Shark Sonic Duo Carpet and Hard Floor Cleaner (ZZ550)

I LOVE this Shark Sonic Duo Carpet and Hard Floor Cleaner. I had paid a professional carpet cleaning company to come and try to clean the heavy traffic areas in my bedroom ... $70.00 later it was no cleaner than it was before. I was just about to call a contractor to come and give me an estimate on ripping out the carpet and put in tiles, when my sister-in-law told me how much she loved her Shark Sonic Duo. So I thought I'd give it a try. I already have two shark (hardwood) floor cleaners and I really love them too. Anyway, I'm sorry that I didn't take *before* pictures of just how horrible the carpets looked ... a really dark grey color along the path to the washroom. This is one of the best purchases I've made in a long, long time. I was really skeptical but truly, it worked wonderfully. I did a bit of an experiment which I will show in the picture below (if amazon allows me to post it). Section A: Was the dirtiest and it ended up coming out the cleanest. In this section I used the Shark Sonic Duo and the Shark carpet solution (that came with the cleaner). Section B: I had a brand new can of carpet cleaner (spray then vacuum when dry) solution from the Dollar Store. I wanted to compare the difference between the Shark solution and the less expensive alternative. I just sprayed lots on and left it (no scrubbing). Section C: I used the Dollar Store spray again, but this time I used the Shark Duo to scrub it in. It came out a lot better than B but no where near as good as A. So the clear winner for me was using the Shark Sonic Due machine and the Shark carpet cleaning solution. I also really liked the way it made my white ceramic floor tiles look. I am soooo happy with this item and I'm so impressed with the solutions. I highly recommend this item.

I'm not the kind of person who gets excited about appliances, and I'm a self employed entrepreneur who hates cleaning. However, this is, by far, the best money I've ever spent on any kind of cleaning equipment. I have an 80-year old home which I cherish. It has hardwood floors throughout, except for the kitchen, where there is faux-wood laminate. That laminate is on my list to eventually replace, but until I can do that, I need it to be clean. I am on a special diet and cannot eat out much, so we cook several times a week. Every other cleaning device and solution I've used has left a film on the floor. The Sonic Duo cleaned thoroughly, with no film. The floor had so much ground in dirt that I removed the pad and hand washed it three times. I read other reviewers complain about how quickly the pad gets dirty. Well, that's because it's doing its job! Some people can be so picky! I just hand wash it with good dish washing liquid and hot water, put it back on, and finish cleaning. Then when I am done cleaning for the day I run it through the washing machine and line dry it. My gorgeous hardwood floors get a lot of compliments from guests. The Duo does an outstanding job on those as well. Finally, I have a beautiful area rug in the living room in a very high traffic area. . It's base color is tan, and it's been so dirty lately I considered replacing it--until I used the Duo on it. It took 3 passes over the dirtiest parts to get out the ground in dirt, but with one cleaning the Duo has more than paid for itself! In addition, the thing is easy and even fun to use. You just set it up, flip it on, and guide it around. I wish someone would make a hand held version of the shark for cleaning counter tops, kitchen cabinets, and other surfaces that must be hand cleaned. I did several hours' of research before I purchased this item. It is hard to find in stores. I cannot understand why. I think it ought to be flying off the shelves! The cleaning solution is also hard to find. Note: I bought the refurbished model and it did not come with the solution samples that I understand the full priced models include. While you are ordering the Duo, I recommend ordering the solution bottles and extra sets of pads. Doing so will save you aggravation later. They are highly concentrated. I've now done my entire house and used only about a tenth of the solution.

I WOULD give this seller a zero if I could, and give the product a half-point. (1) The seller did not send me the size of bottles advertised in their ad & picture (32ounce). Instead I got small 8oz bottles. (2)The product I received is unusable as it stands. The handle of the product (where it joins the bottom half of the unit just above the solutions bottle) keeps detaching, LITERALLY EVERY 5 SECONDS DURING USE. Well frankly, it detaches when you lift it up too. ABOSOLUTELY USELESS because you cannot manoever the product back and forth as required to clean the carpet. Its clear this has something to do with the way the tab on the handle isn't aligned properly with the hole on the lower half of the unit for it to "click" and keep the handle on. An engineering defect. There was absolutely no way I could rectify this myself. === I love the way the product works... ... but it's a back-breaking proposition to use it BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BEND OVER & HOLD BOTH PARTS TOGETHER WHEN USING === <<<sheesh>>> The handle never clicks in, keeps detaching, and there are essential electrical wires running between the two halves so when it's dangling or falls apart at 1,000 revs per minute, you KNOW eventually this product will break. I TRIED CONTACTING SHARK WITH NO SUCCESS. Just try to find a Customer Service phone number or email for those jerks. I would have refunded it if I knew of the problem, but it remained in the box for the first 30 days and so that option was not available to me. It has only been used ONCE because of that crazy, back-breaking defect. Frankly, I like the results, but I need the manufacturing defect FIXED This has been an exercise in frustration AND I WOULD CAUTION ANYBODY who wants to buy this product. As I said the item works great, but the manufacturing defect is intolerable AND you have no way of reaching Customer Service to determine if there's a quick fix I can do at home (or to ask for a repair or replacement).

