Have to agree, the DC04 was a good machine, and the colours were good too. My favourite ones were the DeStijl, and the Limited edition pink and purple. They were better than the DC01 in that they had washable filters, and they had clutches too.

Its interesting how Dyson has gone backwards over the years regarding filter washing. On the DC07, it was recommended to wash the filter every 6 months, but on the later DC50, this is now every 1 month. The DC07 was actually very good at keeping the pre-motor filter clean (well, those that were de-rooted were anyway). The less powerful they have become, the more dust that gets to the pre-motor filter.

DC04 Pink and Purple, and yes, despite the fact I don't like modern Dysons, I did like the older models a lot. I still do own all these machines.

It wasn't when I bought it - it was actually a bit of a wreck, that I paid a tenner for off ebay, just like the Pink and Purple one. They had to have a lot of TLC.

This was the ebay ad picture for the pink and purple, it cost me a fiver, non working - cable broken:

I still think the later models, with smaller motors, dirtied the premotor filter a lot quicker than the early models.

I ran a DC07 for years, and it very rarely needed any cleaning of the premotor filter. Aside from the extreme noise, they were actually very effective at filtering the dust. I think Dyson over engineered what was essentially a good design. More cyclones do not mean less filter maintenance, so why bother with so many? Personally I think it was solely for the sake of releasing new models, to keep sales up.

I still think after 2007, and the economic crash, Dyson started skimping on quality, with more plastic and less metal.

The backbones on the pre DC25 uprights were very sturdy with metal wands. These were good machines. Now, they are all plastic, and when I tried out a DC41 in Currys, I was disappointed how flimsy the backbone of the machine was, and also the more frequent filter maintenance.

People might think I'm a Dyson hater - I wasn't, up until quite recently, and I've owned and refurbed a fair few Dysons over the years. I think Dyson has just got too greedy and profit hungry now he's established his name, and his current offerings of all ball designs don't appeal to all. He should still be offering a wheeled upright - an upgrade of the DC33 if you like.

Also, with the move to Malaysia, his prices should have come down, to reflect cheaper production costs, but they have gone up, and I feel he has a bit of a cheek to ask for so much. He's made his fortune, so its time his machines became more reasonably priced.

I've seen a fair few DC41's on ebay where one side of the "ball" has broken off - they seem a poor design. Its a good job they offer a 5 year warranty, because there stands a very big chance you will need to claim on it.

(1967 posts - I've caught up with Alexhoovers94 - yay!)

One of the selling points of the early Dysons was ease of clearing blockages, with removeable blockage check points. As I said earlier, in his attempt to make his vacs smaller, he's over engineered them, and made them too fussy and fragile. People knock their vacs about, and the DC41 just isn't up to hard use. Later model DC07's and the DC14 were fairly robust, unless users left them in the sunlight and then the plastic went brittle and was liable to shatter. The cyclone assembly on old DC07's can be incredibly fragile, as I found out to my cost

The problem was people moaned about the early models and especially the DC15 first ball model being too heavy. That's why the DC03 did so well, particularly with old folks, as it was a lighter model to pick up.

I think the DC03 only had a 700w motor, and as mine is in the loft, I'm not going up there to check lol

I'll not be selling my Dysons - after all, they are still vacuums, and I want to preserve them for years to come. The DC15 will be very collectable on day, as they didn't sell that well, and were quickly replaced with the DC18, which also didn't sell terribly well.

You could always bid on the NIB Dysons on Ebay at the moment, theres a DC01, DC04's DC05, DC07 and DC14 all new in box (in case you had missed the hysteria about these that's dominated Vacuumland this last week!)

Why don't you bid for the DC01 from CeeJay? Its a bargain Tayyab!

I'm sure Josh (Dys0nb0y) wants the new DC01, he wants both the DC04's and the DC05 turbo as well, now he really IS a Dyson fanatic.