This product has been sent back three times now. First time it smelt of burning second time filter keeps popping up despite changing it and following the blow out procedure. third time the filter keeps popping up. This problem seems to be an ongoing problem and judging by the reviews have not been addressed by Miele. When it worked it was fine for the best part of a year. Once the problems started they have not stopped. Miele said the filter was full but it was a brand spanking new filter so that diagnostic was wrong. I know they are going to try to charge me £90 this time but I'm not paying it I can make up the difference and buy something that works.

With a street price of around £200 this is quite an expensive vacuum cleaner and was well reviewed in a recent group test conducted by a reputable British consumer organisation. So my hopes for S8310 were high and they’ve mostly been fulfilled. It is a very light machine and very quiet with several power settings to deal with every surface you can imagine. It also excels at picking up dirt and keeps it in the bag due to the efficient filtration system. Indeed, this was my main reason for buying S8310. Unlike my old vacuum (1984) which, every time it was emptied, exposed me to all the dust and debris I had sucked up over a period of time, S8310 uses a sealed bag system. When the bag is full you just throw it away with all the rubbish inside and fit a brand new one. So there’s no chance of any dust and fluff etc. being inhaled and/or returning to your environment. This is especially good if you live in a flat, with no easy access to the outdoors, and/or for people with allergies. The bags come in packs of four and include replacements for the two filters this machine requires - an exhaust filter and a dust compartment filter for motor protection. Miele recommends that you change both every time you start a new box of dust bags. ‘Now,’ I hear you say - as indeed I did - ‘this Miele S8310 sounds expensive to run’, and to a certain extent you’d be correct. At the time of writing, each box of four bags, including two filters, costs around a tenner, and the frequency with which you’ll go through them is hard to assess because it will obviously depend upon how much ‘Hoovering’ you do. But when you consider the cleanness and efficiency of the S8310 system, perhaps ten quid every so often isn’t too much to pay for keeping you and your ‘Staub’ well apart. After all, once you’ve sucked things up, you don’t really want to see them again, do you? On the other hand, with a 2200 Watt motor S8310 isn’t the most energy-efficient vacuum Miele makes. If you ‘Hoover’ a lot you may want to consider one of the other Miele models with 1200 Watt motors, which are similar but use less electricity. I don’t have one of these myself. So I can’t comment on how they stack up against S8310. The only thing I can say is that the 1200 Watt varieties may appeal particularly to people with caravans, boats or motor homes who need to vacuum away from the mains using generators for power. The bad news is that, if you belong to this demographic, Miele UK cannot supply starting current information for any of their vacuum cleaners. Odd perhaps, but that’s what they said when I e-mailed them. Consequently - and I realise that I am fast drifting off-topic here - if you want to use a Miele vacuum cleaner - or any motorised product that has no starting current info - with a generator you should consult a qualified electrician before parting with any cash. The reason being that motorised products draw much more power to get going than they do when running normally, a fact that can be devastating, and ‘costly’, for the products and users involved. So please - be warned! S8310 comes with a decent length of hose, a stainless-steel telescopic pole/tube, which is great for getting your vacuuming height just right, an oblong floor tool with retractable brushes for parquet floors, plus three additional tools that fit into the body of the vac itself. These are: a crevice tool (not very long), a small oblong tool for vacuuming curtains I presume, and a dusting brush whose bristles are somewhat shorter than I prefer but just about okay for computer keyboards - with low power to avoid losing keys. Other tools are available as optional extras. Meanwhile, at the press of a button, the mains cord retracts fully into the machine and the cable is very flexible and of good quality, unlike the stiff ones you often get on much cheaper appliances from the far east and elsewhere. How I hate those. Otherwise, it would have been nice if Miele could have made the plastic body and other plastic parts of S8310 ‘antistatic’ to prevent them attracting stray dust. When you pay this amount for a premium vac, having to wipe its body and bits with a damp rag before putting them away is a pain. However, after all’s said and done - would I buy another one? ‘Yes!’ is the unqualified answer to that. The benefits of S8310 far outweigh its few little nags.