Love this machine, I wanted to really put it to the test and shampooed over 40 year old carpet that was deeply soiled, I couldn't believe how well it did. it took out just about every stain that had been there for all those years. on a few stubborn stains besides using the spot remover I also used Dawn some of the dark stains I thought looked like grease or oil, it took those stains out as well. on hard wood floors works great, I have brick floors that are very difficult to clean with all the cracks and porous texture, it did great on them as well. UPDATE: my machine stopped spraying after I used it fir about 8 times but the company was great , was not hard to contact them they guided me through instructions on how to check out the sprayer , that didn't work, so they provided me with information to send it for repair or a refund I chose the repair, the item was defective so the replaced it with a new one, plus let me keep all the accessories that came with the first one and gave me all the accessories with the 2nd machine, plus they included a drip pan and large refill bottle as well at no extra cost. I have not had any problems with the second machine. it works great, I lent it to my neighbor to do her carpets she couldn't believe how clean her carpets came out they are now looking into buying one for themselves.I highly recommend this product. I think the people who wrote the bad reviews didn't give the machine or Company enough chance to see how great this machine really is. I question if they were using it incorrectly or maybe changed the cleaning solutions or used a different solution thinking it would clean just as well.

I really like this floor cleaner as it is easy to use and the swivel head is very functional. I have model zz550. This is not the machine they sell on the Shark website so I don't know if this is an older version of the machine. In any case, I really like using it therefore clean much more often. The only thing that irritated me is that the 12 oz. bottle of the hard floor cleaner is NOT reusable. I figured out that out when I ran out of cleaner in the middle of cleaning my floor. I had previously purchased more concentrated cleaner from Shark in anticipation of using the 12 oz. bottle that came with the machine as the "reusable bottle". Not so. Reusable bottles cost $12,95 on the Shark website. I did a little reading to see what else I didn't know. The hard floor polisher should not be put in a reusable bottle and go through the machine. It should be squirted directly on the floor. If you accidentally have the hard floor polisher go through the machine, put warm water in the reusable bottle to flush it through. Overall it is a great machine, the 4 stars reflects my irritation of not having all the tools needed for ongoing use of the machine without an additional purchase.

This may sound like hyperbole. I love this machine. I originally bought the NV22L Navigator vacuum because I am a shark science interpreter and I liked the name. My housekeeper loves the pet hair attachment. We both like that it is purple. After many disappointing visits by professional carpet cleaners who told us the stains wouldn't come out I decided to hunt down a carpet cleaner, or the carpet was going to be torn out! Shark Sonic Duo ZZ550 is ZZtops! With a few messy cats/people, wind blown sand from the beach and nearby refineries and harbor traffic spewing oil laden crap my housekeeper was dubious. I was hopeful. We read the directions together, loving the ease and color coded system. The tray is handy to place a cleaning pad in and placing ZZ on top. The Activation Pretreater Carpet Stain and Order Remover (APCSOR) works, read the directions and use. The long cord makes life easy as does the 180 degree swivel which precluded a lot of furniture moving. The foot tabs on the pads make removal easy. I am glad the directions told about over heating because in our zealousness ZZ did over heat after about 30 minutes. After we and ZZ cooled down we tackled the rug in the cats bathroom. I am impressed. I wish I had known to order more APCSOR and shampoo. I am a bit disappointed that ZZ is white, but hey it matches my tom, Charlie Yamaha AKA Streak. Enjoy using ZZ

I've had many Sonic Duo cleaners and I love them. They just wear out too quickly as I use it every day for my work. The refurbished worked as expected and was in nice shape. However, it didn't come with any carpet solution, pretreat carpet stain or the actual concentrate. It just came with the pads and one filled bottle of solution and an empty carpet solution bottle. As described it should have come with those things. I could have ordered from ebay and gotten those things. I chose Amazon for the free delivery.

The thing to keep in mind with good cleaner with regard to carpets is the way it's intended to clean. Many years ago, you had vacuums and carpet shampooers. The premise behind a shampooer is you used this machine to put down a solution of water and carpet shampoo and scrub it into a a lather. You then let it dry and vacuum up the dried lather. That's how it was, once upon a time. It didn't clean into the pad or into the weave of the carpet, just the fibers. Enter the deep steam cleaner. Then come these devices that shoot steam with a little cleaning solution into the carpet, where it cools, turns from vapor to liquid, and gets sucked back out by the machine, all in a single pass. It has a tank to store dirty water that has to be emptied, etc. These cleaners tout being able to clean into the weave of the carpet, into the pad, etc, but they don't scrub and lather the way a shampooer does. These have been the popular carpet cleaning solution for a number of years now, with shampooers being less popular. In my opinion (which is just based on logic and personal experience, not professional experience), both types of cleaners have pros and cons. But I think if you are working with a new carpet and vacuum/shampoo regularly from Day One, then it's a a great solution. I think if your carpet is older or hasn't been vacuumed/shampooed regularly, then a steam cleaner might be more effective. The Shark Sonic Duo is closer to the notion of a shampooer, where you use it to squirt down its specific cleaner(essentially carpet shampoo), and then run the moving heads with the cleaning pads over it numerous times. I noticed it builds up quite a lather as you do. You are then supposed to let it dry and vacuum. I noticed it didn't look cleaner until after vacuuming. I also feel it is important to have a vacuum with a powerful brush to get the full effect. One with a non-moving brush does not seem like it would be as effective.