I doubt I’ll find a better deal

Dyson replaced the main unit on our ‘out of warranty’ vacuum cleaner for free. It would have cost $299 but was out of stock when I called and their policy in such cases is to replace the item at no charge. That’s a good deal.

Earlier this year I wrote about replacing the switch on our Dyson vacuum cleaner. That worked well until 2 weeks ago when the machine refused to do more than buzz briefly when Majella tried to vacuum the house.

I checked how it was sitting on the charger and concluded that since that all looked as it should be the battery must have died. A little googling established that batteries do fail and that replacements were available from Dyson or from third parties though not in Toowoomba.

I ordered a third party battery for $75, about half the price of the real deal from Dyson. It arrived a week ago but installing it failed to fix the problem.

A little more googling found the Dyson troubleshooting page where the indication was that I might need a new main unit. Last Tuesday I called Dyson hoping there might be one available in Brisbane that we could go fetch.

The woman who answered the phone went through the same troubleshooting questions and arrived at the same conclusion. I needed a new main unit for which the price was $299. That was better than $800 or so for a complete new vacuum cleaner so I agreed.

She checked and informed me that they had none in stock but their policy if an item was out of stock is to replace it for free. I accepted that offer, expecting it might take weeks for the replacement to arrive. She emailed me an order and invoice for $0 and we settled for a possibly long wait.

On Friday I had another email from Dyson confirming dispatch. The unit arrived this afternoon. It took a few minutes to move the battery, filter, and front dust container from the old unit to the new and get it running.

I must have called on the one day they were out of stock. I’m not complaining.