Somewhat Shopworn, Still Certainly Serviceable

Sometimes, taking a chance on a less than stellar looking vacuum can pay dividends, as evidenced by more than a few machines in my collection. The same goes for my latest acquisition, an Aerus Lux 9000 Model C134F. When I first saw it advertised, I was hesitant. According to the description, the power nozzle didn't work, it was missing the dusting brush and combination rug/floor tool, and it looked fairly dirty. On the other hand, it was all original, not to mention cheap. I could have gone for a "better" one from some vac shop, but it would have cost at least twice as much, and vacuums from such sellers don't come with a "perfect" guarantee. All in all, it turned out to be worth it.

Here is the young fellow, cleaned up as nicely as possible and ready for service. Yes, the hose is discolored, but its airtight, the switches work properly, and its been disinfected, so its good to go.

The suction motor sounds and sucks just fine. It sounds pretty much exactly like the Guardian 75th Anniversary I have, as a matter of fact, and the suction is more or less the same. Perhaps they used the same motor in all of the machines in between these two, I don't know. As I suspected, the machine was fairly dirty, both inside and out, but one of my favorite things to do is to clean and detail vacuums, so I gave it a fairly thorough cleaning and disinfecting, inside and out. The one part of the Style R machines which I haven't been able to clean properly is the side bumper...Magic Eraser doesn't seem to work at all, and I haven't yet found anything else that works.

The seller had indicated that the power nozzle needed a new motor, but rather than bothering with it, I just transplanted the "Lux" top cover and blue bumper to another power nozzle I had. As an addendum to this power nozzle, I'm not sure what that little extra piece is on the elbow (the gray piece in the first picture on the power nozzle), but it makes the top cover bloody difficult to remove. I've seen other elbows with it and without it, so I'm not sure if its completely random, but I don't like it, and I doubt if it serves any practical purpose.

(Update 07-28-13: In fact, I've long since removed the bloody thing! I assume its there to give a little extra support to the elbow, but I wanted it gone.)

Top view. The logo is a bit scarred, but things can't always be perfect.

Side bumper logo, with "handwritten" script. I may be wrong, but this script seems to hearken back to earlier models, I can't remember which ones.

Ratings sticker. This seems to be the first ever "Aerus" branded Style R model, and, wonder of wonders, it doesn't even say "Electrolux" anywhere! Going by the attachment compartment door logo, the company really wanted to emphasize the new name, as opposed to later models.

Going by the graphics, the Aerus Lux 9000 appears to be the top-of-the-line companion to the Lux 7000 and Lux 5500, but given the company's propensity for releasing models in wild profusion in short time periods, I'll make that claim with reservations. 

As I pointed out in Note 6 here, I'm not sure why the company issued a machine identical to the Guardian in every way, and called it "Lux 9000". The only sensible reason is that it wanted to get rid of the "Guardian" name. At any rate, I'm quite happy to have another useful and serviceable vacuum.