Gives a lot while leaving little to be desired

I did quite a bit of research between the Bissel and the hoover steam cleaners. I am the owner of a previous Bissell (older model), and that actually swayed me to lean towards the Hoover due to the lack of cleaning abilities my old Bissell had. The reason I still decided on the Bissell was because of the "power" attachment and the heated water that also gets sent through the attachment hose. As far as I could find, the Hoover models did not heat the water and it only used hot tap water. My old Bissell did this, and by the time the water hit the floor, it was lukewarm at best.

I'm not going to go into too many specifics as to what the Bissell 9400 offers. I am going to explain my experience with it.

I have three kids and three cats, with cream colored carpets, a cream tile floor, and pergot flooring in my home.

The machine itself is easy to use. It ran smooth, was easy to push around. It was lightweight, even when full with water (which isn't much by the way). You will find yourself making many trips to the sink. I never found that the water got extremely hot, but it definitely was hotter than when I put it in the machine (and everyone knows that hot water does a better job at cleaning). You need to let it run for a minute by itself to heat the water, which isn't any big deal except it is a smidgen loud. I did find that quite a bit of water was left in the carpet. The carpets were wetter than I expected them to be and took a good day to dry. The tank in tank design is decent, however I know what will happen over time as this happened with my old Bissell. The bladder is not strong enough to continue withholding the hot water, and eventually the top will succumb to the heat and fold enough so that it will drop down. The problem with this is that the dirty water will end up mixing with the clean water. I managed to find ways around it before, so I assume I will be able to do the same this time (also, I believe extended warranties cover this). The solution goes in a separate tank in the back. I found that I went through cleaning solution quicker than I expected, so make sure you keep extra on hand. The machine comes with a good assortment of accessories and cleaning samples. I will talk about them in a little bit.

When cleaning the carpets, this thing did a great job with carpets that are of an even (or the same) texture (like a plush carpet). I do have a 8 by 5 ft throw carpet that has different textures. This machine didn't quite do so well on that. I would highly recommend not buying this specifically to clean this type of carpet. It took me a very long time and lots of scrubbing on my hands and knees with the attachments to get into the grooved area of the rug. The raised textured area on the rug was very clean, however, the brushes are on a little bit of a swivel arm, so they do not push down hard enough to get into the grooved part of the rug. This rug was wet for 3 straight days as it also could not suck the water out of it...

On to the tile and pergot floors. The machine comes with a floor tool. The tool in and of itself is ok, however when you snap it onto the front of the Bissell, it actually lifts the front of the machine off the ground about a half inch (because it has a brush, sponge, and squegee on it). This half inch is enough to take the rotating brushes off of the ground. What a waste! It did an ok job at cleaning, but not a great job. So, I took the attachment off the front, and scrubbed both the tile and the pergot floors without it. All the dirt came right up, although my floors were soaked. I put the attachment back on, and sucked up all the water. I must say that my tile and pergot floors looked excellent when done and were fairly dry (although it was a little more work than I anticipated since I had to go over it twice).

The attachments are great, with strong bristles on them. The one tool I was really looking forward to using was the "power" brush. I ended up using it to spot clean and on my furniture. It wasn't what I expected, but it did a good job. As far as I can tell, it uses the power of the suction of the vacuum to rotate the brushes. It is stronger than one might think. However, since it does this, it won't scrub and suck up the water at the same time. So you need to scrub, then switch it to suction, and suck the water up. Kind of annoying, as I was hoping I could scrub and suction at the same time. The rest of the tools are manual scrubbing tools.

Overall this is a great carpet cleaner. I am very glad I purchased it. I ended up purchasing Best Buy's extended 4 year warranty for $40 because of the other user's complaints about it's durability. Hopefully I won't have to use it, but I'm sure the bladder will give way eventually.