Are you tired of paying for an oversized shop vacuum for your small working space? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a smaller, more affordable shop vac that doesn’t threaten to blow our your ear drums? The Armor All 2.5 gallon utility wet/dry vacuum might just be the best purchase you make this year. Equipped with a 2 HP peak motor, this vacuum features an easy conversion to use it as a blower and offers an automatic shut-off to prevent overflow.
As with most wet-dry vacs, it features a cloth filter and foam sleeve to allow for an effective mess cleanup. You’ll also receive hose storage and on-board room for your accessories. The 10-foot power cord gives you plenty of room to work, especially when combined with the 6-foot hose. You’ll receive a crevice tool, a brush, a car nozzle, detail accessories, and blower accessories all in the box.
How Well Does the Armor All Utility Vacuum Perform?
We were highly satisfied with the performance of this small shop vacuum. It’s powerful, but still lightweight at under 8 pounds, and gives you a consistent performance. It does particularly well with the fine dust and debris that you may need to pick up, but you may benefit from a filter upgrade with this shop vacuum if you need to pick up soot or sawdust on a regular basis.
We also took a look at this vacuum and how it could perform with various sanding tools. The overall suction helped to keep the mess down with sanding tools, but it is a non-standard port at 1 1/16-inches that is equipped with this vacuum. It may not work with all power sanders.
For homes with hardwood floors or shops with concrete surfaces, this vacuum will over-perform. The accessories give you the reach that you need to take care of an entire room, assuming you place the vacuum tank in the center of your working space.
Our One Issue with the Armor All Utility Vacuum
This shop vacuum has a lot of power to clean up a big mess in a small working space. There’s no question about that. Our one area of concern is the fact that there are no wheel casters equipped to the tank of this particular model. It sits flat on the ground, relying on the length of its power cord and hose to provide the versatility that you may need.
In practical use situations, if you’re not careful about how far you reach with this vacuum, there’s a good chance you could tip it over.
We also found that it was helpful to place a little tape around the hose port to keep suction more consistent.
Outside of this one issue, we found the Armor All 2.5 gallon utility wet-dry vacuum to be a solid entry-level vacuum that provides consistent mess removing power. If you’re looking for a good budget purchase in this category, then we highly recommend this model as one of the best shop vacs available right now.
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