Hey everyone,

We're doing some research on car vacuums and would love to hear from real truck owners. Whether you use a handheld vacuum, shop vac, or cordless model, your feedback is greatly appreciated.

As a thank-you for your valuable feedback, we'll randomly select one participant to receive a set of Michelin Floor Mats.

If you were designing the perfect Wireless Car Vacuum for your truck, what would you improve first? When shopping for a car vacuum, what features matter most to you?

1. Suction power, is 7,500–24,000 Pa of suction enough?

2. Battery life, is 15–30 minutes of runtime enough?

3. Filtration system, any idea on the difference between: Cyclonic, HEPA, Cartridge, Foam, Mesh, etc.?

4. Charging Time, would a 3–4 hour charging time be acceptable?

5. Price, would 50$-100$ be acceptable?

6. Portability

7. Accessories

8. Brand

9. Other

What's your biggest frustration with your current car vacuum?

Thank you for sharing your experience! Your insights will help us better understand what vehicle owners are looking for in a car vacuum cleaner and support us in developing products that better meet their needs.

*You could check out our Michelin products on Amazon or our official website

 

I have a Rigid brand portable (hand held) that can keep up with dirt, but to CLEAN I have to get out the Stanley brand stainless plug in vacuum. I wish there was a good middle ground. I like the canister with a hose and a couple of attachments, and with as tall as these trucks are it seems you need at least 6 feet of hose. As I’ve looked around I really like the Milwaukee battery canister vac, it uses their 20V batteries, but my big cordless set is Rigid, and I also have smaller Milwaukee 12 tools ( ratchet, small impact etc). I hate to buy a single tool with a different style battery.

maybe come up with a nice vac( HEPA probably not needed since they’re used outside anyway) and instead of the cost of batteries, engineer in a method to utilize batteries from the major tool manufacturers and open your audience to a greater number of people.

 

We are currently FT in our camper, so space is of the essence. Currently, this is a big consideration for us. Also, to be fair, I don't use my truck like a "work" truck, but rather to haul my camper and the dogs around. When we ordered my truck we very specifically chose cloth seats and rubber floor mats. I personally don't care for leather seats and didn't like the look of the vinyl seats. So far, after almost 5 years and 73k miles, the cloth seats still look new to me. As for the floor, we covered them in Husky Contour mats, so even the rubber floor is covered.

I spend much more time cleaning the outside of the truck than I do the inside of the truck. Cleaning the inside is easy. We have a cordless Shark vacuum cleaner we use in the camper (a Dyson before that) and I simply connect the short attachment to it with the brush on the end, and this works great for regular every day cleaning. At times I may take a wet towel to the floor mats, or at times use the Meguiars Hyper Dressing on the floor mats to clean them up if need be, but this is very rare. After hauling the dogs around, it's just as easy... I raise the seats and throw a queen size blanket in the floor, then install a hammock in the back seat. It covers the backs of the front seats, the floor, and the back seats. When done, I pull this out and clean it with a hair/lint roller and if needed will just wash the hammock, and then I open all the doors of the truck and use a leaf blower to blow all the hair out. I will finish it off with the same Shark cordless vacuum cleaner and brush attachment. Quick and easy, and clean!

My wife bought me a small shop vac for Christmas one year, but I found it much more difficult to use. First, I had to plug it up somewhere (and the plugs in the truck didn't work for this...) then I was always fidgeting with the hose to get it to reach... then cleaning it out wasn't hard, but it wasn't near as easy as the hand held Shark vacuum... I just didn't find it to be enjoyable or useful, so it has been in storage...

Now, if I needed to do a deeper clean, I would have to rethink my strategy, but in 5 years, this has worked for me.

Saying that, if I were to think of a Shop Vac canister style vacuum, cordless would be the way to go, and I agree with Dave, it would be nice if it had adapters that allowed us to use our batteries from our current tools (Milwaukee in my case). A somewhat small canister that allowed us to move it around easily and fit in many places. And because of a small canister, I would prefer no wheels. Length of hose would be tougher... maybe have different lengths that we could choose from to most match our own needs, and the hose should be flexible, not stiff, so it can go around things without getting caught, or scratching up things as it was moved across them. As for attachments, I like the simple one with the brush. And to be specific, I don't like the super stiff bristles on the brush, but more of a softer bristle, so it doesn't scratch things up either. But, the brush seems to work things loose that may be a little stuck on, and it also helps pull up dog hair. To clean the vacuum out, it would be nice if I didn't have to remove the top from the bottom, but instead could just open a trap door on the bottom and let everything empty out that way. As for filters, a simple foam filter where the hose connects to the canister would be plenty, and also allow for easy access to clean it without having to disassemble the entire canister. Of course it would be good that the canister could be opened up for occasional deep cleanings of the inside, but not to empty it after each vacuum or to clean the filter...

Hope this helps!

 

I had a DustLess Hepa shop vac, mostly for drywall and renovation work. I also had an old Craftsman that was louder than it was effective, along with clogging filters after every use and frustrating that whomever designed use of tiny wheels that couldn't navigate over its own cord.... Neighbor had a small, compact Craftsman, that stored on their garage wall, and had long cord so not to need extension. I would like to see a corded/cordless model that no more than 30 mins of run, with on/off feature on the hose, a clear debris container to see when full, inexpensive consumables like the filter, crevice, soft-brush for dash, and thought-out design so its not clumsy to move about the interior. As Superdave71 suggested, much like Graco sprayer that uses DeWalt batteries, that would be nice option to use other make battery (but which one is the difficulty as some use Ryobi, Makita, Dewalt, Milwaukee, etc).
Funny, I was doing research and found that several commenters loved the Ryobi One+ 3 Gallon model - would be ideal for my needs. If it had a window or transparent debris bottom, and wasn't over $200 w/accessories, I might pick it up. I still need to replace the OEM carpet mats with weather-type mats.