Polaris 9300 Sport Robotic In Ground Swimming Pool Cleaner

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Price: $1,280.94    

Product Description

he Polaris 9300 Sport combines strength, performance, and simple functionality to bring you a robotic pool cleaner that delivers an optimum cleaning performance. Engineered with Aqua-Trac wheels and a rear water propulsion system, the 9300 Sport is an unrivaled cleaner and perfect for any in ground pool type or size. With unmatched cleaning ability, this cleaner scours pool floors, scrubs walls, and maneuvers over steps. Its wide suction base and deep cleaning brush delivers the ultimate in clean, letting no dirt or debris escape. The Polaris 9300 Sport has an internal filter canister with a quick release feature, making maintenance simple and easy.

Polaris 9300 Sport Robotic In Ground Swimming Pool Cleaner Review

Being the analytical consumer that I am (I am a high school math teacher in my second career) - I watched, reviewed, researched and waited for the "right" automatic pool cleaner to purchase. I have owned a 19 X 36 modified oval, in ground, 16 gauge vinyl lined pool that is 8 feet deep at the deep end for 14 years. I have completely serviced it myself, except for replacing the liner, including replacing the pump motor in 2005, and DE filter grid assembly in 2011, for almost 8 years.

I first was introduced to the Polaris 9300 at a local Leslie's Pool Supply shop in early spring of 2011. It was relatively new at the time. But I liked the design and the ability to just flip the lid to quickly access and empty the debris/filter basket. However, I have learned from personal experience from buying other "fresh on the market products" to never buy a new product until it is in at least its second, and preferrably third iteration, so all of the "kinks" can hopefully get worked out of it. One thing that I noticed when I opened the box for the 9300 Sport, is a notice that the motor for it had been upgraded to a heavier design in the fall of 2010. So, that was one piece of evidence to affirm my decision to wait in part on letting kinks to get worked out of it.

Plus, I wasn't ready to drop $1100 at that time. I continued to be content to manually vac the pool. I also researched the Dolphin, Aquabot, and Tiger Shark. Additionally, I have a family member in New Hampshire that has the Dolphin for several years and seemed to be pleased with it. I had another family member in NY who owned the Aquabot until she sold and moved to NC. She generally had good things to say about it, but said that when it did break one time, she had to drive the entire Aquabot to NJ to get it fixed.

After "checking in" over the Labor Day weekend, on the internet looking at the various cleaners above and the 9300 Sport, I noticed that a lot more reviews for the 9300 Sport had come out from consumers in the past year, and the reviews that just came out in the last year or so, seem to be of good score. Additionally, I noticed the 9300 Sport had dropped to $815 at Pool Supply World, and there was a $100 manufacture's rebate still valid for a couple days. I pounced!

The 9300 Sport shipped from CA on Tuesday, and with free shipping, arrived to my home in Charlotte, NC on Thursday. I had the storage and transport cart assembled in about one hour, while watching the DNC on TV ( I watched the RNC last week too ). :-) The 9300 Sport was in the pool by that night, doing its first cleaning.

Very easy to setup. I love the roller cart with generous sized cord hooks to allow the floating electrical cord to be wrapped around and stored. Easy operation. They are only 3 buttons, Cycle 1 (1.5 hours), Cycle 2 (2.5 hours), and a Power Off button. Simple as that. I started a Cycle 2, but stopped it halfway to go to bed and I did not want the unit to sit in the pool overnight.

On Friday afternoon and evening, I ran it two full, 2.5 hour cycles, with a 30 minute break in between, to get a better feel for the unit. I was very pleased. My pool started with about 20 leaves in the bottom, and overall in semi-clean condition. It is important to note the 9300 Sport and other robotic cleaners are good for maintaining pool cleanliness, not restoring a trashed pool. If you let your pool get yellow/green with algae and tons of leaves, i.e. if it has been more than two weeks since you vacuumed it, you might have to manually vacuum the pool and shock it to bring its cleanliness status up to speed, before replacing manual vacuuming with robotic cleaning.

I have one tree (maple) beside my pool, and a few near it, that are just now beginning to let go of leaves. Mid November is when leaf fall for the pool peaks. I intend to use this unit about every 4 days during the late summer and fall, and for two weeks when the leaves are coming down like crazy in late November perhaps more frequently than this.

The Polaris 9300 aggressively climbs my walls. No joke. It will climb a straight 90 degree wall, and a few times, the 9300 Sport almost climbed right out of the pool; it had two wheels up on the coping! In fact, if I had a nit to pick, I'd say it climbs wall a bit too aggressively and needs to replace some of the wall climbing time with more time spent in the deep end, where leaves and debris tend to accumulate. But, it did spend sufficient time patrolling the deep end.

When Friday I started with 20 leaves in the pool, it ended with about 3 small leaves the unit missed. But everything else it got. It even gets the finer dirt particles. The clarity of the water and the bottom is as good or better than if I spent 45 minutes to one hour manually vacuuming it myself.

The Polaris 9300 Sport even did a reasonable job climbing the three steps in my shallow end whose step faces are actually a tad past 90 degrees - a tough geometric feet for a wheeled/tracked vehicle to do on its own. The steps are cleaned good enough, unless I was hosting the Queen of England.

The cord is 60 feet long, plenty to allow the unit to drive down the gentle down slope to the deep end and up the more aggressive (but not quite vertical) slope on the diving board side of the deep end.

Cleaning the filter took less time than cleaning the baskets for the skimmer or pool pump after a manual vac. Just have to raise the lid of the 9300 Sport, pull it out, then open the 9300 Sport's basket to dump larger debris, then hose out the rest.

