   have you shopped with clean smart or restormate?

As for colin, yes he shouldn't be dragged into this. He did seem like a good guy when he was on here, BUT it did leave a sour taste in many people mouths (including mines) when we found out he was a paid employee of Solution. He used slanderous comments many times about the Airflex machine and 99% of his posts where targetted towards solutions chems. Sorry but thats the way I see it.

[Russ Chadd]

Russ you come out with some crap how long have you been cleaning carpets

Not quite sure what your angling at here my friend but you sound to me like someone with an axe to grind...
 

[Ian Rochester]

I am not going to argue the ins and out of the machine that went back to Solution in December with a blown VAC2, there are obvious questions and areas of blame, however these were explained to my operators and instructions given.  The machine had been back twice previously for the same VAC2 motor replacement with no mention of any wrongdoings on our part.  It was only when I complained about the cost of the repair that I was shown photos, I cannot argue if they were my machine or not

Was water ingress the cause of those failures?? I cannot say, all I know is that we never let the waste tank go above half full and if a filter is fitted to stop something getting in then it should be doing its job, I know the foam filter that was fitted to the Extracta machine we had did exactly that, as did the fine mesh filter that was fitted to our Prowler, the mesh on the Jaguar filters is very coarse filter (the original ones was a metal plate full of 5mm holes!!) and not fine enough to prevent carpet fluff or dog hair passing through.  

Due to the power of these vacuums not all the fluff and hair is going to be contained in the waste water and some will always be sucked up into the filters

Over Christmas Solutions refurbished the machine, replaced BOTH vac motors and also did the mods to prevent the machine overheating and fitted an auto cut off to switch the machine off if the waste tank overfilled (though most other machines have this fitted as standard)

Anyway we reluctantly paid Solutions £420 for the work they did and got the machine back in the middle of Jan (5 weeks ago) since then it has done about 3-4 hours work a day maximum, has been cleaned out every day and had the vacs run dry for 10 minutes to dry out any moisture (as directed by Nick)  I was actually the one working with the machine on friday so know this was done for a fact.  Our operators are now actually paranoid about overfilling the waste tank and it is literally a bucket in, bucket out.  Basically we have done nothing to the machine to cause a problem with ingress of moisture (as far as I can tell)

On Monday we had some rugs and chairs to clean in the workshop, set up, switched on, there was a loud squeal and VAC 2 went pop!  I have the machine in bits at the workshop at the moment and there is no sign of moisture anywhere inside the machine or the vac motors, though VAC2 had come off it's jubilee clip and was hanging in the air

In my opinion the primary issue is with the motors overheating not moisture ingress, when the machine is running it is tremendous with excellent suction, it's just reliability I have a problem with and this does not seem to be improving

We run other carpet cleaning machines and I think in the last 10 years we have replaced no more than 3 or 4 vac motors, this machine in 18 months has used up 5 of them, all from the same position VAC2

We clean using Formula 90 in the tank and antifoam in the waste side, nothing wrong with that as far as I am aware, I know Solution recommend SPM however there is no stipulation that this is the only type of product to use or that the tank has to have only clean water.

I run a team of 18 staff, most of them have been with us for several years and they all know what they are doing in their representative areas, I don't mind a vac motor dying on me for a valid reason and having to pay to replace it, what I do mind is when it happens time and time again, the fact is it causes us massive problems with satisfying customers, we had to clean a large pub area today with a lesser machine when we really wanted to do it with the Jaguar in less time.

In a nutshell we will be replacing the vac motor on the machine and then putting it on to ebay, if this same vac motor is failing because of the the way we are using it then fine, another operator working in a different way will have no problems with it and will have them a very nice machine with tremendous suction.

I am open to serious offers for the machine, either as it is or with the vac motor replaced. email me

I am now going to lock this thread as it is going too far, I wanted to vent my frustration yesterday, that is done, I can see I am not the only one but I can also see that others love the Jaguar machine, my aim was not to polarise people.  I have no gripes with any company, just frustration when things break down on us repeatedly.

Ian