Bissell spotclean pro vs spotclean pet pro

"Having a furry friend at home brings the much-needed happiness to your life but it might often lead to undesired stains. To help you out in these messy situations, we have developed the BISSELL SpotClean Pet Pro portable carpet cleaner.

The BISSELL SpotClean Pet Pro helps remove spots and stains from almost every carpeted surface you find using water, BISSELL solution, and handheld cleaning tools with powerful suction. From high-traffic areas and stairs to upholstery, car interiors, and more, you have the ideal cleaner in the SpotClean Pet Pro. The Stain Trapper Tool sprays, scrubs and suctions extra-gross, extra-stinky messes. Messes are collected and stored in a separate, removable container that twists off for easy emptying and disposal. This unique tool keeps pet and other liquid messes inside the tool and out of your machine. The ability to quickly erase your pet’s stains is finally here with the BISSELL SpotClean Pet Pro!"

• Remove embedded dirt and pet stains with this portable spot cleaner that combines powerful suction, brush action and cleaning formula.
• Easily clean carpet, stairs, pet beds, upholstery, area rugs, car interiors, and more with SpotClean Pet Pro portable carpet cleaner.
• Clean more area without having to fill and empty the tank as often with a large capacity of 2.8L.
• It comes with a special Stain Trapper Tool which is great for extra gross pet messes. It stores them in a separate, small removable container, which keeps pet messes inside the tool and outside of your machine. 
• Reach farther while cleaning area rugs, stairs, upholstery, and more with a 6.5 m power cord and a 1.5 m built-in hose.
  

If you have any type of embedded stain or an odour that you need to shift, a spot cleaner is one of the most effective ways of shifting them and leaving behind fully cleaned fabric. There are cheaper solutions (like upholstery cleaner) that will give you some success, but to nail the stain you’ll be needing something like the BISSELL SpotClean Pet Pro.

BISSELL is perhaps the best-known domestic spot cleaner brand and the SpotClean Pet Pro is the most expensive of the brand’s lineup. Designed to remove stains and odours in one (especially from pet accidents), it’s a premium option from a brand that’s garnered a reputation for excellence. To see whether the cost is worth the results, we’re putting one to the test.

Built to last

The central point of a good spot cleaner is portability, these devices exist to reach the spots an upright carpet cleaner would struggle to reach, and as most cars aren’t designed to look like a room, a spot cleaner is the best way to properly deal with interior stains.

For a portable device, the SpotClean Pet Pro is a little on the bulky side. It’s brilliantly designed and full of neat ergonomic touches, it’s just rather big. The generous dirt tank, for example, features a clever locking system that means it’s always locked in the correct place and there’s no chance that you’ll accidentally spill the murky water onto your shoes. Perhaps the sole plus point to the size is that you won’t need to stop to empty the 2.8-litre tank very often. Cleaning an entire car seat removed a load of dirt and debris and yet barely filled the tank.

The rest of the design is just as clever, but still on the larger side. The 1.5-metre hose is neatly held in place and can be fully extended really quickly, the same can also be said for the 6.5-meter power cord. There’s a simple trigger to squirt the shampoo onto the fabric, although it does start to hurt your hands after a while.

The sturdy feel of every touchable piece is reassuring for the long-term durability of the device but also helps explain the hefty 5.8kg weight before any cleaning solution has been added. It’s a fair workout lifting the SpotClean Pet Pro around the car, especially if the cockpit is small and finickity to navigate. The best practice we found was to balance the body on the seat that wasn’t currently being cleaned, thankfully easily done with the generous cord lengths.

SpotClean verses dirt

Look at the brown sludgy in the tank, that came from a single seat in a car, a newish (2017) Vauxhall Corsa that’s semi-regularly vacuumed. That’s how good the BISSELL is at removing deeply-embedded dirt and grime from fabric, most of it pulled up with the first pull of the extractor. Most embedded stains were expertly dealt with too, but a fair bit of saturation from the included shampoo was required. The 750W motor is excellent, impressively powerful for something that tackles such a small area. That meant it not only pulled stains out of fabrics, it restored the pile too, making the fabric look and feel new.

Switching to the home and the SpotClean Pet Pro worked even better than in the car. It worked effectively on any fabric surface we could slip it on, effortlessly removing stains from a white rug and stone-coloured armchair. It expertly fills the void for any surface a regular carpet cleaner would struggle to reach.

Part of the appeal of a spot cleaner is that it pulls the dirt and shampoo out the fabric, leaving behind a relatively dry surface. The BISSELL faired relatively well here, flat surfaces were mostly dry with a single pass of the tool, with perhaps the odd second go required for any surface that had been particularly saturated in the name of stain removal. On curved surfaces however, the head did struggle to lift the liquid in one go adequately, it called for multiple passes and small adjustments to collect the shampoo.

The included Stain Trapper attachment is a clever gadget designed for use on particularly harsh, baked-in stains. It pulls the stain out of the carpet into a smaller tank for easier emptying and proved excellent for carpet stains.   

Any downsides?

The main issue we found during testing was that the BISSELL was an ungainly machine to move about. The big size meant that moving it through narrow openings (like rear doors) posed an impact risk while carrying the unit quickly led to tired arms. It may be powerful and commodious, but it really could do with being a little lighter, smaller or using some small wheels in the name of practicality. The size could also make storage an issue when the device isn’t in use, worth remembering when choosing a spot cleaner.

Other than the packaging concerns, the only other issue we found was the price. There’s no escaping the fact that the BISSELL SpotClean Pet Pro is an excellent spot cleaner, it’s just that it’s priced a fair amount more than its competition.

Price and competition

The BISSELL SpotClean Pet Pro was used on a variety of upholstered surfaces on a range of cars, both new and used. It was used to clean seats, carpet mats and the boot floor to examine how practical and portable it was. The BISSELL was also used on an upholstered chair and rug to examine how it performed around the home.

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