Hoover TC2665

The Hoover Telios has for many years been the staple model offered to consumers looking for a cylinder vacuum cleaner from Hoover UK which produced strong suction, a compact body and a design which mimicked the best from Miele with a hidden tool section and sealed suction paper bags. Hoover added filtration to hold back general odours and with marketing realised that models from 1300 watts and upwards would still sell alongside rivals with similar outputs. The prices at the time were competitive and not necessarily too expensive either. My original review appeared on Ciao in 2006 and having just visited EBay six years on, I'm quite surprised these models have lasted so long.

Most Hoover Telios models have also had a variable slide control for suction and with paper bags or a permanently fitted washable fabric bag, dust was kept essentially to a minimum. What's more is that paper bags were dirt cheap to buy, in the beginning you could buy 10 bags for this model at £5-99 whilst filter replacements were easy to find and after a year could be replaced. Nowadays 5 paper bags for the Telios model will cost around the £5 to £7 or slightly more mark, but they are always to buy online and at John Lewis. My own experience with Telios models has been from three models in my lifetime as a student and when I could afford to buy one because of their longevity, availability of bags but more importantly excellent pick up and great suction; that is until Hoover fitted one model I had with a HEPA filter which cut the suction by 50%. After replacing this filter cassette with a standard Telios filter, recommended by a friend, the Telios lifted the carpet up from the floorboards and Life was sweet with me and my Telios. Any Telios model bar the TC2665 HEPA or bagless models can use a permanent washable bag although this is a spare part that must be ordered from Hoover.

Nar2's Quick Skip Product Review Spec

• 1600 watts of power.
• Variable suction control slide bar
• NO bag full indicator
• 7 metres of power cord.
• 76db motor rating - quite noisy.
• Telescopic height adjustable dark grey metallic metal tubing (2)
• Upholstery tool, crevice tool & brushed tool supplied
• HEPA washable filters
• 2 way universal non branded Hoover floor tool
• Price new £69-99 in 2006.
• Price in 2012 £5 to £25 second hand/Gumtree/ EBAY
• 5.6 kg weight.
• Cyclonic cassette collection box
• New Hoover design hose with air outlet slider

General Design

The Telios is actually a very simple machine to set up - well it always was and Hoover don't appear to have messed with an excellent formula.

Since this is the bagless version though, the flip up bin door is activated by the same push plastic lock located below the handle. Inside you will find a plastic clear acrylic box which holds a tiny grey cyclonic filter, whilst in black lettering there are words such as MAX to indicate when the dirt is full and the bin has to be emptied. There are problems with this firstly... The look of this new Telios has been coloured in a deep red opaque "Mulberry" colour and just like Hoover's upright range where "Dust Manager" has been applied to, the TC2665 model has an optimistic unclear look to the MAX indicator. How anyone can see whether the box needs emptying by looking through this coloured see through plastic is beyond me, and you need to open the door to the bin itself to see how full the box is. Hoover may well have chosen "Mulberry" as a contrasting colour to the overall gold paint on the machine, but for the owner you have to look very closely through this plastic to ascertain whether the box has filled up with dust or not.

The Hoover hose supplied is a newer design though, replacing the ill fated trigger handle which at times would never spring back properly once it had been squeezed to let out suction air and lessen the suction the machine provided. Here, the air inlet is similar in look and feel to Morphy Richards hoses, whereby the air outlet switch is a slider and adjusts with 2 holes for closer precise control of suction. Even at the lowest amount of power available from the Telios, curtains and soft fabrics tend to get sucked up the pipe, so its handy to have a precise air outlet control for once to calm down the initial suck. It's a shame then that the newer hose feels lighter than the original, replacing thick plastic with thin and thus feels cheaper made; at times it also pops out of the dirt channel rendering the cleaner useless and seems to be a new design fault which Hoover are well aware of. Do they care? Do they hell! The hose clicks into the main dirt channel at the front of the cleaner just like older Telios models and can be taken out by pushing in two catches located on the main lock of the hose to take out. When emptying the machine for example you don't have to take the hose unless there's a blockage.

