I have Hoover Widepath Bagless 12 Amp Windtunnel vacuum. Yesterday I was vacuuming and smelled smoke and it shut itself off. Today I cleaned out the filters (they weren't bad) made sure nothing was obstructing the hoses or the spinning brush part. It turned on for 1 second, smells like smoke somewhere from the bottom and now won't turn back on so I don't know if anything is spinning or not. What can I do to fix this myself?

Hi There,

When a vacuum cleaner smokes, it is usually only one of two possible problems.

It could either be that your motor burned up, or that your belts burned. The belts on this particular model are notorious for breaking, but the fact that your machine doesn't come on at all after this happened, sounds like it may be the motor.

Both of these issues have a unique smelling smoke. If the smoke smelled like an electrical burning smell, this indicates it's your motor. If the smoke smelled more like burning rubber, then it's probably your belts.

If the smoke smelled like burning rubber, here's a video that we've recorded showing step by step how to inspect, trouble shoot, and replace the belts on your vacuum cleaner. If you open it up and the belts are still in tact, then this probably is a more serious problem of the motor burning out.

. I'd be more then happy to walk you through more advanced diagnosing if this doesn't fix your problem, please just use the comment box here on the Fixya repair page.

If this was helpful to you, please be so kind and rate my repair helpful, or leave some feedback for me. This is really appreciated by the Fixya community if the repair solution was able to fix your problem.

Thanks again,

Chris Jones
GoVacuum.com

Bad motor

I just had the same thing with my Hoover Tempo. I was hoping for an ez fix but the motor was throwing sparks and it burnt up. Hoover should know this is a problem. Warranty is no good but it's only a couple years old.