What's in the Box
You get the vacuum, the powered cleaning head, the wand, two tool attachments, a six-foot charging cable, and a wall mount with screws. The wall mount is worth setting up — you can plug the charger straight into it, so hanging the vacuum charges it. Otherwise there's a charging port on the bottom of the machine, and it's a little hidden, so look for it.
Operating it is about as simple as a vacuum gets. There's a power button and three levels — low, medium and high — and no trigger to hold. It always starts in medium. There's a battery indicator on the body. That's the whole thing.
The FurFinder Lights
This is what the name is about, and it earns it. There are two types of LED lights on the cleaning head, and they're relatively bright — they throw light across the floor to show you fine dirt and pet hair that you'd otherwise walk right past. The powered upholstery tool has them too, which matters more than it sounds because furniture is exactly where you can't see what you're missing.
Cleaning Performance: What It Actually Picks Up
Hard Floors
I started on low against a big mess and then turned it up a notch. It rolls real easy — that's the thing you notice first — and it's very lightweight to work with. It also gets right up against the wall, which a lot of heads don't. It cleaned the mess up. One honest observation: it seems to only clean going forward, so the pull-back stroke isn't doing much for you.
Carpet
For the carpet I put down a bunch of long hair and turned it up too high. It rolls real easy on carpet too, and I like how well it moves there — plenty of vacuums that clean carpet well fight you the whole way. This one doesn't. Worth knowing: there's no separate carpet setting. The brush roller runs at the same speed on both surfaces and the three levels only change suction.
Long Hair
The main roller came through clean — no hair wrap at all after the carpet run, which surprised me because when I pulled the head apart I didn't see a comb in there. What's actually doing the work is a tangle-free roller design, and it's rated to handle hair up to about eight inches long. That's the number to keep in mind: longer strands than that can still catch.
The smaller powered tool is where I did get some wrap. That's a fair trade for what it does, and it comes apart quickly — pull the roller out, cut the hair off, put the gear back in. Same on the main head: press the button, the lever pops up, and the roller comes out.
The Powered Upholstery Tool
This deserves its own mention. It's not a passive brush — there's a motor in it drawing power through the connection, so the roller spins. Put it on a piece of furniture or a pet bed and it digs the embedded fur out rather than skimming the surface. It did a pretty good job on a section I loaded up with long hair.
One quirk: if you press down too hard, you can stall the motor. Ease off and it spins right back up. You can also run it on the end of the wand if you'd rather not bend over a dog bed.
Emptying — My One Real Gripe
You have to take the dust bin off the machine every single time you want to empty it. Press the release, pull the bin away, carry it to the trash, lift the little handle, pull the piece out, and dump it. Then line up the grooves, hook it, rotate until it clicks.
I'm used to vacuums where you hold it over the can, press a button, and everything drops out. I normally don't like this style. I'll say honestly that it didn't seem too bad once I'd done it a few times — it's a motion you learn — but it's more steps than it needs to be.
Inside there's a sponge filter that washes and dries in the sun, and a HEPA element that rotates to unlock and pulls out. Both are worth doing every so often, and let everything dry fully before it goes back.
Handling and Storage
It stands upright on its own, which I always like — you can stop mid-clean and set it down. It isn't rock solid though; knock it and it'll go over. There's a foot release for the wand so you're not bending down, and the whole thing is about 45½ inches tall, around 42 to the handle.
Here's what it's missing, and it's the one design change I'd make: there's no onboard tool storage. No hook, no clip, nowhere to park the crevice tool or the upholstery tool while you're working. You've got a foot release right there for swapping the wand — give me somewhere to hang the tool I just took off. It'd make the machine slightly bigger and I'd take that trade.
What I'd Change About the Bissell PowerClean 4173
- Add tool storage on the machine
- Let me empty the bin without pulling it off
- A carpet setting that speeds up the roller, since levels currently only change suction
Is It Worth It?
Yes — and more than I expected going in. Realize what you're getting: a lightweight, simple, self-standing vacuum with genuinely useful headlights, a powered tool that actually pulls fur out of furniture, HEPA filtration, a removable battery so a dead battery isn't a dead vacuum, and cleaning that outperforms how it looks. At full price I'd still be okay with it. On sale it's hard to beat. Check the live price on the button before you decide.