Miele Complete C3 Vacuum Review

This vacuum has excellent build quality. It has a sturdy plastic body, while its telescopic wand is made from stainless steel. The bottom of the head is aluminum, while its rubber-like wheels help it to move smoothly around your home. There are several thoughtful details in this vacuum's design. There's an LED light button on its handle to help you see in darker areas of your home, as well as an auto-cable winding button.

This vacuum is easy to assemble as most of its parts and tools clip to one another. However, you still need to connect the hose to the handle and wand before it's ready to use. You also need to insert its batteries to use the LED light.

This vacuum is outstandingly easy to maintain.

• Dirt compartment: This part is easily accessible by pressing the top cover lid. There are arrows to let you know how to take out the bag. It needs to be disposed of when full.
• Pre-motor filter: It's located behind the dirt compartment, and you can unclip it if you want to replace it. You should replace it after every four dirtbags.
• HEPA filter: The HEPA filter is located on the top back of the dirt compartment. It has a time strip on it to let you know when it needs to be replaced, too, which is after about one year of normal use.

As the vacuum head doesn't have a brushroll, you don't really have to worry about detangling hair from the vacuum.

This vacuum has a few recurring costs as three parts need to be replaced quite often. The dirtbag needs to be disposed of when full. The pre-motor filter needs to be replaced after every four dirtbags, depending on your usage, while the HEPA filter needs to be replaced when its time strip turns red, which is estimated at 50 hours of normal use. Luckily, you can buy all of these parts from Miele directly. Consider the SEBO Airbelt D4 if you're looking for a premium bagged canister vacuum that incurs significantly lower recurring costs, as it uses much larger dirtbags and has filters with a much longer service life.

This vacuum has decent storage compatibilities. Like the Miele Classic C1, you can store your tools and brushes directly on the vacuum to help save space. It also has an automatic retractable cable.

This vacuum has a great-sized dirt compartment. Although Miele advertises that this dirtbag can hold 4.5L, we measured much less. It can still hold a lot of debris. There's also an indicator to tell you when the dirt compartment is full.

• Telescopic wand
• Handle
• Hose
• 1x Bag
• 1x HEPA filter
• 1x Pre-motor filter
• Main head
• Crevice tool
• Upholstery tool
• Soft brush
• 3x AAA batteries (for handle LED light)
• Vacuum canister
• User guide

This vacuum has an alright range. Its cord length is a bit longer than the Miele Classic C1, but you still may have to change outlets if you're cleaning a big room. If you want a canister vacuum with an even longer range, check out the NaceCare HVR 200 Henry.

This vacuum has decent portability. It's quite heavy, but it feels lighter in your hands. There's also a carrying handle to help you bring it up and down stairs.

This is a corded vacuum. It does use three AAA batteries, but this is for its LED handle light.

The Miele Complete C3 has a suction power control feature that can be raised or lowered to seven different levels: Min. (curtains), Furniture, Rugs, Auto, Ear (quiet mode), Carpet, and Bare Floor. There's also an LED light on the handle, which can help you clean dark, shadowy parts of your home. When the vacuum head is placed in the stored position, the vacuum automatically turns off, which is a nice touch.

This vacuum comes with a couple of different tools. There's a soft bristle brush for cleaning more delicate objects, as well as a crevice tool and an upholstery tool. You can store all of them in the vacuum's body, which is convenient.

You can use this vacuum in a handheld mode by connecting a brush or tool to its handle, which is handy for cleaning inside your car or hard-to-reach places.

This vacuum's single-pass performance on hard floors is mediocre. While the C3 itself is plenty powerful and easily clears away finer debris, the bristles on its SBD 285-3 floorhead are too closely spaced to allow it to pass over large and medium-sized material like cereal or rice, causing it to push around this type of material. When dealing with this kind of debris, you'll need to lift the vacuum head so that the vacuum can suck everything up. Alternatively, you could also consider purchasing Miele's Parquet Twister head, which has less closely packed bristles, allowing it to more easily pass over large material.

When used with its straight-suction SBD 285-3 floorhead, this vacuum struggles on high-pile carpet. While its powerful suction motor enables it to easily clear away finer, lightweight debris like sand, its floorhead simply isn't high enough to pass over medium and large debris like rice or sand. If you want to deal with this kind of debris on this surface type, consider purchasing a floorhead with a brushroll that provides more surface agitation on carpets, like the SEB 217-3 powerhead or the height-adjustable SEB 228 powerhead.

As with its performance on high-pile carpet, this vacuum isn't well-suited to low-pile carpet when used with the SBD 285-3 floorhead. It's more than powerful enough to suck up fine debris like sand worked into carpet fibers, but the straight-suction head simply pushes around larger debris like rice or cereal instead of allowing the vacuum to pass over it; you'll need to lift the vacuum head to clear away this kind of debris.

This vacuum has a hard time dealing with pet hair worked into low-pile carpeting. Its straight-suction SBD 285-3 floorhead simply doesn't provide the sufficient level of surface agitation to deal with pet hair worked into carpet fibers. If you're a pet owner with a lot of low-pile carpeting, consider purchasing a C3 variant that comes bundled with a powerhead or an air-driven turbo head, like the STB 305-3 head.

The Miele C3 has great suction power at its floorhead, making it easier to clear debris in cracks or stubborn messes. You can adjust its suction power using buttons on its canister body.

The Miele Complete C3 offers superb airflow performance. Its powerful 1200W motor and efficient filtration and bag system enable it to easily lift all kinds of heavy household debris.

The Miele Complete C3 is pretty quiet. With the vacuum running in its 'Auto' power setting, you won't have much trouble hearing what people nearby are saying, even with the vacuum running in the same room. It is noticeably louder in its 'Max' suction mode, but this level of noise is still very bearable and won't be too disruptive for people nearby.

This vacuum has excellent maneuverability. Thanks to its rubber-like wheels, it rolls smoothly as it moves around the room. The LED light is pretty bright and can help you illuminate dark areas of your home, like under couches, as you clean. When using the extendable wand, its reach under furniture is very good, although the head can fall on the storage clip on the wand, which causes it to not lay completely flat on the floor. It's easy to clean around electrical cords, though, and while it can suck up rug tassels, the vacuum head mostly moves around it.

This vacuum does a fantastic job of dealing with pet hair on upholstered furniture when used with its upholstery tool. It easily clears away both long and short strands of hair within one or two passes. It's also very easy to maneuver on this surface.

The Miele Complete C3 is very effective at sealing in fine allergens, thanks to its three-stage filtration system. That said, the entry-level Alize variant we tested doesn't come with a HEPA-rated post-motor filter, so you're better off buying one separately or springing for a pricier version of the C3 that comes bundled with one, like the C3 Marin.

The Miele Complete C3 is exceptionally good at cleaning debris from cracks. When using its floorhead, it easily cleans debris in shallow, medium, and full-depth cracks, with only a very small amount left behind in very deep crevices. If you want an even more thorough clean, you can always detach its wand and use its crevice tool.

The Miele Complete C3 does a terrible job of removing stains, which isn't what it's designed for.

This vacuum isn't designed to deal with liquid spills.

This vacuum has no automation features.