I have a 5 year old Big Ball Animal (so warrantee long gone they way of the dinosaurs...but still far too good to justify replacing). I’ve cleaned the filter - even replaced it after 4 years which did wonders. I de-hair the spinning brush attachment pretty much fortnightly, try to keep the container empty...but it is getting less and less performant over time, transparent bits are not so transparent, etc.
There is build up in tubes, the cylinder, all the internals - it’s just not a new vacuum and the official guides are more day to day keep good: not serious deep cleaning. When new it was actually hard to use because the suction was so strong - now it’s well below half that!
I strongly suspect it is going to need a big bucket soaking, swirling, and drying for a couple of weeks to give it another couple of years of life before we eventually replace it. It may be there is a critical part in there we could look to get a replacement for (although nothing seems to be not working). By initial thought is dish wash liquid (to life oils and greases that tend to stick to plastics) and a round with dilute citric acid (to get any small fragments of hair or residing dust): both are non residue and mild. Does anyone have any better ideas of what could be done to get this thing back to good?
