I bought my Vitamix 5200 back in 2011. Never had a problem with it, ever. It worked flawlessly for soups and veggie drinks and shredding my cheese, crushing my ice. even rough chopping my chicken and sausage when cooking (we like it small in our recipes). I was buying non vitamix blenders that I would get a few years out of. Low and behold, I went to a big box store, saw it, bought it, used it, and my husband said how much? I said it was 350..and he was like What the??? And I said you got your power tools, now I have mine...So we are in the market for a new one, ours has slowed down a bit, but my husband said, get the vitamix again. So I got the refurbished Explorian and hoping for same great results...

I feel ok with my blender. Its nice... but I'm not blown away. It seems to blend the bottom real well. But then it gets the top layer stuck, and i have to use the tapper to get it to blend. I am disappointed, as my ninja can do the same thing. I bought it to blend smoothies and to blend up cashews for dairy free creams, sauces, etc. I haven't yet tried my cashews in this blender, since the performance with my daily smoothies is comparable to my ninja, i assume the cashews will blend the same as well. I'll update my review, if I am able to, after trying it with cashews. So, its ok, its nice, but not a huge major difference in end results, and must use the tapper alot.

This was supposed to last a lifetime, but it is making loud machine noises after only a few years. The only thing I ever blend is drinks, so there is no reason for it to be going bad now. I also hate that the container is plastic. It looks all scratched and ugly, and I'm sure there are microplastics in my food. I've stopped using it. I don't know why VitaMix does not sell a glass pitcher for their blender. This was awfully expensive for it to be breaking down already and for it to have plastic.