Letro Legend Ii Pressure Side Pool Cleaner

[Jerry Materne]

Okay, I've been pretty patient over the two years I've owned this thing and I've finally came to a conclusion. It's not that great of an automatic cleaner for the money you put down for it. I've tried playing with the jets, adjusting water rate through the little tail, and even replacing the little rubber tires in hopes of givng the ability to climb a wall. Here is the list of annoying things this thing does:

1. Unless you luck out on the perfect jet directions (rear of machine) it tends to turn in only one direction instead of radomly. This results in the hose becoming a tangled mess even though there are swivel joints in it to prevent just that.

2. If it hits the wall or anything else, there it sits until the reverse valve kicks in. It will not traction out of it. It will just sit there in one spot spinning away. Not too good for a vinyl liner pool. There is a bumper attachment you can buy to prevent this problem (obviously the engineers have noticed this problem too) but no one sells it. In fact, letro has disconinued making that attachment. Most pools have four walls and steps so you can imagine how much time is wasted by this thing sitting in one spot. This is a waste of energy and time that could be better served letting your jets circulate.

3. Very temperature sensitive. How it this? The bouyancy. The warmer the water, the better it seems to run. This may not be an issue with just this one cleaner. In fact, I'm going to go out on a whim and guess this is an issue with all cleaners. Colder water is more bouyant and since the cleaners can't change their bouyancy, well there you go. It's an issue with this machine because it compounds the above stated problems.

4. In my case, it increases the back pressure to your pump and nature 2 system. Yes, this thing has single handedly destroyed a Nature 2 system because of the back pressure it generates. It doesn't use a booster pump so it attaches straight to one of your return nozzles. I've noticed it doesn't seem to help too much with the cartridge filter either. I always end up with a reading five or so psi after using this thing even though it doesn't use the suction side to clean. What gives?

So there you go in a nutshell. I'm calling it a peice of garbage. It just isn't that great of a cleaner. I've gotten better results from a $80.00 suction side cleaner my wife got online. Hell, the thing didn't even have a brand name on it. It came in a box marked Pool cleaner, suction side. We've named her "nessie".

I guess the robotic type works better but we're not rich enough to buy one yet.

Jerry