Hayward Phantom

[RAA]

Question for those with Phantom Cleaners. How beat up is your Phantom? Here's mine after 11 months of use. The flagstone coping really eats up that soft plastic.

I really like this cleaner because it skims the surface, what I don't like is the fact that I have already spent about $80 replacing the flexible swivel assemblies on the hose because they leak at the joints and now I'm going to have to spend another $140 for the piece of flexible hose that connects to the wall and the piece that connects to the cleaner. See how it leaks where the rust is?

I called Hayward and they told me that these parts are not covered under warranty and I need to replace them when they wear out. This means I need to spend around $220 per year on parts for this cleaner? I might as well buy something else.

Anyone else have this problem?

 

[flyskiing]

the chocolate color is the rust color in the second pic?and what kind of disinfector did you use?
only in this part or any other part?

 

[RAA]

the chocolate color is the rust color in the second pic?and what kind of disinfector did you use?
only in this part or any other part?

Yep, that's rust and I use a SWG. This cleaner lives in the pool, I never take it out. I was wondering if anyone else had seen this issue with their Phantom. Thanks....

 

[flyskiing]

Is that sticky ?
I am not sure it is similar with our cleaner.

 

[divnkd101]

Rick,

Great post on your cleaner. I won't steal your thread but wanted to share a similar issue with my Polaris 280. I am in the recovery/therapy stage of reconstructive knee surgery and have not had a lot of time to spend on the maintenance of my families pool. Long story short, my wife has been taking care of the upkeep on the pool. I finally got a chance to get in the pool yesterday and do some long needed maintenance/wipe-downs, etc. I have an inline filter on my 280 and noticed a discloration on the site glass. Unscrewed the cap and looked inside and sure enough, my filter (steel mesh) is rusting from the inside out. I will try and get some pics loaded up this weekend (New Thread) to share with everyone. FYI, my 280 is in its 11 month of use as well.

 

[Guest]

My question is where have you kept your pH, salt, and CYA levels? If these parameters have gone out of balance it is entirely possible for your water to have caused parts of the cleaner to rust out.

 

[divnkd101]

Besides the Ph rising, salt/ CYA dropping with rain, my chemistry has been within bounds. I can see too that I forgot to upload some shots of the screen. Everytime I look at it, it looks like the weld (used to weld the screen) is what is rusting out... not the screen itself.

 

[stakeman]

I've had my phantom in use about 2 hours a day since July with no problems. My skimmers do an excellent job with the top of the pool so after a couple of months I switched mine to underwater only. I also have flagstone coping and haven't got the scratches you have. HOWEVER!!! I did have to replace the quick disconnect portion and first section of hose. It simply broke clean off where it attaches to the wall. I went out to the pool and it was in the bottom of the pool. It was covered with my builder. He said the newer ones have a different type of plastic used in that molded part. He snagged me a new one that was one of the older plastics, I can't tell the difference??? He did say he has seen many break at the same spot FWIW.