Juices

I have been quite satisfied with my Champion, which is a masticating type of juicer. It works well for harder fruits and vegetables, not so well for leafy vegetables and soft items. But, since you asked about the harder veggies, there you go. The champion will make nut butters also. I was appy with their customer service.

I've also used a Waring centrifugal juicer and was quite satisfied with that as well. It produces a somewhat thinner juice practically devoid of pulp, works better (but not great) with leafy vegetables. Never needed their customer service.

Well, it may not be much help, but if you can spring for a VitaMix machine, you will probably be very happy. It's not a juicer, it's a grinder, pulverizer, and all-around powerhouse. It's also about $450, unless you catch it on sale at Costco, when it's "only" $400.

It will do anything you want, including making smoothies, desserts, soup, bread dough, horseradish (not an everyday need, I know) and a dynamite frozen daiquiri, or marguerita.

Mike

This raises an interesting question. Are you looking for a juicer, or something to liquefy vegetables and such? They're really not the same thing.

As an example, if you put carrots in the VitaMix, you will get more or less smooth puree. If you want carrot juice, you now have to extract the juice from the puree -- which the VitaMix will not do.

So perhaps we need a little clarification on what it is you want to achieve.

I'd suggest a cold press juicer, I own a Oscar Vital Max 900 Cold-Press Juicer and love it. Juices just about anything.

I've had a centrifugal juicer made by Oster for about 25 years and the thing still works great. I think I paid about $45 for it.
It does a pretty good job of extracting the pulp from the juice without eliminating the essential flavor of the fruit or vegetable.

I used to have a VitaMix and while it is a powerful blender, it is not a juicer, though it's often sold as such. It does not extract the pulp from the juice.
Its exceptional power also proved to be a bit of a problem. It pulled so much electricity that the lights in the whole neighborhood dimmed every time I used it ;)