We have two older Dyson stick vacuums, a V6_ Motoorhead and a V8. The battteries on both were pretty welll shot so my wife took them to our local Dyson shop for battery replacements. She brought them home and on one (the V6 Motorhead+) the powerhead no longer worked. We swapped it on the V8 and worked fine. We then verified the tube connections were OK by swapping powerhead from the other to the V6 and it worked.

Shhe took it back and the the tech, a “young fellow” according to her, told her the powerhead motor was not workiing. She said not possible, we checked it with another unit annd it worked. He then told her that we she needed to replace to power unit for $250, as it now apprared that the issue was with the powerhead. He also gave her some attitude, as if she were some sort of fool for proving him a fool. That was NOT cool!

She brought it home and told me about her experiences and that the power unit was trash. I said hold on, I’ll look at it, as I am a  a retired HW design EE with 40+ years of electronics design and troubleshooting in many areas of today’s technologies. I removed the canister to track down the power connections to the powerhead and spotted the two spring contacts that connect to the canister power connections, one was apparently covered by debris. I used a can of compressed air to blow out the debris and voila! It worked!

Needless too say, I am somewhat underwhelmed by the inability of the so-called repair techs to troubleshoot such an obviously simple issue. I was able to figure it out in less than 5 minutes. Dyson would do well to proovide some upgraded training to their techs as to how to perform basic electrical & mechanical troubleshooting below the system level, as well as some sensitivity traning so as not to treat people as fools, my wife and I do not appreciate that behavior at all. We have been going there for several years but she said she had never been treated in such a fashion prior to today. After her experience today, we’re definitely going to consider other sources than Dyson for any fuiture home electronics needs.

I am not saying component level, deep dive type of troubleshooting, but at least do a 5 minute check for something obvious. It would have cost me $250 to replace the power unit if she hadn’t told me about it.

Heck, I’m retired, I’ll teach your techs basic troubleshooting... for a price...