Dyson Medic

Many Dyson compatible parts are made nowadays by a myriad of manufacturers that are of comparable quality, or even exceed the quality of the genuine Dyson parts.

Back telescopic hoses are a good example of this.

Back hoses are made for the DC01, DC04, DC07, DC14, DC15, DC24, DC25 and DC33 by other manufacturers. These are not always of good quality; indeed, one can easily find the poor quality ones on eBay for just a few pounds.

The better after-market sellers can be trusted to supply excellent quality after-market hoses at a significant saving over buying one from Dyson’s website.

However, it has been a source of disappointment in the trade for some time that nobody supplies a really good after-market DC04 hose. Two or three after-market producers market new DC04 back hoses, and have done for a few years, but none of them really touched the quality of the original Dyson DC04 hose.

We think the reason for this is that at the time after-market manufacturers were first making these, Dyson were [reputed to be] suing these companies over alleged breach of intellectual property rights at any opportunity. For ‘copying’ their parts.

Several large manufactures took on Dyson in court, and [are reputed to have] won.

After that, there did not have to be such an enormous drive to change the design of the after-market manufactured items so radically as to make them of lesser quality. As we saw with DC04 hoses.

However, when a manufacturer makes an after-market item like a back hose, it takes a pretty significant investment. They must commission tooling and large production runs – and that stuff isn’t cheap to do! It takes many tens of thousands of pounds to even bring an after-market item like a back hose to market.

That means you gotta be pretty confident that you are actually going to sell bucket loads of them.

This means that when an item turns out to be totally pants – as we have found all after-market versions of DC04 hoses to be, the manufactures inclination isn’t to begin to re-tool it and make a better item. They prefer to correct their mistakes on new items they can bring to market, as we see with some of the awesome DC07/DC14 and DC33 hoses that are now on the market.

That means the DC04 hoses never get redone – as we have seen – as they will be dying out in a few years anyway.

Better for the manufacturers to keep producing them, lower the price and lower the sector of the market they sell to. That way they stay in profit without re-tooling.

So what does that mean? It means you buy the crappy ones for a tenner on eBay and market stalls. And if you want a proper DC04 back hose, you must buy a genuine Dyson one.

But, you don’t have to buy genuine only from Dyson themselves…………. 

Such is the market that Dyson supply their parts to third party sellers via trade-only intermediaries. Discounts are minimal to allow the trader some profit margin, but there is competition out there. Depending on the buying clout of the individual seller in question.

So lets look at what a genuine Dyson DC04 hose will cost you at the time of writing:

Buy one from Dyson and you will pay £26.16 including shipping (and Dyson are not known to rush shipping).

Buy one from eSpares and you will pay £28.24 including shipping.

Buy one from Manchester Vacs and you will pay £25.99 including shipping. >>Click here to get one<<

Not a tremendous saving I grant you, but a couple of quid is a couple of quid after all.

My advice on non-genuine Dyson DC04 hoses right now is avoid them like the plague. Many don’t even fit to the machine, most have dire, cumbersome and badly designed locking mechanisms.

In the case of DC04 back hose – and I don’t often say this – the genuine Dyson one is the only one to get.