Unlike some older Telios models, the bagless version comes with height adjustable click stop telescopic metallic painted tubes. This means that you can adjust the height of the tubes by way of a ratchet click and lock action. It also means unfortunately that with the two pipes installed in this way, they cannot be taken off individually - however when they are shortened, there is only a couple of centimetres more apparent - than you would get if the pipes were individually removable. This is at least one good selling point of the machine. The 2 way universal floor tool is the main floor head for carpet cleaning and as per usual brushes up for normal carpeting and brushes down for laminate and precious surfaces. Even in catalogues this Hoover doesn't come with a branded Hoover floor tool which isn't much of a disappointment but it raises questions in quality.

Moving upwards, there is a tool tidy which is set on the bottom of the bottom tube. Tool tidy? Yes, the original bagged Telios vacuum has a Miele copied internal storer under a flap, handy and great for taking out to the car or cleaning stairs. Not here though - a flimsy 3 storer clip on plastic is all you get here and it's not well made and liable to let tools fall off.

General Performance

The TC2665 is like my old 1500 watt Telios in use. It has the same on and off pedal, same cord rewind pedal but the suction? The suction is less powerful. Due to the huge washable HEPA filter that sits beside the motor, suction is very restrained. Unlike past HEPA cassettes that were smaller and covered the entire motor, this HEPA filter sits inside the dirt box and beside a slide in rubber wall which sits in front of the motor. The motor itself has a filter covering it, of a black felt type and can be washed. The HEPA filter sits on the cyclonic "cassette" bin installed inside the machine after the door bin is opened. This also means that come the time to empty, dust attaches itself to the HEPA filter that makes emptying a dirty experience to behold!

When the box is empty and the TC2665 is switched on, motor noise isn't apparent until say, you slide the variable control all the way to the maximum level. At maximum, the floor head literally sticks to the carpet but there is some gliding effort helped along by the air outlet control. Whilst this Telios has that familiar motor "ring" and "zing" to it, using it with the plastic dirt box empty at maximum allows me to question it's poor suction. Lower the slide control to the lowest setting for example, and there is hardly any suction at all, extremely gentle and fair perhaps for laminate flooring but for quick suction tasks on carpet, you need to adjust the slide control to the middle of the machine. Unlike bagged Telios models of old, I've so far found that the lowest suction on this model is poor.

Use of the tools is simple enough though; just like Telios models of old, all the tools are made of a fair black PVC quality but once or twice whilst using the tubes and floor head the smaller tools have fallen off the tool tidy located at the bottom end of the tube. This has occurred when Hoovering under a table and the tools have been knocked by table legs. Now if it was a proper Telios worthy of the Telios name, the tools would have been snugly fitted inside and hidden away. Ok I'll shut up now about the lack of an internal tool storage assembly...

Emptying The Dust

Emptying the bin has produced some startling results. First of all, Hoover's claim that this all-new design is easier to empty again baulks in my experience with the standard Telios. Just like Hoover's Dust Manager range in their upright series based on the Pure Crap uprights, sorry "Pure Power" uprights, the dust box can be lifted out of the Telios and taken to a bin. Open a yellow catch under the bin and tip the contents of the box into a bin. Whilst clumps of dirt fall easily into the bin there is a lot of fine brown powder left over which sticks to the clear acrylic. Ignore this and it will find itself back into your HEPA filter. The HEPA filter also has a lot of fine dirt clinging to it, and after say 9 to 10 hours after washing the filter and allowing it to drip dry, the filter can be installed back into the machine to ensure less odour from escaping back into the room.

