Barracuda MX8 Review - 1 year later

[pikeman]

My initial review of the MX8 was positive. After a year, given the available choices, I would buy another.
One reason is that they neglect to include an important fitting to attach the suction line into the pool wall. I was determined that they had enough of my money for this expensive cleaner and made do with a soft Hayward fitting that I pushed into the hall that would secure the suction hose. None of what comes standard fit my suction line.
Another reason is the weird hose coupling design. It's nonstandard and I've had one of them break already. Luckily I have an extra length of hose, but am hoping to find an adapter so I can use the standard hose left from my previous cleaner, a Hayward Navigator.
And finally, despite a brilliant design, I think the propulsion units are flimsy. I needed to replace both in barely a year of use. The pool store guy told me that the most common reason for these to fail was too much suction, but that is not my problem. I need to throttle back my skimmer almost to the point where the pump begins to cavitate to get the recommended level of suction.
Also, they have no product support. I emailed them AND used the form on their web site and never received any reply. The YouTube videos are helpful, but I really bristle when polite concise inquiries are ignored.

Just my .02.
Pete

 

[poolsupplysales]

A lot of what you said is true but the mx8 does come with a wall fitting with a built in vacuum relief valve to prevent running it too hard. If your pump cavitates before you get enough vacuum to run the mx8 you may have a full pump basket, pluged impeller, or a dirty filter

 

[CraigMW]

Hmm. I love our MX8 and it's served us quite well during the 18 months we've owned it. I didn't find it particularly expensive because when I bought it, it came with a $100 rebate. In addition, it is quite a bit cheaper than robotic or pressure-side cleaners. It did take a while to get it dialed in for our system, but now it really does a nice job of keeping our pool clean. I have it plumbed into our filter pump via an automated Jandy 3-way valve, so I dedicate a 2-hour cleaning cycle to it via our pool automation. Being fall, we get lots of leaves and pine needles in the pool, so I've added an additional hour of cleaner time. During these cycles, I run the pump at a slightly higher rate and this seems to be perfect for keeping the cleaner moving well. About once a week, I will need to clean out the Hayward inline leaf catcher and the unit itself, which is prone to getting gummed up with pine needles and larger leaves. But, I haven't needed to vacuum the pool manually in about six months and the bottom is perfectly clean. As for the vacuum line, what came in the kit fit ours just fine, so we didn't have an issue with that. I did have to replace one of the directional control units, which was a bit of a bummer, but it was cheap to do this. That's certainly one good thing about the cleaner is that the parts are relatively cheap. I also replaced the tire treads, but expected this as the plaster is rather rough. Overall, I think it's a good cleaner with some issues that can be perfected.