Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine Review

This yellow canister packs a punch with its rotating brush head and long reach. With 24 feet of cord and a long wand, you'll be able to vacuum those stairs with ease. The 4.2-liter bag is the largest of all the bags or dirt cups on the canister vacuums we tested, and that means you won't need to change bags so often. With average ratings overall, this little yellow vacuum is also easy to use and handle and manages to pick up debris on hardwood relatively well. There are many great attributes with the Miele C3 Calima, but some pretty disappointing ones too.

Performance Comparison

Carpet Performance

Most buy a vacuum cleaner exclusively to clean the carpet. Therefore, carpet cleaning garners 25% of the overall score for each vacuum. We worked hard at vacuuming up rice, Cheerios, and sand on both low and high-pile carpeting. Those three kinds of debris are usually pretty difficult for a vacuum cleaner to pick up, which is why we chose them. The Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine captured 90.9% of our mess created on low-pile carpet. This was a decent performance, but the brush head got overwhelmed by the amount of debris and clogged the opening, stopping the roller. Additionally, the roller brush spun so fast that it sprayed the rice. On high-pile carpet, it only picked up 50.9% of the debris. This was a huge drop off compared to our low-pile tests.

Hardwood Performance

We placed a cup and a half of Cheerios, rice, and sand on our hardwood test floor. We then vacuumed for 24 seconds, weighing how much we collected in the end. Impressivelym the C3 collected 98.8% of what we placed on the ground. We then placed sand in a crevice of a bamboo slat. Unfortunately, it didn't do as well here, only cleaning 59.05% of the sand from the slat.

Then we placed two tablespoons of coffee grounds along a wall's edge. We conducted two tests here, approaching the grounds head on towards the wall and moving parallel to the wall. The Miele C3 only left a small bit behind when moving head on, but got all the coffee when moving parallel to the edge.

Ease of Use

We gave ease of use 20% of the total score and broke this metric down into three tests: maneuverability, ease of cleaning, and upholstery/attachments. The Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine smoothly glides over various floor types. You are able to power on and off the unit, retract the cord, and change the suction settings with your foot, so you don't need to bend down. The unit is lightweight at 15.7 pounds and rolls easily behind you with three castor wheels making it easy to steer. The swivel is very smooth and the brush head easily fit under the couch and table.

The Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine is fairly easy to care for. The disposable bags fit into a slot in the cavity. They have a small handle to pull them out, and arrows match up on the bags to let you know you've replaced it correctly. The machine features built-in storage for the attachments, making it harder to misplace them. When tested, the upholstery attachment was very effective. We sprinkled coffee grounds on a throw pillow, and the machine had no trouble picking it all up. The vacuum even has an upholstery setting to kick back the power.

Pet Hair

Our next series of tests is dedicated to the pet owners. We collected pet hair from our pets and brought it in for testing. We massaged it into high and low pile carpets. Then we set the Miele C3 to work, weighing how much it cleaned and comparing it to the before weight. Unfortunately, the Miele only cleaned 22% of the hair off of the low-pile carpet. Instead of sucking it in, it moved the hair around the rug, with longer stands getting rolled up in the roller. It did better with high-pile carpet, but still only captured 68%.

Filtration and Suction

Our final tests were surrounding filtration and suction. To evaluate filtration, we used a Dylos particle counter to measure the number of small and large particles released by the machine. Ideally, none escape, especially when HEPA filters are involved. The Miele Complete C3 did exceptionally here, with our average peak for small particles being 26 and large being 14.5. While these numbers might not be extremely intuitive, simply put, this machine doesn't spray particles back out into the air. It has an extensive filtration system that includes an AirClean exhaust filter, AirClean filter bag, and a HEPA motor filter.

Next, we tested unsealed suction to give an accurate representation of how this vacuum will perform on your floors. Our testing floor has a small hole in it which is connected to a manometer, which tells us pressure. The Miele Complete C3 delivered 871 Pa, which is the middle of the pack.

Should you buy the Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine?

The hardwood performance of the Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine was wonderful, but the underwhelming performance it gave in pet hair testing was simply unsatisfactory. For what you'd pay for this canister vacuum, it should clean all the surfaces perfectly and do the laundry, too. Other canisters we tested are just as good with carpets and easier to use on all floors — we recommend saving your money and buying one of those.

What Other Canister Vacuum Should You Consider?

A very high price tag does not equal great cleaning performance on all surfaces with the Miele Complete C3 Calima PowerLine. We recommend saving your money and buying the Eureka Mighty Mite for the best overall performance or the Miele Classic C1 Pure Suction Powerline for a superb performance across the board.