Oh man, I read a forum post a while back from this old timer who swore by them for the same reason. He said he kept a shop vac rigged to his rod just for the fine stuff, but the soot eater basically did the work for him. My buddy in Olympia tried one on a job with a crazy 45 degree bend and said it cut his time in half too. I still keep the brushes for the straight runs where I like the feel of the bristles scraping. But for those tricky offsets, I can see how that flexible shaft wins. I might have to borrow his next time I hit a tight spot.

Tbh, that 14% number lines up with what I saw from a regional distributor back in 2021, but they broke it down by who did the rebuild. The remans that came from the big national chain failed twice as often as the ones from the local guy who actually tests them under load. So the real question isn't reman vs new, it's whether you know your supplier's QC or you're just buying from the cheapest catalog. I had a buddy who tracked his own sales for a year and his reman failure rate was 6%, because he only used one outfit that vacuum-tests every unit. Might be worth splitting your data by source before you overhaul your whole pitch.