I absolutely love my Vitamix! There is a bit of a learning curve to figure out all of its uses but this thing is powerful! And I have a love hate relationship with it’s automatic shut off feature to keep it from overheating. It’s a wonderful feature, but when it happens you’re in “time out” for about 20 minutes before you can use it again.This is the first time I have written an Amazon review, but I am so impressed with this blender as well as the customer service I feel like I need to. I have been using this blender quite frequently for the past 8 months and absolutely love it. One evening after mixing a few adult beverages for myself and some friends I left a metal spoon in the blender after using it to get some of the frozen drink out. Without paying attention I put the lid back on the blender and turned it on. Needless to say, the spoon definitely lost the battle. The blender still works, but the blade is bent and dented some. I called customer service and explained what I did because I was unable to find a replacement blade online for my model. The lady who helped me was so kind and helpful. To make a long story short, they are sending me a replacement container at no cost to myself, even though this was absolutely my fault. I am a customer for life. Great job Vitamix.I have health problems. I have a special blend I drink every day. Our whole family uses it often. It is a staple in our home. Easy to clean. Fits very nicely in my cabinet or unobtrusively on my counter. The extra carry-with-you container is great. The best brand made. Well worth the price. My last one lasted many years with daily use!The refurbished Vitamix has been working great so far. We’ve owned for over 90 days. I make a smoothie in the single serve everyday. At first the motor would not engage with single serve but as the directions state- the lid that houses the blade just needs to be tightened a little more. Since then- works like a charm. Have used the other pitcher for soups, margaritas, and other recipes and our family loves it. We were reluctant to spend this much on a blender but so far it has been worth it and since it was refurbished- the price was about as good as you could get for this model. We are surprised how much we use the single serve. It’s nicer than the one we saw at Costco as no adapter is needed. There are tons of recipes on the web and YouTube. Cleanup has been very easy.***adding some thoughts after another couple months. Everything is working just as well and holding up. Only issue is that it is getting tougher to lock in the single serve lid. The amount of force needed is almost to the point where it takes multiple attempts each time. Still worth it but if you have arthritis or have trouble opening lids off of containers- you might want to think twice. Keep in mind this is only for the single serve function.We purchased this refurbished model and have been using it quite frequently to make smoothies. First the good - 1) this thing has a lot of power. My previous blender was a magic bullet, and when making smoothies w Black berries, flax, hemp etc. , the seeds and granules didn’t get blended and collected at the bottom of the cup/in my teeth. But this this pulverizes everything super smooth. 2) the refurbished model appeared brand new - couldn’t tell anything was ever used.Now some minor drawbacks: 1) there is sometimes excessive “clank” type vibration, to the point the whole unit starts moving on countertop while making a metallic racket. Not sure if this is normal or sign of premature failure to come? 2) sometimes the base unit would not recognize / sense the container, which means the motor would not run. 3) the cup container they provide is too tall whilebeing narrow so there is not as much of a vortex effect to get everything mixed up well. Also due to the taper, ingredients tend to get stuck at the bottom and takes vigorous shaking banging to get it to slide down to the blades .All in all, a great blender w plenty of power. It would be 5 stars if it was less expensive, or didn’t have some of the drawbacks.My first high power blender and it seems to be a good one.The unit I received was like new, and in the retail box.I have had no problems to date; I have had the unit about a month and use it frequently.It came with a recipe book and it covers a lot of bases. I have been able to use the book as a guide in creating my own dishes.I have made sauces, smoothies, and cocktails mostly with no difficulties and great outcomes.I also made some peanut butter using dry roasted peanuts (nothing else) and that seemed to work the machine the hardest of all I have tried. I blended a little too long and had a finer consistency than any I have ever purchased.I watched a guy on YouTube take a Vitamix apart to see how it was made. This is what he does on his channel, takes things apart, evaluates how they are built, puts them back together, and then gives them a stress test to see what it takes to break it. He is a technician or engineer or something. He literally ground up rocks, quartz I believe, to get the gold dust out of it and it worked; the blender did not fail, although it did look the worse for wear.3 months after purchasing a an e31 Error and Blade is not working properly. You Cannot Use this Mixer. We Never Expect that this kind of Product Amazon is Selling. They Should not Allow This kind of Seller on their Web Site which they are selling Product which is not able to work for even minimum period. Actually Amazon Cheat the Customer this way I Never Expected that things will happen. After Spending $500 Dollar it just went into Garbage. I Expect from Amazon to Give me an Answer.For the price of this blender there is NOTHING special about it. It heats things just like a $10 Walmart blender and gives me error codes every other day! Im constantly having to stop and shake its contents (just like the $10 blenders) and it offers nothing exceptional AT ALL. It’s garbage for what you pay. If I knew all this before purchasing, I’d definitely have gotten another cheap blender.When we got this blender, we absolutely loved it. It was easy to clean, had lots of power, and the smoothies we made for our kids were not “chunky” It was great while it lasted... We have had it for 10 months, and didn’t open it for the first 2 while we were doing a kitchen reno. The small individual blender can’t be recognized anymore and so is completely useless. We are very disappointed with the durability. We hoped this would last much longer.the blender is magical but the cup is just too small for my liking, plus its really bulky and annoying to use. i still use the extra blade attachment as i bought the small cups for pulsing salsas and such. you have to make sure the blade is really tight against the cup or else it wont start up. if you have the money then its for sure a good buySo far so good. Works great for smoothies, although it makes a high pitched noise between setting 8 and 9. Made nut butter amazingly quickly, however, it was hard to get all of it out of the narrow bottom. The bowl attachment would probably work better for that.