You decide that your old vacuum that you bought in 1985 for $100 lasted
for well over 10 years and seemed to do a good job, so you shouldn't need to spend more than $150.
Well.....it doesn't quite work out that way. We are finding out that like a lot of things in life,
"they aren't building them like they used too". You see the way the manufactures are designing and
assembling the newer vacuums, we find that if you spend much less than $250 most of the machines out
on the market will only last 3-4 years! We recognize that there are going to be a few machines that will
last longer than that, but the facts remain. We see about an 80% failure rate (major repairs) on most
machines within the first 5 years, If the machine had an original price tag of less than $250.

If you call your local vacuum shop I think that most of them would agree with my asessment.

This isn't to say that you need to spend $1000 either, it just means that to a certain extent you do get what you pay for.