Single hen

[Shirl]

I have had my Roomba nearly a year now and it has broken down.The first one lasted about 3 months and this one about 8 months. It is the same problem, the brushes underneath (not the one with arms) stop turning. I bought it from Lakeland and they exchanged the 1st one with no problems and I'm hoping they'll do this one too. I do clean it after use so I can't see why mine would be more problematic than anyone elses.

 

So has anyone else had any Roomba problems?

[Cinnamon]

Mine did do this a few months ago ,but we fixed it by sorting this out.....

 

Remove the brushes & on the ends the little nodules (I think they are yellow).

The holes that they fit onto the brushes with get clogged with stuff, get a cocktail stick & clean them out, then they work again with no problem.

 

I now do this once a week when I give Roomba his weekly spruce-up

 

Hope it helps.

[Shirl]

Unfortunately our house is so hairy taking the yellow ends off is part of my daily clean. They get clogged in one clean! The OH has taken Ruby apart including taking out lots of screws (that's as technical as I'll get) and it hasn't made a jot of difference. There was loads of hair that was normally inaccessible though.

[Cinnamon]

They do get remarkably clogged, don't they?

 

Make sure you get RIGHT IN to the hole of the yellow k"Ooops, word censored!"by thing - that's what it was with ours

 

Maybe you have just been very unlucky. I do find that mine gets much more clogged when I do my bedroom, which is the only carpeted room in the house.Its much better on hard floors.

[Shirl]

We stopped using ours on carpet after the first one went kaput. We only have carpet in 3 of the bedrooms so it wasn't much of a hardship. The OH had a look on youtube and found several videos of people complaining about the same thing.

[chrisevans1001]

You don't need to replace the whole unit, Roomba is modular and you can just replace the brush holding / motor assembly. I found my brush holding / motor assembly broke after just a few months.

 

We run ours on carpet with 2 cats every Friday and it picks up loads. It is a major design flaw with them though which is quite disappointing. None the less, it's not a majorly expensive piece of equipment to replace and there is a web site that sells a modified design of the part to fix the problem.

 

You must clean out those yellow ends (they do come off, then you'll find the hair and what not wrapped around the pole they sit on) after every clean, it's listed in the manual somewhere.

 

If you don't, the motors will burn out and you'll end up replacing it (though, there is also a problem with hair getting into the motors despite thorough cleaning, and thus your motors will burn out eventually anyway).

 

My advice would be to phone and say that it's broken yet again and thus get a spare.

[Shirl]

Yes we do clean under those yellow end bits every time. That's why I can't understand how it's broken again. I'll try calling Lakeland tomorrow and see what they say. It is still in guarantee for another month so hopefully it will be a swap. I'm just miffed that if I get a new one after that we're on our own. I'll also have a look and see if I can find somewhere to get spare motors and bits. Thanks

[chrisevans1001]

Well Lakeland shouldn't be replacing the whole unit, they should be sending you the replacement part. That's what the other major retailers for this product are doing as the wholesaler just replaces. I bought direct from the wholesaler with an extended warranty from domestic & general.

 

If you contact domestic & general, they'll reinsure it for you for the next few years.

[buffie]

We contacted Domotec, who we purchased ours through, and they told us there were new improved parts. We had several problems and they sorted them out. They had a new motor and new brush section.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Buffie x

[chrisevans1001]

Ooh got a pic?

[Shirl]

The great news is Lakeland are sending me a new one so hopefully it will have the new improved parts. She did offer me a refund and I would have taken it and upgraded to the 560 but Lakeland don't sell it and after their fab service I don't want to go elsewhere.