The capacity of the box is 2.5 litres, which is quite small, and not what I'm used to with the paper bags which can take at least 1 to 1.5 litres more. I found when using this model that it had to be emptied after a week's use because the filters clog very easily in the dirt box. As the manual does state rather unhelpfully, you have to empty the box each time you use the cleaner to maintain total efficiency. I'd have to agree with that because each time you empty the box you're giving filters half of a chance to get rid of dirt trapped in the layers. But what a bother!!! Bring back paper bags! The exhaust filters are according to Hoover, not washable but in my experience the only filter that cannot be washed in the exhaust section is the white pleated cotton filter. A black foam filter is also provided and it has a white underside on it to show up the dirt. This is washable. Any foam is washable! And it doesn't take long to dry compared to Hoover's paper pleated washable HEPA filter.

Now, you don't have to wash the HEPA filter if you don't want to. Hoover's poorly written manual suggests that you can tap the filter off the side of a bin to loosen dirt. Unfortunately when I tried this, nothing happened. There's a surprise, Hoover! Further more located at the far end of the bin is the cyclonic "bell". This is the worst principle of removing, because turned anti clockwise, the cyclonic shroud will easily come apart and you'll find a lot of cleaning to do, particularly removing excess dirt that has worked itself in and around the cyclone itself. The cyclone, after cleaning must then be squeezed back into the shroud of the box. This isn't easy and at times thanks to its twisted stripe bar, the cyclone can bend easily when trying to lock it back into position.

Forget this design Hoover, copy Panasonic or Electrolux and use a cyclone with a mesh filter! This is hopeless and the plastic quality of the cyclone is lightweight thus adding its lessening feel that it won't last forever. Thankfully Hoover have marked on a Lock and Un lock sign with arrows to show the user how to lock it back in. If you don't put the cyclone back in, you won't be able to use the machine. Let me assure you, when emptying the bin be prepared to get covered in a lot of dust. For consumers with allergies, forget this model!

Other Downsides

The exhaust filter located at the back of the Telios at the top between the on/off pedal and auto cord rewind pedal revealed a lot of dust, particularly granite hard dust which whilst the foam filter is good at retaining, the moment you get it on your hands is the moment the dust comes off the foam. This is possibly a problem with this model in general because I've never suffered this trait with paper-bagged versions of the model.

6 metres of cord is the maximum amount of cord available on this model. This is actually fair and it whips back into the machine once the pedal for the cord rewind has been pressed. Because of it's acrylic clear look, the pedals do have markings on them but they are hard to locate which pedal is for what function if you have never owned a Telios model before and sometimes the pedal doesn't work very well.

The User Manual

Two user booklets are supplied with the Telios TC2665. Firstly, there is an additional "explanation" to the removal of the dust box and it's accompanying filters. Like Numatic though, the manual lacks actual wording, using poorly drawn diagrams of the model to show what you get on the machine and how to use it. The second booklet shows users how to fix the tubes together and in general how to set up the model in question. It's a shame then that for the price you pay, you don't receive an exclusive manual, and unless you know what you have bought you need to pinpoint actual diagrams to what you get on the machine.

Final Thoughts

Six years on, if you do see a Hoover Telios Cyclonic up for grabs either on Gumtree, Friday-Ads, EBay.co.uk or any other online auction site do yourself a favour and steer clear of this vacuum cleaner. It has taken Hoover UK the best part of 15 years to get over their likewise poorly built Dustmanager uprights that use the same cyclonic cassette and has proved to be very unpopular with a lot of buyers - despite claims that that the dust box was improved in 2010, which it wasn't really. Particularly suffering from the same fate as the Telios where the dust box has to be emptied and the filter has to be cleaned each time you use the machine, it isn't a healthy proposition and the bagged vacuums are better for containing the dirt as well as only having to face the bag when it is time to take it out and replace with another.

Otherwise after a week's use the vacuum just refuses to suck up anything and just makes a lot of noise and puts out a lot of hot air. It is also a pity that Hoover should have dulled the Telios experience completely by not designing a proper cyclonic system for it. Hoover in other European countries are just about to bring out a new Telios bagged cylinder vacuum - and if it does appear on Hoover's UK books, I sincerely hope they don't mess it up by bringing out a reminiscent cyclonic version that is as bad as the original. Thanks for reading. (c)Nar2 2012