Consumer Reports finds pricier vacuums not always the best

YONKERS, N.Y. Consumer Reports announced that its latest vacuum tests found that some of the pricier brands came up short on performance.

According to the publication, Sebo's Automatic X5 upright, priced $820, touts "anti-allergy, hospital grade" filtering, but didn't impress when it came to carpet cleaning and airflow.  Furthermore the magazine found that pricey canisters from Sebo and Aerus Lux, which cost $900 and up provided mediocre carpet cleaning.  And while Dyson has been tops in Consumer Reports' brand-repair surveys, subpar carpet cleaning and pet-hair pick-up helped the compact DC22 Turbinehead, $700, land near the bottom of the ratings.

"Our tests show that some of the priciest canisters and uprights offered a slew of extra features but gave only a mediocre performance in carpet cleaning," said Bob Markovich, home and yard editor at Consumer Reports. 

Top performers included the Kenmore Intuition 31100, for $250, which the magazine said aced its pet-hair test. Kenmore's Progressive 27514 also performed well.