Amazon shopper on Amazon 3 years ago
09/30/2019, 08:07 AM
Overall a good machine
The Polaris 165 is for inground vinyl or fiberglass pools 16 X 32 or 16 X 40. That is to say that the amount of hose in the box will work for those two sizes. After that, you have to do more cutting and adjusting. You might even have to buy extra hose, I don't know. The instructions that come with the box are so-so to use. The English has no spacing between words but generally you can figure out what it is saying. The Polaris website has the full manual but there isn't that much more information in it.I did download it though. Right now the Polaris is out there in my pool doing a good job. The Polaris 165 drags a bag alone the bottom of the pool that picks up debris. I have a lot of leaves. I also have a lot of silt. The bag along the bottom keeps the silt swirled up and the mail drain can get it out. Otherwise the day after my human cleaning technician vacuums the pool, the silt settles back on the bottom. The Polaris 165 does not clean the surface of the water. That is left to your skimmer or your own personal netting skills. The Polaris does a good job of keeping the main drain on the bottom of the pool clear of leaves. The Polaris requires a fair amount of adjusting. You have to cut the surface hose and the drag hose to the correct lengths for your pool. Scary for me. And there are devices called eyeballs to use in your water returns (the ones the Polaris is not attached to) to keep most of the water that is returning to your pool pushing through the Polaris. The Polaris body rides on top and goes forward a few seconds and then backwards a few seconds. In this way, over time the body drags the bag all around the bottom of the pool. There also is water jetting down the hose to the bag that pushes the debris into the bag. And then there are places within the body of the Polaris that you are instructed to open and clean periodically. I have not done that yet and hope the season will end before I have to. Opening machinery is not a good idea for me and I am not looking forward to that when the time comes. But if you are handy you will probably have no problem. I got the Polaris 165 to keep my main drain clear of leaves and it is doing that. So I am happy with it. It tangled up on itself a lot but once I got the hosing lengths and water pressure just right I see less of that. But it has tangled a bit even after these adjustments and I took my pool brush and used it to pull the Polaris surface tubing out straight. I had to turn the pump off once to do a good job of this untangling Once I got it straight it ran for days without needing my help again. For the money it was a good machine. But it is not an open the box put in water and go. You have to work with the thing awhile; like several days. Making adjustments and you have to know when to say good enough and let it be. Again, for the price, this is a good machine for getting up most of the debris on the bottom of your pool. I have attached a picture and a video. I hope the video came through.
I am adding information. I had been running the Polaris 165 day and night for a week with no problems. But last night somehow the machine got completely flipped over! Don't ask me how?! Th hose was badly tangled and the machine itself was lying on top of the tangled hose, upside down! The machine's jets spewed water out of the pool until the water level was below the skimmer! I had to add probably an extra $100 worth of water and restart everything. And all still works fine. But moral of the story: Turn it off at night. I will only run it now when I am around to keep an eye on it. #learningthehardway