Recommend a pressure washer

[FakeConcern]

The 5 cars in my household range from 20 to 10 years old, but no matter how shite it is I hate driving a dirty car. I'm getting fed up with just using a hose & fancy a budget pressure washer. Please recommend one that is a good price and works well.

[gordonbennet]

Well i've used a lot of pressure washers in my time at work washing my lorries, after you've used good ones the cheapo buggers you can buy from the usual sources for home use drive me up the wall, pressure there but no water volume and poncy plastic pipes that curl up on you.

 

So i asked the bloke who maintains the ones we have at work for some advice...which was to completely ignore stated headline pressure it means fuck all without enough water flow, you need volume (absolute minimum 8 litres per minute), and a slow running motor for long life and brass pumps, and decent length rubber pressure pipes and i wanted auto stop start.

 

So i started looking round, and as soon as you move out of plastic pipes (they don't tell you) and low water flow and aluminium pumps (water eats them) and non serviceable motors the price goes rocketing up, its quite scary...if you want hot water its scandalous and out of my reach, but the better ones you could run hot water direct from your house tap through if you so wished.

 

Anyway, after lots of research, and its a bloody minefield, i ended up with a Kranzle K2160TST, which i'll let you look up the price of (sit down)...Kranzle do offer lower priced models too.

 

I bought from Hugh Crane of Peterboro who have been nothing but helpful and offered me a good price....well worth speaking to them on the phone about your needs, they sometimes sell refurbs i believe, other makes too.

 

OK i know you asked for budget but suggest you investigate the better stuff, that you might be able to buy second hand too, before buying budget which might be a disappointment..

[Bear]

I've got a Karcher K4 (I think) Compact. Previously had a Homebase "patio cleaner that the handle comes off and sprays water" - the Homebase one was fine for rinsing the car, but the Karcher has proved damn good - the car kit version, it came with a foam nozzle, dirt blaster, normal lance and a whirry brush lance (which I've used, actually, normally I refuse to but it seems to put a good amount of water & soap out).

 

Main plus points - it's easy to carry, so getting it out of the shed/putting it away is not a chore. It's relatively quiet - the motor is cooled by the water so there's an insulating jacket (and the water seems to be warmed up by it). It has a metering system for detergent; when the provided bottle ran out I got the Halfords wash & wax stuff and poured it in the triangular bottle - works fine, if anything I get more soap from it and have to use the metering control more (it is runnier than the Karcher product). It's yellow. That's a plus point in my book.

Downsides; there's not really storage for all the bits, you can get a couple of lances in the back but you'll end up leaving one 'somewhere convenient', I don't use the wheels but pick it up and I'm not sure how tough the wheels would be, and you need to go up a level to get a hose reel on it. But overall, it means I wash the cars every couple of weeks and sometimes more frequently, and I like the results. The K4 is one of the cheaper models in the range.

 

Other pressure washers are available, but let's say my Homebase one was £99 or whatever, and the Karcher was £249 or something like that. The Karcher is definitely £150 better than the Homebase one.

[Stanky]

If you want one for casual home use then Halfrauds are punting out some for £29.99 a pop. I've used mine to do the car a few times and also to blast off the block paved drive from the accumulated grot of 6 years exposed to the elements.

 

It does suffer with the pitfalls that GB mentions above, fairly low volume of water, coiling up pipe, probably non-servicable motor, though it does have auto stop-start. My thinking was that if I got one and wore it out then I'd buy a more expensive one. Prior to this I didn't have one and wasn't sure how much I'd use it, so a £30 job is a good way to test how often you'll actually put it to use before committing to a mega-expensive one that does everything and will never break.

[Uncle Jimmy]

My mother wrote a story about a woman that killed her hubby with a Karcher.

[saucedoctor]

Sealey/Jefferson PC2950. Had one 15 years and it's still going strong. Powerful bugger too. I think the model has finally been superseded, but you might still find an NOS one. Takes hot water up to 50 degrees Catholic.

 

GR8 4 cars, double glazing frames, concrete aprons and cleaning shite (literally) off scramblers. It's a brave size of a thing, though.

 

I've had 2 of the smaller Karcher ones as well, but neither was long-lived.

[HillmanImp]

If you want to clean a car or patio, yes I would.

[Uncle Jimmy]

It's a relatively small evolutionary step from Karcher to Kalashnikov; whether backwards or forwards is more debatable.

I've seen the grim concentration, written large on the faces of pensioners as they strive to erase all life forms from their bungalow patios on a Sunday afternoon.

[colino]

The hot pressure one on the car lot is brilliant.  The variety of domestic ones I've bought for the house are a complete and utter waste of time apart from a bi-annual scrub of the patio, their only worthwhile use.

[dollywobbler]

I've got a cheap Nilfisk. Works well but to be honest, I mostly just use a hose.

