Hoover FloorMate Deluxe Hard Floor Cleaner Machine, Wash and Dry Mode

Cleaning is my life. With 11 cats and a clumsy husband, it has to be. I owned the original model Floormate back at the turn of the century. It worked fantastically for 9 years and then started to fail in various ways. I've been using a Swiffer wet mop ever since. Lately, the Swiffer has been leaving streaks and some sort of white film on all my floors, so I bought another Floormate.Right out of the box, this one is superior to the first. The tanks are on either side, allowing you to get under lower objects when cleaning. The controls are straightforward, allowing even an instruction manual tosser like me to use it right away. The brushes scrub dirt off the floor. Now, if your careless spouse dripped syrup on the floor and nobody noticed for a week, you're going to have to go over it quite a few times. The Swiffer would never get that up.To address the issues some others have had: Go slow. Give the brushes time to work. Remember that the brushes engage and the nozzle pressurizes and sprays with each forward pass. On the backward pass, all of that has to switch gears and the squeegee has to engage. Also remember that none of this happens instantly. It's a floor cleaner, not a life support machine. If you run it back and forth quickly like a vacuum, no, it won't clean well.As for the leakage: Yes, it does leak a bit. But again, you have to remember the mechanism and the fact that the entire bottom of the machine gets wet while it does its thing. Give it an extra backward pass to compensate. And when you stop cleaning and take off the tanks, that little reservoir where the cleaner tank connects has water in it. Blot it out with a paper towel and it won't leave a puddle on your floor.This machine cleans really well, judging by the gray and brown water in the holding tank. That came off my freshly Swiffered floor. It handled my tile extremely well, cleaning muck off of it in one pass and doing a halfway decent job with the grout. The regular laminate floors worried me because any amount of water on them makes it swell and curl, so I went gently, not using too much solution and making sure to get it extra dry. Yes, it did leave streaks, but that smooth, shiny surface is prone to them. The LVP came clean in the wink of an eye and because of the wood grain texture, had no streaks. My sheet vinyl came clean easily, though there were a few extra passes to get up the kitchen grease that spatters in front of the stove.I love that this is so light and compact. I'm a small person and large machines make me not want to use them. It feels quite sturdy and I think it might well last as long as my old one did, or perhaps longer. I have no trouble at all recommending this to a friend because the darn thing simply works.

The first time I used the Hoover Floormate it leaked all over my floor. I chalked it up to user error and tried re-seating the tanks. It still leaked to some extent but was usable. Initial impressions were good. As the floor dried, I could see that the unit only cleans the "loose" dirt. Any dried stains (in my case dog drool from his food and water dish) will not be cleaned unless I go over the area 4-5 times, and sometimes they still persist.The Floormate worked moderately well for about 2 months until it suddenly started emitting a high shrieking sound and a burning smell. I checked the Hoover web site for information, and it directed me to a service number. I called 3 times, each time I waited for over an hour only to give up out of frustration. Before I disconnected eact time, I requested a call back. One week later I received a call from an out-of-state repair shop. The technician asked me a series of question and told me that the unit was under warranty. The person asked me what the specific issue was and after I explained she requested that I turn the unit on she could hear the issue for herself. I complied and she said, "I don't hear anything out of the ordinary". After a bit of back and forth she finally agreed to solicit a repair request with Hoover. I said, "you're not from Hoover?" and she replied "No, we're an independent repair shop that just assess as to whether a warranty claim is valid".40 minutes into the call she finally entered the claim and told me that Hoover would be in touch via email. She also said that I would have to drop off the unit at a local repair shop, which is an 80-minute drive from my home. I received the email form Hoover and contacted their service rep. The rep wanted me to go through the entire process again, this time requesting video proof of the problem. Before we got too far into the conversation, I told them that I had surgery scheduled and would be out of commission for 3 months, so I could not drop off the faulty item at the repair shop. They said that a drop off is my only option. At this point I had enough of this nonsense and decided it was better just to take the loss, toss the unit in the garbage and never buy products from Hoover again.I also have a Hoover rug cleaner which broke after about 6 months due to a rusty turbine, which is a known problem they refuse to address.BUYER BEWARE!