Kenmore - FeatherLite™ Lift-Up® Bagless Upright Vacuum DU4080

In May after doing a bunch of research I picked up the Kenmore DU4080 Featherlite. We have a mix of carpet, hardwood and I even use it around a cat box in a tile bathroom. This has outperformed my expectations and I actually plan to buy a second one for upstairs since my wife hates carrying a vacuum up and down the stairs. I have no complaints about any aspect. It has plenty of pickup for pet hair, crumbs, cat litter stuck in a mat. It is powerful enough while being incredibly nimble. Watch a few videos and read a couple of reviews. It was a reasonable price ($120) since I can't justify a Dyson price tag.

My recomendations would be to get a compact bagged canister vacuums. they are very light weight, easy to use and have far better suction than any of the stick vacuums. If you really want something similar to a stick vacuum, get a sebo dart, or sebo felix, or miele upright. U wont miss with both of these brands.

Agreed, We've had 2 Miele uprights for over 10 years now. They stand up so well that if you put either 1 side by side blindfolded with a brand new one, I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference if possible at all. Their suction is fantastic and easily as good or better than our old Rickar, which at the time they told us had the best suction of all the vacuums available. Actually, there was 1 problem..... our housekeeper vacuumed our entire house without a bag. I found the bag compart maybe 1/10th full and cleaned it out entirely, dismantled and cleaned all the ducts and vaccuumed every bit of fine dust I couldn,t shake or wipe out. A few weeks later, the primary motor started making a realy high pitch noise like a bearing starting to go. I took it in immediately to the local hole in the wall vaccuum guru. Get this, Miele sent out an entire new $400 motor and paid the shops install/cleaning fee, as a courtesy for free, saying it's still under the 10 year warranty and to be careful(this reset the warranty on the new motor too. That's above and beyond compassion and customer service if you ask me. I doubt from talking to other owners that have had their Miele vacuums (and other products)that I'll ever "need" to buy another vaccumm. Their built like a tank, steering is smooth and tight like a sports car and vaccuum under anything the bottom fits under with the upright part able to be reclined to almost on the floor before it lifts the front up a little bit. Miele, for us is a Buy It Once Buy It For Life Appliance and if God forbid it was stolen or destroyed by an act of God, we'd buy one again in a heart beat.

I'm running into this with my Miele upright vacuum because they decided to stop making uprights. It's impossible to find parts.

I got a riccar 30d after having had a Miele upright for many years. Every time I use it I wish I had the old one back. Haven’t had prolux before so I guess maybe this isn’t helpful but next time I’ll be looking at Sebo. Unless Miele gets back into uprights.

I switched from a dyson ball animal to a miele upright, and the difference was amazing. It's like going from a ninja blender to a vita-mix.

I agree with you, in that your upright is superior to the ball. But the Miele IMO is in a different class than both.

I have an upright Miele. They aren’t all canister. I got it free on the buy nothing network. It can be hard to find bags sometimes, but otherwise it’s great.

I'm glad some people are. I bought a used Miele upright for $80 off craigslist back in 2016 and it still works great. Originally cost somewhere around $800. I'll probably buy one of their cannisters if/when it dies.

We bought a Miele upright 7ish years ago based in recommendations from BIFL and love it!

Miele has alotta twisty bullshit that probably wouldn't like it but that sebo should have no problem, might have something stuck inside that the hair wraps around and plugs it up, went 4 weeks with a toothpick in my shop vac hose before I got the fucker out

I bought a Miele after taking one of our uprights in for repair. The guy at the repair shop/store demonstrated several different vacuums by vacuuming flour he has thrown down on both carpeting and a hard surface. The Miele blew the other vacuums away (including ours).

I have a Miele upright and HATE it for my home. Also had a canister that was beyond infuriating to use in the house. I have a Henry that I use for basement and to clean my cars. I don’t understand how anyone can tolerate a canister machine in the house. It’s like taking an overweight cat for a walk with the added bonus of cracking corner beads on walls. I actually just ordered a shark not 10 minutes ago to replace my Miele for home use. I’ll take it to work where it’ll probably do better. Miele designed the brush roll in a very poor way. We don’t have carpet, just a few runner and if you don’t constantly have the brush roll running hair will bind up in the belt drive system and start to strip out the belt. I’ve replaced countless belts, the entire housing and the motor when my kids didn’t realize what was going on with the god awful sound it was making. I contacted them about it and their solution? Take it apart and clean it after every use. Are you kidding me? That involves pulling the bottom plate off (6 torx screws of 2 sizes) unclipping a flimsy plastic latch on the belt housing that has about 10 uses before it breaks and if it’s bad enough unmounting the motor. That is in no way feasible to do daily or at times several times daily depending on how anal I get. I salvaged a Shark 2 years ago from the trash, pulled it apart and cleaned the heck out of it. And it’s used in the finished portion of our basement several times a week. It’s been great. I like the general quality of the Miele and the design of how the rotator head works is great. But gosh they missed the mark on overall design. To further take points off it’s very very very unfriendly for repair. People like to say the higher end machines are repairable. Ok… I guess. But when I’m shelling out nearly $100 on a replacement hose every 3 years in addition to belts, and brush rolls I can just buy a “disposable” one every few years and when it breaks I can usually hobble it by for another few. This is my 3rd Miele and probably my last to be honest. My first served me fairly well in a house with carpet until it took a fall down the steps when my wife lost grip on it (because let’s face it they aren’t light). The cost to fix it was going to be more than it cost new. And that was just in parts for me to do it. Rant over. Sorry. Just read this at the wrong (right?) time.

We got $175 on a Kenmore upright as a trade-in towards an E3 at an authorized dealer. If yours is in good shape, maybe you can try that route?

I wouldn't put anywhere near that much money into a stick, then you can get your Sebo that much sooner. Just an FYI, also, we had a Kenmore upright that was in great shape when we bought our Sebo, and we were able to get a $175 discount on a trade-in at an authorized dealer.

While Sebo and Miele's are great vacuums, there's no need to spend that much money. Simplicity and Kenmore make really good uprights. That will work on every floor surface and are very durable machines decently priced. Sorry you had to deal with the dyson...

The simplicity or kenmore uprights are pretty good and seem to hold up. Section remains strong even as the bag fills up. Both have attachments that are pretty good

That kenmore upright is the worst.

It depends on what you mean by “repairing”. Repairing usually refers to replacing a worn belt, the brush roller gets hair tangled around it on the sides where you can’t cut it and needs to be taken out and cleaned, and the vacuum can get clogged and needs to be cleared out. If you want to do any of that, don’t get a shark, because you can’t open them up to do any of those basic things that you could do on most vacuums 10 years ago. Look at a simplicity, or kenmore for plug in. Or Henry quick for cordless 👍🏼