[fairkens]

I've got a nilfisk too, very happy with it and significantly cheaper than a karcher.

[dave21478]

GordonBennet is 101% on the money if you want decent quality.

Also bear in mind that the peak pressure they all quote is usually some theoretical maximum the pump is capable of producing under lab conditions and will probably explode doing so for more than a few seconds, and they are downrated from that for actual use which makes model comparisons pretty worthless.

I got stung by that when I "upgraded" from my £50 Argos thing to something that cost €350 and turned out to be LESS powerfull than the Argos job. Typically, it was after spending the dosh that I did some research and found it was all a big fucking con.

 

High pressure but low water flow is ideal for writing pencil-thin clean lines in your dirt, but if you want to actually wash dirt away effectively you need a high flow rate.

 

Apparently, as far as the home end of use is concerned, Nilfisk and Lavor are the ones to look for, with Aldi occasionally selling re-branded Lavor units on promo. Although anything with a carry handle and plastic wheels is like a kitten taking a piss compared to a proper one, but spending £1k+ is out of the question unless you are washing lorries all day.

[twitcherman]

When I did proper off-road trials, I had a Clarke Tiger petrol-powered jobbie which was excellent. Particularly useful in that you could gravity feed it from a tank of water placed on the bonnet of the car, thus being able to clear out the brakes and rad before going back on the public road, when neither mains electricity nor water were available.

 

Pump eventually wore out after 6 years of heavy use. Never found an electric-powered one to match it, though I haven't tried a really expensive one like GB.

 

Downside for domestic use was the noise; I tended to wash the cars in the week when neighbours were at work.

[greengartside]

I got a 'Sovereign' pressure washer from Homebase for my birthday - just used it this morning and it works really well, I'd say it's just as powerful as a Karcher. Just has a lack of adaptors so no brush etc, but was reasonably priced and I'll only be using it for the patio and the car.

[Noel Tidybeard]

i got one from aldi which came with spinny brush and whirly lance for patio

compared to any of the others i've had this one seems to shift stuff so much better than anything else, especially using yhe whirly lance to take the paint off yor wheel trimz

[FakeConcern]

Thank you so much everyone who has taken the trouble to reply to this. Unfortunately, much as I would love to blow nearly a Grand on one SWMBO would veto it. I can't really complain given that I recently bought a Citroen XM 3ltr that I totally didn't need! So currently looking at Nilfisk or maybe Karcher K4.

[Bear]

Halfords seem to have a sale on Karchers - K2s were out on display under £100 when I was in today. Homebase have the K4 Eco which has all the gadgets (including the reel for the lance hose, that's something the K4 Car lacks) for £249ish. Never used a Nilfisk, and the Homebase one I had worked fine but was much noisier than the Karcher - would be unpopular with neighbours - my main gripe was that it was just somehow more irritating, the hose connections and things and the weird shape/handle for the patio cleaner bit that doubled as a lance.

[FakeConcern]

What about this?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nilfisk-C120-6-6-X-TRA-Pressure-Washer-/271748369088?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f45770ac0

[trigger]

I have a Karcher K4 Compact and I can recommend it, it does a great job at cleaning cars and mine came with an attachment for cleaning patios and decking too.

[alf892]

Pressure washers are for cleaning patios!

 

Why would you want to try and force water where it shouldn't be? A 1000psi (probably that as a minimum) against seal that are designed to sealagainst rainwater and splashes from the road.

[Station]

I've got a cheap Nilfisk. Works well but to be honest, I mostly just use a hose.

 

 I bought one from Tesco a couple of days ago to clean an engine - they are currently £60 reduced from £139. They're really effective and very small, and have various extensions for foam/bottle/etc. They're powerful enough to have blasted the hardened oil and crud off the block onto the ceiling and walls of my unit. It says on the box all the moving bits/pump is metal and not plastic.

[Ronnie L]

I've had quite a few pressure washers over the last 20 years or so. Most have been Karchers. Bought a Black and Decker one from Argos last summer. Kept it in my shed but we had a v cold night in December and it froze, bursting something inside so now water pours out of the casing when I turn the tap on. Can't easily fix it so bought a Nilfisk from Screwfix.

 

Mind you, I rarely use these things for washing the car. If I want to pressure wash I can do this for about 3 quid at the local Asda car wash. However for 4 quid I can drive into the local hand car wash place and sit in comfort while some v thorough Eastern European chaps make a very good job of washing whatever chod I roll up in. Why would you ever bother washing your car when it can be this easy?

[FakeConcern]

After all the recomendations on this, I bought a Nilfisk, which I tried out today, not sure if it was better than using the hose, but was much more fun!

[Matt]

Does that bottle have a mixture control dial? That snow foam is thiiiiin.

[FakeConcern]

No mixture control dial & not Snow Foam, just some cheap car wash stuff I already had! It all worked well though!