Fein 9-55-13 Turbo II

I've had this model of vacuum for 8 or 9 years, and when I decided to purchase another for my business I ordered it through amazon. It arrived in a box with ZERO protective packing. Not a bit of foam or… cardboard. Not a single bubble of bubble wrap. Guess what? It was damaged. The hose intake plastic flange was shattered. I'm sure the return policy is great--blah blah blah. But it's a hassle and I really needed the product when it arrived. So great vacuum, BUT I strongly advise against using Amazon to purchase it. -Steve

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First off, I must say that while the product worked it was completely awesome. Quiet, small, great suction, loved the power tool switch, and it would run for hours on end. I gave mine a pretty good workout… finish sanding bevelled siding after the siding had been stripped of paint. No complaints about it, the machine took the fine dust without a complaint. The first Turbo 2 fell to its death off my painter's plank. I took it in to a Fein service center, and they told me that it would be more expensive to repair the motor than to buy a new vaccuum. OK, so now I have a parts supply for the replacement. The second Turbo 2 seems to have gagged itself on drywall dust. As other reviewers mentioned, the motor started smelling hot and got a lot louder. Again, too expensive to repair. I see the new ones are a lot more expensive, and require new filtration accessories. I never used any accessories, just the standard cloth filter bag. Until the most recent demise, there were no problems with using the standard filter. The filter bag would be caked in crap, but the motor would be clean. Now, I need to spend $[...], AND buy extra filters??? For the price, I'll be looking at Festool, Porter-Cable, or Wap's machines.

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I have utilized many shop vacs and home vacs over the years, just like most people, I'm sure. And I have come to the conclusion that buying a home vacuum is foolish when a shop vac will work much better… and is more versatile. I bought this vacuum in conjunction with a Fein Multimaster but I also use it to vacuum my home. It is very quite with none of the typical high-pitched whining we've all come to love about shop vacs. This vac has very strong suction and, for home use, works better than a dedicated $600 vacuum I once owned. For the shop, in dry work I use the HEPA filter with great results. Yes, the attachments cost extra but they work well. If I had a complaint it would be that the european version can be registered for the 3 year warranty but not the U.S. version.

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I bought the Fein to replace an old Craftsman shop-vac that was as loud as the deck of an aircraft carrier. Instant improvement, with the first discovery being that you will actually use a vac all the time… if it's not too loud! The Fein has several endearing features: it's light, it's quiet, it's relatively hard to tip over, it has a long cord, and the cord stores on the body (by wrapping it around the top groove). I don't understand some reviewers' comments on the strength of the suction. These vacs do not have anything close to the level of suction developed by the cheaper and louder vacs. In fact, if they did, they would be a lot harder to use attached to tools like sanders. There is plenty of suction for any reasonable use, though. I've never bought the wet-vac parts for the Fein and never used the vac with a bag. I just dump out the contents into a trash bag. Moreover, I've never replaced the filter and am careful when cleaning it - I don't over-clean the filter, and I'm careful not to damage it. A well-used filter with a reasonable amount of filter cake built up on it is very efficient, typically yielding much better filtration than the nominal micron rating listed. Among other things, I find I can use mine for drywall and for cleaning out my pellet stove without dust or soot escaping from the vac, though I'd buy a purpose-built vac if those were my primary uses. (Don't try this with a new filter!) I agree with other reviewers' comments on the hose and attachment parts. They are lightweight and shouldn't be abused. The bottom line on my review goes back to the starting comment. I found that quiet overwhelms every other consideration. Having a quiet vac turns it into something you use as you work instead of an end-of-day chore. Don't be oversold on the hyped superiority of Festool vacs for their tools. While they are excellent vacs (I own one in addition to a Fein Turbo II) with tons of features, strictly from a vacuuming standpoint they don't offer any better performance than the Fein - and that includes any supposed advantage of the Festool vac's variable speed. The one use for which I prefer the Festool vac is for sanding. But that's because I have a Festool vac with a HEPA filter, and I do not have the HEPA filter for my Fein. There is also one really good reason to prefer the Fein vac over Festool, and that's the exorbitant cost of Festool bags! Unlike sanding dust, chips from a tool like the Festool Domino will fill a bag in a hurry. Do yourself a favor and attach the Domino to your Fein instead! The Fein stepped rubber adapter can be trimmed to fit any Festool power tool and will store nicely in the Systainer. It is as flexible as the end of the Festool hose, so will adapt to either the round or oval dust outlets on Festool tools. You can get the adapter from Amazon or from Woodcraft.

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