Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog Vacuum Review

The build quality of the Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog is excellent. The canister body is made of dense, high-grade plastic, and it has a heavy-duty telescopic wand. There is a quartet of caster-mounted wheels under the canister as well, allowing for omnidirectional movement. The on/off button, power adjustment buttons, and cable rewind button are all meant to be pressed with your feet.

The vacuum itself is also really easy to take apart, with robust yet easy-to-actuate latching mechanisms.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog is very easy to maintain. Accessing various components is simple. Opening the canister gives you clear access to the dustbag, post-motor exhaust filter, and pre-motor filter. All of them are easy to remove and swap out. That said, there are one or two quirks to watch out for; the dustbag springs out of place when the canister cover is opened for easier removal, and you'll have to make sure it's seated properly before closing it back up. The Active CleanAir filter has a color-changing strip on it to let you know when it's time to replace it. On the downside, the electrobush can be a bit of a hassle to clean. While the brushroll is removable, hair can get wrapped around it pretty tightly, and cutting it free can be a hassle.

If you're interested in seeing a full breakdown of the maintenance requirements associated with this vacuum, you can consult the user manual.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog incurs fairly high recurring costs.

• Dustbag: The dustbag should be replaced when full. Replacements can be purchased in packs of four or eight. The four-pack also includes one pre-motor filter and one post-motor filter, while the eight-pack contains two pre-motor filters and two post-motor filters.
• Pre-motor filter: The pre-motor filter should be replaced after swapping out four dustbags, and replacements are included with a new set of dustbags.
• Post-motor filter: The Active AirClean exhaust filter has an operating lifespan of 50 hours, which works out to swapping in a new filter every year; you'll know it's time to replace it once the time strip changes color. You can purchase an identical filter from the manufacturer or upgrade to the higher-performing HEPA AirClean filter.

This vacuum is decently easy to store. There's a built-in storage compartment for its crevice tool, upholstery nozzle, and dusting brush. You can set the vacuum upright and holster its parquet floorhead at one of three separate points on the canister vacuum: one on the left, one on the right, and an additional slot at the bottom. All the same, this is still a somewhat large vacuum, and it might be best to keep it out of the way by storing it in a closet. It's worth noting that the SEB 228 floorhead is quite large, and you can't holster it on the vacuum body like you can with the parquet tool. For this reason, it's easier to stash it away elsewhere rather than leave it permanently attached to the vacuum.

This vacuum has a reasonably impressive capacity. Although Miele advertises that this dirtbag can hold 4.5L, we measured much less, though it can still hold a lot of debris. There's also a suction indicator at the base of the hose to tell you when the dustbag is full.

• Vacuum canister
• Telescopic suction wand
• Suction hose with handle
• SEB 228 Electro Plus floorbrush
• SBB 300-3 Parquet Twister floorhead
• Crevice nozzle
• Upholstery nozzle
• Dusting brush with natural bristles
• 1x GN AirClean 3D dustbag
• 1x Active AirClean post-motor filter
• 1x pre-motor filter
• User guide 

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog has an alright range. Its power cord 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 SEBO Airbelt D4.

This vacuum is on the heavier side. Its bulky powered floorhead adds a lot of weight to its construction, which can make it a hassle to pick up and carry from room to room or up and down flights of stairs. On the upside, as is typical for a canister vacuum, very little of that weight is felt in use, and the smoothly rolling caster wheels make it easy to pull across different surfaces.

This is a corded vacuum.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog has a suction power control feature that can be raised or lowered to six different levels. You can increase or decrease these levels using the power adjustment buttons on the canister: 1 (curtains and fabric), 2 (upholstery and cushions), 3 (deep-pile rugs and runners), 4 ('Quiet' mode), 5 (loop-pile carpet and rugs), and 6 (bare floors).

The SEB 228 floorhead also has five levels of height adjustment, as well as a brushroll on/off switch.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog comes with a dusting brush for delicate surfaces, a crevice tool for cleaning tight spots, and an upholstery nozzle for cleaning fabric surfaces. These attachments can be stored inside the canister body.

You can clean tight spots or shelves and furniture by detaching its wand and floorhead.

