Sebo introduced a new model of vacuum in North America, it's called the CE12. So of course, we had to import one and have a look at it.



There a topic on it >>here on the forum<< and that has links to our blog article and unboxing and floor test video.

You'll struggle to buy a new one. There's a couple of different heads, if it is the larger one, the belt number is 05276-01-0104 and we have a good used one. If it's a different one, let me know the number and I can look.

I am presuming you have stripped it down already and actually seen the snapped belt? Because they very seldom snap and the head not turning is usually related to the internal turbine breaking.

Yes, the cylinder and upright YDK motors are the same motor, just one has a shorter spindle.

It's not that what is out there now is inherently bad per se, rather it's a bit of a lottery. They might last a fortnight or three years. We see a higher failure rate than we used to and that is down to suppliers (and this is all of them, not just Quаltex) all wanting to be the cheapest on the platforms such as Amazon and eBay. And when they want to source cheaper, that means the Chinese factories cut corners and use cheaper components. Even the boxes are cheaper and thinner than they used to be. 

The majority are still not too bad, but stories like AA958's do pop up. We are mostly using Europart Maddocks motors now (actually, we source very little from Quаltex nowadays), but they have the TCO on the inside, and people used to be sniffy about that, but again, that is a cost-cutting measure as it's a bit cheaper to do.

This relentless drive for cheaper prices has created a vicious cycle where profit margins for big suppliers are increasingly squeezed. With each attempt to outdo competitors on price, there's a compounding pressure to further reduce costs, often at the expense of product reliability and longevity. As a result, the industry finds itself caught in a race to the bottom, where the true cost of cutting corners only becomes apparent when customers experience failures and dissatisfaction with the products they've purchased.

Let's do a back of the fag packet calculation. Taking into account the current price of £17.48 of a Quаltex motor on Amazon, subtracting Amazon's 20% cut, VAT, and delivery costs to you, and assuming a modest £2-4 profit per unit, each motor must be manufactured, shipped, and have duties and VAT paid, all totalling to around £6-8 per unit. Which leaves perhaps £4 for the cost in China. £4 doesn't buy you a lot of motor in China.

It varies, but as I said above, they are all much of a muchness now.

I did toy with the idea of having some done by the company that used to do the old MTR240KK that Quаltex used to sell years ago. They were very good motors. However, they'd need to be priced at about £30. And they are bulky and heavy to store in quantity.

Getting the message out to people that they would be *much* better than what is currently available would be challenging, so sales would be slow. That and the fact that the machines that take them are fading away too would make it a poor investment.

So we are all stuck with mediocre YDK motors now.

MVACS sorry to hijack the thread and go slightly off topic, is this the case with upright motors too?

I havent touched my Dyson's for a few yonks, but starting back up now. Currently got a few genuine motors in my stock to use up first, but been using up my Ametek's fitting them to all the DC04s i've been doing to save the YDKs for newer models, and will no doubt soon need to get some motors as running low.

My concern is if new motors are decreasing in quality i'll be not wanting to fit those to customers machines, and if so i'll have to raid my personal machines for good Genuine YDKs. My personal machines are one of each model DC04, 3x of which already converted to Ameteks, the rest running a bunch of YV511s and YV2200s but if needs be i'll have to convert them all to Ametek (minus the Zorbster obvs) and save the YDKs for the later models to sell, making do with some fitted with YV511s, do you think this will be the best approach? As I don't want customers suffering with reliability problems with aftermarket stuff, and keeping my stock of Ametek's wont be much use as I doubt DC04s will sell too well these days so i'm pretty much building up machines out of my stockpile of parts to clear DC04s before they go completely unsellable. i'm thinking if reliability of new stuff is a concern it'll be either that, or i'll have to get a stock up on plenty of genuine motors.

Cheers, K-y-l-e. (Sorry forgot we had to do this years ago, and once again still years on my apologies for the hassle I caused )

I'm fairly sure it's not. I've got 2 X4s and both have that plain bearing/bushing in the same slightly complicated looking fitting. It seems to have some movement to allow it to accomodate the brush shaft/relative angles when refitting etc, but it doesn't rotate. Edit: not meant to rotate is what I meant, reply to title e.g. it probably is working.

Sam is right, they tilt and move a bit, but don't spin as such. The shaft of the brushroll spins within it, seemingly without a proper bearing. It sounds honky plonky but it works very well. But just to confuse you, Sebo call it a "bearing block".