I too am a Vax man. Five years or so, I suppose. I do wonder about it...there's maybe a litre & a half of solution goes into the tank, and the sucked-up 'afters' can't be more than a quarter of that, so I guess the rest ends up in the carpets, but the 'quarter' is always really, really filthy, so that's reassuring. And the carpets certainly do look noticeably cleaner, so you have to call that a result. Put it this way, if it broke down, I'd get another one.