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 Parquet Twister floorhead are too closely spaced to allow it to pass over large and medium-sized materials 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. Unlike the SEBO Airbelt D4's parquet floor brush, the Miele's front set of bristles aren't removable, which would result in a much-improved performance in this test.

Note that we also conducted performance testing on bare floors with the SEB 228 electrobrush head in different configurations, the results of which can be seen below:

• Height level 2, Brushroll On
• Height level 3, Brushroll On
• Height level 3, Brushroll Off

Regardless, we don't recommend using this attachment on hard floors. Not only does debris pickup performance suffer slightly, but leaving the brushroll on can also damage delicate hard flooring.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog's performance on high-pile carpets is mediocre. It's an enormously powerful household vacuum, and at its level 3 height adjustment setting, its floorhead sits high enough to pass over larger debris like rice or cereal. Unfortunately, leaving it at this height setting compromises surface agitation, and it might take another couple of passes to deal with finer debris like sand that's been embedded within carpet fibers. Dropping its floorhead height to level 2 does little to improve fine-debris clearing performance and makes it worse at clearing larger debris. Meanwhile, increasing the floorhead height to level 4 improves its large-debris clearing performance but further compromises its ability to deal with finer material.

This vacuum's performance on low-pile carpets is decent with its SEB 228-3 floorhead set to height level 2. It'll clear away the majority of fine, medium-sized, and large debris within a single back-and-forth sweep, though you might still need to make another pass or two to get everything.

Increasing the floorhead height to level 3 improves its large-debris clearing performance, but it has a negative impact on its ability to deal with finer material.

This vacuum does a fantastic job of handling pet hair on low-pile carpeting. The SEB 228 floorhead can pull some lighter strands of hair at its very periphery slightly rearwards, but this is pretty minimal, and it'll deal with the majority of embedded hair within a single back-and-forth pass.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog's real-world suction performance is a little on the low end, though that's more or less to be expected since its Parquet Twister floorhead sits fairly high above the ground and won't generate a tight seal with hard floors. When measured directly from its hose at its highest suction setting, however, it provides some of the highest suction measurements we've tested, so it'll have no trouble dealing with heavily embedded debris when using it in its handheld configuration.

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.

This is a fairly quiet vacuum. When used with its Parquet Twister tool, you won't have too much trouble hearing what people nearby are saying. The measurement for the 'Bare Floor' test was achieved using the suction level 6 setting, but we also measured its noise output at different suction power level settings:

Suction level 1: 60.8 dBa
Suction level 2: 65.2 dBa
Suction level 3: 67.8 dBa
Suction level 4: 70.2 dBa
Suction level 5: 71.6 dBa

Conversely, the result for the 'Low-Pile Carpet' test was achieved using the SEB 228 electrobrush with its brushroll left On and the vacuum set to suction level 5.

On the whole, this vacuum has excellent maneuverability. On bare floors, the Parquet Twister is pretty easy to maneuver, with a smoothly operating pivoting mechanism. That said, it doesn't quite lay flat, which can be a nuisance when cleaning under couches and tables. While its electrobrush attachment is fairly cumbersome, its height adjustment system does allow you to clean surfaces like shag-pile carpeting without getting stuck. On the topic of its canister body, the four caster-mounted wheels make it easy to pull in most directions, though you should be careful not to drag it into walls or furniture. The on-board tool compartment also places all attachments within pretty easy reach.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog 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.

Some fine allergens can bypass this vacuum's multi-stage filtration system, which is somewhat disappointing. However, we have found that this vacuum performs far better in this regard with the HEPA AirClean filter installed, as opposed to the Active AirClean filter bundled with the Cat & Dog variant of the C3, as seen in the case of the Miele Complete C3 Alize, which came bundled with the former filter as opposed to the latter.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog does an excellent job of sucking up debris from cracks and crevices on hard floors when used with its parquet tool. While this floorhead doesn't generate that tight a seal with flat surfaces, the C3's powerful motor still enables it to draw out embedded debris. Besides, you can always detach its wand and use its crevice tool for a more thorough clean.

This vacuum has no real impact on stains.

The Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog isn't designed to deal with liquid spills.