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Vax Carpet Cleaner

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Vax W90-RU-P Rapide Ultra 2 Pre-Treatment Upright Carpet and Upholstery Washer Review

Having heard on the grapevine that this Vax Carpet Washer is apparently the best carpet cleaner around, we here at The DIY People decided that we would test and then review this new Vax product for you.

Here is the introductory advertisement from Vax themselves for their carpet cleaner,  for anybody who has missed it (as always, we have also included a more impartial video later on in this review):

http://youtu.be/9A-haVNPzPw

It really does look like a marvellous piece of household equipment, doesn’t it?!  Keep on reading to see our thoughts on the Vax Rapide Ultra 2 Carpet Cleaner, and of course please submit your own Vax Carpet Cleaner Review here.

Here is what the Vax website has to say about their new carpet washer:

“The award winning Rapide Ultra carpet cleaning range makes it quicker and easier than ever before to keep your carpets looking spotless. Combined with specially formulated Vax detergent, Rapide Ultra carpet cleaners give you outstanding cleaning performance – so you can achieve professional results yourself. For stubborn spots and high traffic areas, use the pre-treatment kit to break down dirt and stains before you wash.”[wordbay]vax rapide ultra 2[/wordbay]

Vax Carpet Cleaner Review by The DIY People

The Vax Rapid Ultra 2 promises to work as both a carpet washer but is also designed to clean upholstery and suck up spills. It comes with a pre-treatment kit for the more dirty areas and has a ‘rotating brushbar’ which is meant to grab at the most embedded of carpet filth.

The particular Vax Carpet Cleaner that we used is the Vax W90-RU-P Rapide Ultra 2 Pre-Treatment Upright Carpet and Upholstery Washer, which was purchased from Amazon. There has been a lot of negative reviews online about Vax’s customer service so we chose to buy from Amazon because we know they can be trusted to deal with it if anything were to go wrong with the machine.

What is good about the Vax Carpet Cleaner?

Versatility: We tested our Vax Carpet Cleaner in two rooms, the hallway, stairs, upholstery and even a car interior. It can honestly be said that it worked extremely well in all of these areas. The Vax Rapide Ultra 2 is designed to be flexible and has the wand which can get into the more difficult to reach nook and cranny’s. The fact that you can use it on both carpet and upholstery is fantastic – nothing better than being able to use one product for a variety of tasks! And as already mentioned, it even did a great job cleaning the car interior. One really useful part of the new Vax Rapide Ultra Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner is the fact that you can use it as and when spills actually happen. We 71XEme2hQtL._SL1500_all know that accidents happen in all busy households but now you can use the handy wash tool to suck up spills before they even become a problem!

Ease of Use: The Vax Carpet Cleaner is very simple to use. The set up of the machine was very easy – the hardest part was getting it out of the box! All the pieces seemed to slot together in a logical manner and in all honesty, we found it just as easy to operate as a normal dry vacuum cleaner. Make sure that you slowly push it forward as the Vax Cleaning Solution comes out and then slowly pull back, this is what we found to be the most effective method.

Effectiveness: Firstly we used the Pre-treatment on a tea stain which is currently hiding in the living room! The Vax Pre-treatment promises to lift the most stubborn of stains and it was very impressive! There is a marked difference in the darkness and depth of the stain and now it is not even noticeable! And the old rug that was covering the stain has been completely revitalised, it looks the best that it has in years! The carpets all felt like new after using the Vax Carpet Cleaner and it did just as good a job on my car seats and stairs. In fact, the amount of dirt it was picking up was pretty worrying, considering we sit on some of these areas – we most definitely going to making good use of this cleaner! The hallway is the most worn out carpet that we used our new Vax Carpet Washer on and the ‘new carpet feel’ that we got in the other rooms was not so obvious here. In all honesty though we imagine that after a few more cleans this will no longer be the case. The whole area actually smelt cleaner, with no way of knowing that there is a rather stinky Spaniel in the house! The Vax Carpet Cleaner does a great job at lifting up even the most established muck.  And, after all of this it only took an hour to dry!

Just watch the following video off of Youtube which shows the Vax Carpet Cleaner in work. The second one in the demo is the Vax in full working order (the first one she uses does not have the Vax Cleaning Solution in it)

Bad points:

The Instruction Manual: This is rather picky but i found the Vax Carpet Cleaner instructions hard to follow. Thankfully the Carpet Washer is relatively easy to figure out for yourself but it would have been easier if the included Vax instructions were a little more wordy rather than just having diagrams to follow.

Weight & Hose Length: The Vax Rapide Ultra Carpet Cleaner machine is quite bulky and a little heavy when filled with liquid. The more petite members of the team managed but found it a little strenuous. The length of the extendible hose on the Vax Carpet Cleaner was more than adequate for all of us, it sat comfortably at the bottom and we could reach the top. However, we have read some other reviews which have told a very different story. Perhaps they have a bigger than average stairwell, we would love to hear your thoughts on this issue.

Measurements for Vax Cleaning Fluid: Just a minor annoyance in the design of the Vax Carpet Cleaner is that there are no measurements to follow on the Vax Ultra Cleaning Solution tank. We needed to use our own jug to measure out the Vax detergent solution and water which was no big deal but it would have been a lot easier, and saved a little time, if we could have done it straight into the machine.

Overall Summary of the Vax Rapide Ultra 2 Carpet Washer:

In summary, we were extremely happy with the Vax Rapide Ultra 2 Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner. As  has been said, it made the carpets feel as good as new and, although less effective in the more high traffic area of the hallway, it still made a noticeable difference to the look and feel of the carpet. It picked up an incredible amount of dirt which we assume means that its ability to dig deep down into the carpet pile is not an exaggerated one.

Despite the small problems of the instruction manual, and the minor design flaw in the lack of measurements, we think that this Carpet Cleaner is a good investment especially when you consider the cost of renting a carpet cleaner for the  day! Hopefully we shall get many years of use out of this!

Where can you buy the Vax Carpet Cleaner??

UK stockists of the Vax Rapide Ultra 2 Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner include:

Amazon UK – current price £185.33 (July 2013)

Ebay Auctions UK – price variable


Argos – £249.99 (current price July 2013)


Co-op Electrical Vax W90-RU-P – current price £249.99 (July 2013)

Have you used the Vax Carpet Cleaner? What did you think of it? Please do leave your comments, it help’s our readers get a better overall picture of the products that we test.

One thought on “Vax Carpet Cleaner

  1. I am v happy with the vax cleaner. in my home there are 3 dogs and 2 young kids so as u can imagine it takes a VERY good machine to sort out my carpets!! The vax carpet cleaner was more than up to the task. Completely refreshed the carpet- looks like new. My youngest has hayfever and apparently it helps to remove pollen so here’s hoping! Super buy!

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