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I have a 280 and oak trees, just north of Austin. The 280 does a fine job of cleaning, until the bag is stuffed full. This time of year that can happen in less than an hour on a windy day. :( Most of the year it keeps the bottom of our pool pretty much spotless. When the leaves and oak...

90-minutes keeps mine looking great any time other than when the leaves are raining from the sky.

Hi Dianne, I'm just a short drive up 35 from Austin, in Georgetown. The Polaris 280 seems to be THE pool cleaner for this area. Everyone that I know with a pool around here has a Polaris 280 keeping it clean. I also have Oak trees near the pool, so I will tell you that during leaf-falling...

Most likely that the gear teeth are stripped on one of the wheels. On my 280 the teeth on the inside of the wheels is plastic while the drive gear is steel. The plastic on the wheels wears away until the gear slips. The first time this happens, you can just swap the rear wheel on the 2-wheel...

Also look VERY closely at the drive teeth on the inside edges of the wheels. Just one or two broken teeth can cause that wheel to "pause" momentarily on each rotation, causing the Polaris to always want to turn towards the other side.

My 280 gets my pool clean with just 1.5 hours of run time each day. In addition to checking the rear jet, also check that all 3 wheels are turning smoothly and continuously. The plastic gear teeth on the inside of the wheels eventually wear out and start causing strange behavior. The wheel on...

Our Polaris rarely comes out of the water. :shock: I just leave it connected and it runs about 90 minutes every day. I haven't had to manual vac in over 2 years. 8-)

My setup sounds similar to yours. I have a single box with two intermatic mechanical timers. I just set the timer for the booster pump to come on an hour or so after the main pump timer and then switch back off 90 minutes later (and well before the main pump switches off).

My only concern would be the abuse that the contacts will take on the main pump timer. At startup there is the startup current to deal with and at shutdown there are some pretty good sparks flying across the gaps as the contacts open. Forcing both pumps to run at the same time will reduce the...

Must be a girl thing... (Running for cover!) :wink: :wink: :wink: The yellow ones were more difficult to install, but they also lasted much longer than the new white ones. :(

A strap wrench can work wonders for helping to remove that ring: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1260 ... rap+wrench 8-)

Assuming it is the newer white "giant acorn" one, the top ring unscrews, allowing you to remove the top and reveal the internals.

They didn't cause any damage that I have noticed.

When we bought our house, the wear rings on the Polaris were a hard, yellow-clear plastic of some type. They wore like iron. When I finally had to replace the tail, it came with the new solid-white wear rings. They seem to be softer and wear faster. Perhaps the nice folks at Polaris made the...

Take a look at how you're installing the nuts. Sounds like you have the nuts installed wrong. The nut goes on the fitting before the hose, with the threads facing out. Then you slip the hose in place and screw the nut up onto the end of the hose. Installed properly, it's nearly impossible...

When my Polaris was having that problem, it was because a few teeth had chipped on one of the drive wheels. This was making it turn much more than it should, so it kept looping back into the deep end. Since yours is new, it shouldn't have that problem though. As for the thruster, I've had the...

That symptom can also be caused by the little plastic gear teeth on the inside of the wheels wearing out. On my 280, two of the wheels are gear driven, while the third wheel is driven by the idler wheel between it and the driven wheel up front. When one of the driven wheels gets damaged, you...

You check the flow by timing the RPM of the wheels. They should turn 28-32 RPM when the water is flowing properly.

I think it was something old. I've only seen it on my 280. :?: It went to backup mode more often than the replacement acorn does.

Tangent Alert! :shock: Does your Polaris have the "black box" backup valve? Ours had that when we bought the house and I also thought that it went into backup mode too often. That valve died and I replaced it with the newer "white acorn" backup valve. It now waits much longer before going...

Another Polaris 280 w/booster. Makes life with a pool much more tolerable! We have 27 Live Oak trees on our lot, which means LOTS of leaves in the spring, along with pollen, pollen pods, acorns, etc. The Polaris just sucks 'em up. The only place it doesn't seem to clean well are the...

Ya should have asked on here before ya bought. :( There's a recent thread where someone asked specifically if they should get a 280 or the fancier 3900. General consensus was that the 280 is the workhorse of the Polaris lineup. The upscale models are more failure prone and don't get the...

We have a Polaris 280 with the booster pump. It cleans the pool amazingly well, even though we have Live Oak trees everywhere. The bag is pretty big. I only have to watch it closely for getting stuffed full during leaf-dropping season. It picks up leaves, twigs, 1.5-inch gravel and diving...

The 280 just works. Polaris keeps coming up with "new and improved" models, but I think it's mostly just a marketing gimmick. Some of the higher end models seem more prone to failure and require more expensive repair parts than the 280. My 280 doesn't leave anything behind. 8)

Look closely at the wall fitting and you'll see that it is hex shaped. This makes it pretty easy to grab with a large pair of Channel-Lock type pliers. :) There may be a blue or red flow restrictor behind the fitting, to control the flow through the Polaris. Be sure that you reinstall it...

We have a Polaris 280 and it certainly cleans the pool. I don't vacuum the pool. Ever. Even with Live Oak trees dropping leaves, pollen pods, etc. into the pool. In 3 hours or less the Polaris has the pool spotless! Our bag is very fine mesh and traps some pretty small stuff. The pool...

I roll up the line on my 280. Haven't had a problem in 3 years. It's VERY flexible stuff and doesn't seem to suffer from any memory effect from being coiled. Polaris sells a matching booster pump that should work just fine. Ours is about 8 years old and still going strong. Check on any...

Is the 380 not getting the pool clean? I have the 280 and it keeps our pool spotless. It only runs for about 1.5 hours a day and I'm amazed at how well it cleans, especially at this time of year when the Live Oak trees are dropping their leaves. :shock:

Once set up properly, it should easily climb the walls. My 280 has no problem climbing up the 9 foot walls in the deep end and touching the front wheels against the coping tile before it heads back down. :shock: 8) 8)

It looks to me like you have the float on the Polaris set too far back. Move it so that the front edge of the float is about 3/4's of an inch from the downtube and see if it doesn't work better. When the float is way back like that it tends to lift the rear of the unit too much.