Exceptionally well made vacuum cleaner. Kirby G5 / 6 / 7 is very power and an excellent cleaning too. Many configurations of accessories give a wide range of uses when it comes to cleaning. You will only ever buy one Kirby so initial costs becomes negligible in a very short space of time. Parts are readily available either from Kirby or on the internet. Rolls Royce of vacuums. Bit noisier than usual vacuum but it isn't made of plastic/cheap and nasty which more than makes up for the noise.

I knew a rep for Kirby and also had the whole sales patter at my house and they are a huge waste of money. I had 2 dogs (Labradors) and my Dyson did the job at least as well as the Kirby at a 10th of the cost. Who vacuums their mattress every 6th months! If you need your carpets deep cleaned then get a pro in who will do your house for about £100 tops.

People here are probably defending them out of a misplaced sense of loyalty or they are trying to justify the huge amount of money they have spent on one.

Ask yourself - is there £1500 worth of kit in a Kirby and are they 10 times better than other cleaners!

i have had my G5 for years. can't remember exactly when i bounght it - but the first year they came out. 1999? 2000? brilliant machine.
so brilliant that i have bought the latest verson.
the nice kirby people agreed to let me have the new one for £1000 and hand mine in. nope, said i, i want the new one for that price and keep the old one.
so now i got two ;o]

I have had a kirby vacuum for 5 months and it seemed great on the outset. One day it I thought it seemed that my kirby had a surge in power and pulled up an eighteen inch thread from a flat carpet. This made my carpet appear thread bare. Being a large company I felt I would have been treated fairly but in my opinion it didn't appear that I was. I sent e mail to explain my problem and I didn't receive a response in a reasonable time, so I sent a second and i was told a representative would contact me shortly to look into my problem. I was contacted by the franchise I bought my Kirby from about a separate issue and once the gentleman had realised there was in fact a bigger problem he took some pictures and told me that some one would be in contact, but no one appeared to get back to me. So I had to contact Kirby again this time explaining I would go to a solicitors and a kind man at Kirby headquarters told me that he would sort it out and someone will contact me. Again, it appeared no one called. So I spoke to them again and eventually an apologetic man took my kirby away for tests and said that i would be contacted the next day to let know how it is progressing. I wasn't contacted the next day or within the following week, so I phoned Kirby who assured me someone would sort it and would call back and the franchise would call, but again apparently no one did. This is another week since and as yet I'm still waiting for a response.

I have owned a G5 since 1997. At the time I thought "what an idiot paying £1100 for a vacuum cleaner"! However 11 years later and the unit amortised over this time, has cost £100 per year which doesn't seem so bad.
The G5 I have, works as it did 11 years ago and has had no major replacement, (just belts). The performance outstrips even the best of the rest. It really does get out all the dirt, even from deep pile carpets.
We have a Retriever dog who sheds masses of hair, yet the carpet remains amazingly clean, thanks to the Kirby.
The down sides of this cleaner are, the cost of purchasing it in the first place (you need to look long term with this), putting up with a sales person, the sheer weight, (not easy on the stairs), the noise levels, and the after use smell of the room (doesn't last long).
For demonstration, tip a cup of sand or salt onto your carpet. Vacuum it up, as best you can with your existing vacuum cleaner and place back into the cup. You will see the level is diminished. Then vacuum the area again with a Kirby and you will see all of the balance of the substance in the Kirby bag!
We did this and saw that our previous cleaner only got up around 60% of the salt we had tipped onto the carpet!

Service engineer called to have a look at my Kirby vacuum cleaner and stripped a thread in the main casing then didn't have the correct screw to fit. I noticed the handle was loose when machine was handed back. I was asked had I dropped it? More fiddling about and the handle was fixed.
Best part was informed the motor was sparking and the cost of replacement could go prove to be a deposit on a new Kirby!

I'll never buy another Kirby after the G5!
Doesn't have any more suction power than one I could have bought for $200. It stinks from the odour of the carpets. Can't get the smell out whatsoever and the shampooer isn't nearly as good as a Rug Doctor. I wish I had spent my money on a Rainbow.

Our G5 is 10 years old and serviced yearly, it runs like new and always gets the job done.

Anyone who owns a Kirby must admit how fantastic they are. The dry foam system that it uses to clean carpets is amazing and not like anything I have used before. The upright it self is also amazing. It picks up everything that other vacuum cleaners leave behind. The wand is also very good and all the attachments are very easy to use once you know how, and its not really brain surgery now is it!!

Kirby offer a yearly maintenance contract, this year the mechanic brought along a sales rep who pushed my parents into buying a new Kirby hoover. My parents initially told him they did not want a new hoover, but eventually gave in to the salesman who refused to take no for an answer and eventually they yielded 'just to get him out of the house'!

The new hoover cost over £1200 and my parents were so embarrassed that they had fallen for the salesman's aggressive selling tactics that they did not inform their children until very recently when we were told that my mother had fallen down the stairs trying to use the new hoover.

The sales rep said it would be easier to use than the old one as the new one had some sort of self-propulsion; six months down the line they have only used it four times, it is too heavy for my mother to use, she is nearly 80 and they feel ripped off. I have taken this up with Kirby as I feel they have been victims of inappropriate selling.

Kirby's response was that they can't discriminate against the over 80's when selling their products! I had thought Kirby to be a reputable company but am now left feeling that they use heavy sales tactics on elderly people and wouldn't recommend anyone let their sales reps in! Needless to say I shall be taking this to 'Which', 'You and Yours'etc...........watch this space Kirby!

I bought the Kirby G5 Vacuum cleaner from a door salesman. His technique was overpowering, and I found it hard to get rid of him. I have never used all the attachments, e.g. Sander, Shampoo and massage attachments. I wasted a lot of money on these.

I was badgered by a high pressure salesman that wouldn't stop stalking me until I caved in. I wish I had my old vacuum back that they took when I bought this USED one. I bought a used Kirby G5, and it lasted a couple of weeks and then quit working. I can't figure out what's wrong with it, and I'm deathly afraid to call Kirby because of the way I was treated to begin with.

I bought my Kirby off eBay second hand for around a 1/4 of the list price. Many of the accessories were unused simply because the previous owner had found attaching them too difficult.

Fortunately the Care & Use manual and accompanying video are fairly comprehensive if you are prepared to stick with it and then the true value of the Kirby is revealed. There are not many cleaning jobs the Kirby can't handle. You can freshen up matresses, sand doors and walls for painting with no dust, polish wood and laminate floors - clean up liquid spills - the list goes on.

The durability of the machines cannot be faulted - the main items that are subject to wear are the drive belt (Kirby recommend replacement each year) and the roller brush (change every two years).

Again, the recommendation would be to buy these off the web as this is a job easily carried out by the user.