Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11195 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Vax Ara
• Model: V027
• Dimensions: 33.07 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
The Vax V-027 Rapide XL is a deep cleaning, versatile upright carpet washing system designed for convenience around the home. The wash head has contra-rotating brush bars for ultimate deep down dirt extraction. Its powerful dual extraction, which allows carpets to dry quickly, is ideal for large carpeted areas. Featuring on-board hose with wash tool attachment, and large capacity auto mix cleaning system, the V-027 Rapide XL is easily adapted for stair, car and upholstery cleaning too.

Washing with Vax AAA Carpet Cleaning Solution, which is specifically formulated for Vax to gently lift deep down dirt and stains, will leave a fresh fragrance, without any sticky residue. The Vax V-027 can also suck up spills and is easy to manoeuvre, set up and use.

Why wash my carpets?
Although regular vacuuming of your carpets removes everyday dirt, it does not completely remove the deep-down dirt and grease that makes carpets look flat and lifeless. Washing your carpets will.

The benefits of regular carpet washing:

Customer Reviews

Great Product
Got the RAPIDE XL PRO version
Works very well, not too noisy as some of these products can be.
The rotating brushes make a real difference. Restored my
beige hall carpet to almost new after some pretty awful looking
stains. IF YOU'VE GOT KIDS AND OR PETS YOU NEED ONE OF THESE.
Lost the dirty water tank plug, one call to the VAX customer service line
(and it wasn't an overseas call centre) and I had a new one in a few days free of charge, great service from VAX.

VAX V027 Rapide XL Carpet Washer
Having paid more than the purchase price of this machine several times over the last few years to have the carpets in a couple of rooms of my house professionally cleaned I decided to buy one of these and see how it compared.

We have a large amount of good quality (dense, 80% wool) carpet throughout our house in a light sand colour. With two young children this gets grubby and spot-marked despite regular vacuuming with a Dyson DC14. I have used the best reputed local carpet cleaner a couple of times now because I was concerned about the potential for damaging what were very expensive carpets.

I have to admit that I had fairly low expectations of this machine, but I was pleasantly suprised at what a good job it did. The carpets certainly came up as clean as they did after professional cleaning by someone who I would regard as being expert at carpet cleaning with some good quality equipment. It was necessary to use some spot cleaner in a few places, but this was always something that the professional cleaner did too. There are a couple of places where the pile had become very trodden down (in a hallway) that needed going over a few times from various angles and some extra help with a stiff brush to stand the pile back up again so that the cleaning solution can get right into it. It does take a little longer to clean with this machine than to pro, but given that I own it now and am not paying for someone else's time this is not a problem.

I did three rooms with the machine in one evening, including washing, rinsing thoroughly and then vacuuming out as much water as possible. Afterwards the carpets weren't any wetter than they were after professional cleaning. This was something I was worried about as I've heard some horror stories with hired carpet cleaning machines soaking carpets. I have also cleaned the seats in one of my cars with the upholstery attachment and again it did a great job removing an alarming amount of dirt from what looked like reasonably clean seats. Made the car smell a lot fresher too!

The machine has essentially paid for itself already in one evening, but I will be carrying on round the rest of the house 'for free' with this now and using it regularly on the carpets that have most foot traffic as well as cleaning my sofas.

If there is one observation I would make, and I wouldn't call it a criticism, it is that the machine is bigger and heavier than your average vacuum cleaner.

Overall I think this cleaner did an excellent job, comparable with professional cleaning if used properly, and is excellent value for money at the price I paid from Amazon.

A little heavy but it does a good job
We've had our Vax for three weeks now and I've used it both for cleaning carpets and upholstery.

The first thing I noticed when it arrived was just how heavy it is. The weight is the one grumble my wife has always had about our Dyson vacuum, be warned this is even heavier, which may make it awkward for getting it upstairs. I'm reluctant to let the handle take the whole weight so when carrying it upstairs I find it best to support it underneath too, so I say again it may be a little awkward.

Like the Dyson with its see through collection bin,, there is something very satisfying watching it swallow up very dirty water the first time I used it on the lounge carpet. Ours are mostly neutral colours and I guess they've collected a lot of dirt over the years. I'd be exaggerating if I said that the difference between "before" and "after" was anything like the TV advert; we didn't get any clean stripes when we ran it along the carpet, but judging by the colour of the waste water its done a good job. There were a couple of small spot marks which it hasn't cleaned but I guess it has its limits.

Thanks to the furniture shop misleading us, we haven't been able to clean our sofa professionally and until now we've been relying on watered down Dreft. Using the attachment, I cleaned it with the Vax and I'm pleased with the results. We can't expect it to look new but its a lot cleaner than it was.

On the whole we're pleased with the Vax. Sure, its heavy, but its easy enough to drag it around and its no noisier than you'd expect. I would add that its a pity the manufacturer decided to sell it in a box which, when fully assembled means the machine will no longer fit inside. A narrower, taller box would have enabled us to store it away in the garage, since unlike a carpet vac (i.e. the Dyson) we aren't intending to use it every day.

If you're thinking of buying a wet vac, I don't think you'd go far wrong with this one, especially with Amazon's price.