I will report back if there are any new developments with my 9300 Sport experience.

*** UPDATE - 11/10/12 - ***

I was just about to come back on Amazon and add additional information about the Polaris 9300 Sport; basically, how the unit continued to perform reasonably well, but not stellar.

Then, when I came out to the pool Saturday morning, one of the four wheels was laying in the bottom of the pool! It had completely separated from the hub. It was the rear, back left wheel. I have "temporarily" lowered my rating from 4 stars to 3 stars.

I am not necessarily going to bad-mouth Polaris/Zodiac, but if the warranty claim process goes smoothly and the unit is repaired with no further issues during the warranty period, I will likely raise my star rating.

I called Zodiac on Monday. They are shipping me a new wheel, and they have already emailed instructions on how to replace it, which is not a 5 minute job. The unit has to come apart to replace the wheel. I also called my local Leslie's Pool Supply store to see if the 9300 is a reliable unit. I bought mine online from PoolSupplyWorld. The manager at my local Leslie's said they have sold many 9300's over the last few years, and he has seen about 4 come in for service. So that makes me a feel a little better. I asked him if the 9300 has a higher propensity to break more than say the Aquabot, TigerShark, or other robotic cleaners. He did not say so, but said like we all know, that anything man-made can break.

Zodiac provides a two year warranty on parts only. The vendor that sells it is supposed to provide the labor while under warranty. I called PoolSupplyWorld, which is an online vendor, but they claim that should my unit need labor service under warranty, they can arrange with Zodiac to work this out locally for me. I hope it doesn't come to needing that to be done, but what they told me also makes me feel a tad better. Maybe I just happened to have the 1 out of 50 units that has defective rear/left wheel. Time will tell.

Other than this wheel issue, the cleaner performs well. As I wrote previously, it still spends too much time climbing walls, and as a result, doesn't pick up leaves as quickly as it could, but with a few trees near my pool, it does a reasonable job of getting the leaves. The floating power cord also likes to twist, but, as the directions state, if you untwist the cord after (or before) each use, it usually remains untwisted for the next cleaning cycle.

I will try to report back in a couple more months. Up until Saturday's wheel separation incident, I used the unit about 20 times, with many of those using two, 2 1/2 hour full cleaning cycles. So, it has been in operation about 30 hours so far.

All for now.

*** UPDATE - 11/15/12 - ***

I called Zodiac again today. I emailed and left a voicemail with the same Tech Support rep I talked to on Monday. I called again and got a hold of a new tech support rep who provided my a tracking number and said BOTH rear wheels will arrive Tuesday. I only had a problem with one left rear wheel.

While I was talking to this rep, my original rep called me back and left a voicemail. I also learned, according to the second rep (first rep talked to today), that Zodiac is sending both rear wheels because they had a manufacturing problem with the hubs of the rear wheels. The rep said the issue was resolved in the summer of 2012; hence they sent me two rear wheels to replace both with the improved style. This sounds like good news.

I will report back in a few weeks, or at the next good or bad milestone. Hopefully, I will be able to raise my rating back up again and the replacement rear wheels will last a long time. I sure take care of this thing; remove from the pool after each use, clean the filter, and store it inside.

All for now.

*** UPDATE - 11/20/12 - ***

Just got both rear wheels today from Zodiac. They are shrink wrapped as manufactured 10/25/12. Since this date supersedes dates of all reported issues of rear wheels breaking off at the hub, we will soon see if the representative at Zodiac is right when I was told there was a manufacturing problem that was caught and corrected this past summer, with the wheels breaking off at the hub. The design does not look different, as the rep said it would not look different. I hope to have the new rear wheels installed and the 9300 back in operation by Saturday.

*** UPDATE - 12/9/12 - ***

Polaris 9300 Sport has been working really well for the last 15 hours of operation since both rear wheels were replaced. I will continue to post updates. I will begin to feel more confident that the original rear wheels indeed were part of bad batch as stated by Zodiac, when I get over 30 straight hours of good performance with no issues.

*** UPDATE - 1/21/13 - ***

Continuing to get good service since the rear wheels were replaced. I now have over 30 hours of operation, using the unit about 5 hours per week, since the rear wheels were replaced. I have restored the rating to four stars, but, will continue to post updates when events regarding the unit dictate.

*** UPDATE - 2/9/13 - ***

+15 more hours of trouble free operation since 1/21/13. I run it twice a week, but all on the same day usually. I have had about 45 hours of trouble free service since the wheel replacement, and 75 hours total. Since it takes about 5 hours of running the unit a week to clean the pool, I have gotten about 15 weeks of good service out of the unit. With manually vacuuming, I do so about once a week and it takes me about 45 minutes to an hour. I save about 45 min per week using the Polaris 9300, subtracting the 5-7 minutes of setup/store time of the 9300. So, this unit has to date saved me about 11.25 hours of cleaning time, in the 5 months since early September that I have owned it. At this rate, with my time worth say $20 per hour, I will have saved $900 worth of time after two years. Please don't store the unit outside. Please also keep a manual vacuum hose and vacuum head handy, manual vacs are easy to learn to use and inexpensive. No matter what automatic vacuum system you have, a manual vac might be needed in a pinch.

All for now.

*** UPDATE - 5/25/13 - ***

Going strong. I continue to use the unit at least 3 to 4 hours per week. No problems since that one wheel incident way back in November. I always wash out the filter, untwists any twists in the cord before wrapping the cord around the unit, then store inside, after each and every use.

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