Dyson Medic

Dyson have made a reasonable selection of parts available for the DC07 machines since they were launched. One notable exception is components within, or part of, the cyclone unit itself.

That means they refuse to sell cyclone top handles, bin flap push rods, the bin flap release spring clip, bare cyclone units and a few other items.

Fortunately, you can buy all these things used. UK buyers can look >>here<< and those in the US and the rest of the world can look >>here<<.

But, it doesn’t answer the question of why Dyson refuse to supply cyclone component parts does it? Let’s look at cyclone tops as an example.

Dyson refuse to supply this part on its own new. They insist on selling a complete cyclone unit instead to maximize their profit. Nobody at all makes these after-market yet. Nobody sells them new.

It takes a practical bent to be able to fit one; its not a totally amateur job. That said, most practically inclined guys should be able to fit one. It requires no more technical knowledge than say, dropping the oil on your car.

Everybody has to make a few dollars I suppose; and I guess Dyson find it easier, and more profitable, to sell complete cyclone units to the general public, than fielding calls from confused housewives who don’t know how to fit what they bought.

However, if it were that simple, that wouldn’t prevent them being available to the trade would it? The trade can buy new almost any small component from a Dyson DC07. With the solitary exception of these cyclone tops. Let’s chew over why that might be shall we?

Recently, a chap bought one of these cyclone tops used from a parts supplier, and queried if he could buy a new one instead. When they told him no, he later approached Dyson, out of curiosity, to find out why not. A few emails were exchanged, and below is a portion of one of them:

Please rest assured that the information my colleague supplied you was correct. The cyclone is manufactured as a complete unit, this is due to the unit needing to be suction sealed to create the necessary fit to allow for optimal performance. If you were to separate the two sections and then fit a new top unit, the suction would be reduced.

In conclusion if the two parts were able to be supplied and fitted independently without causing a reduction in performance please rest assured that they would be, but unfortunately due to this reason we only supply the cyclone as a complete unit.

Well, in our opinion, that is complete rubbish.

This “suction seal” they refer to is a rubber o-ring around the unit, held in by three screws; hardly space age technology is it?

They are not “manufactured as one unit” because the cyclones are assembled from several different parts. They are purposely supplied as one unit by Dyson; that is not the same thing.

They refer to a reduction in performance. If that were the case, every DC07 ever sold reconditioned or serviced by a Dyson specialist would suffer a reduction in performance.

They assert that if you were “able to fit a new top unit, the suction would be reduced” – well duh, not if you refit the sealing ring.

Dyson train their staff quite well. Why would they train them to disseminate patently untrue information? A cynic might suggest that it is because they can rectify their own design fault (weak cyclone handles on pre-modification units, especially lavender and turquoise ones) and maximise revenue by selling complete cyclone units instead.

Dyson staff have been busted disseminating untruths on the Yahoo Answers and FixYa sites in the past. I assumed it was just inexperienced staff who were not qualified to answer the question. But perhaps this behaviour is more widespread than we have seen up to now.

What say you?