Education Recommend me... a pump-based pressure washer

My personal brand of choice for PW stuff is Kärcher, I especially like the Kärcher Outlet store. Returns/refurbs. Everything Kärcher I bought I've bought there at considerable discount to new - But it's all arrived looking new. I paid so little for my K2 that I'm pretty sure I gave it away here for postage.

IIRC the K4-K7 models support using the Suction Hose (SH5), I'd look into outlet sales for those models and see whether any of it fits your budget.

As an aside, I can't help but cringe at the notion of using those brush things on car paint.. Get a snow foam lance end and use a citrus based snowfoam. Clean it fairly often and the need for actively touching the car is probably minimal with how little you drive it.

 

You have just introduced me to a site i'm going to spend far too much time on.

 

I'll do a little nosing around when I get home - My 4G connection is acting more like an Edge connection. German mobile internet is really quite bum..

You're welcome, I guess!

 

AvE on YouTube has carried out a ‘BOLTR’ on the WORKX - a honest review.

 

Re snowfoam lances, I would look at something along these lines, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pro-Kleen-Lance-Karcher-Pressure-Washers/dp/B01K1VK6RY?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_4 the snow foam head is variable unlike the Karcher one. Not sure if that one fits but theres hoards out there. I got one then a Bosch fitting for my Ryobi pressure squirter.

Also on the head side of things, I used the vario lance on mine to clean the patio an de gunk some paving slabs of slime.

 

I second Kärcher, the amount of toys you can get for them is almost endless.

Get yourself an internal tap hose adapter though, any pressure washer is going to go through the water like anything and will be a pain to constantly refill.

There is a large selection to choose from for not much money.

Kärcher even do one.

 

Depends on your house water pressure, pressure washers don't need high pressure to feed them, only volume. If your household water pressure is massively high then there is a risk a fitting may come off.

 

Karcher Factory Outlet is quite a place. I bought my K5 full control (and a load of accessories, back along) from there. It's great. I also now have a big yellow vacuum cleaner and a steam cleaner. I didn't even know I needed to clean my steam

 

I've had my Karcher at least 10 years now, all sorts of abuse gets thrown its way and no complaints.

I have one "sort of" like this, obsolete now but parts still available if I ever need them.

I had to buy a new hose after damaging the old one, plus I bought a drain cleaning hose that saved me a huge plumbers bill.

I do have the car wash brush with the spinning internal brush head but I find that it is pants, I just use a soft bristle brush by hand instead.

 

Teardown review to see if its internals are any good.

 

I was going to post the link, but there is some strong language in AvE's videos and I value my B-T access. If you search for 'AvE BOLTR WORKX' you'll find the video

Edit - I took 20mins to write this and edzieba got there with the link.

 

I've had both a Karcher K2 (long term loan) and a Nilfisk C110 (my own) and aside from feeling like I was always going to break either of them, both the cord and hose lengths on either were a real drag... meaning (without planning to pun, may I add) you literally have to drag the unit (and the power extension reel) around with you so much that by the time you finish using it you've created a rat's nest of hoses and cables. By the time I was finished unpicking all of it I would wonder whether I was better off not bothering getting it out to start with.

Something to consider at any rate - battery could bring convenience that's worth sacrificing a bit of power for? Or at pay attention to hose/cable length if you're tethered. My current washer has an IIRC 12m hose which means it can usually stay put when washing cars, and that makes everything so much quicker and easier.

I'd second this. I've used the included Karcher and Nilfisk ones and they're both terrible - limited-to-no linger time from snow foam.

I'm using one of these on a recommendation, and it's excellent, but I'd be inclined to think it's overpriced since it looks largely the same, or at least very similar to the Amazon one.

 

TBFH, Gareth, it depends how much of a car-cleaning sinkhole you want to go down.

If I were in your shoes, I'd be looking at:

https://www.karcheroutlet.co.uk/products/product.asp?id=5599

And then, depending on how you want to feed it water:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kärcher-Suction-Filter-Pressure-Accessory/dp/B00I2W3B3G
and a water container of your choice

Or one of those tap/hose adaptors that best suits your available water feed.

As mentioned, the length of hose and cables can become an issue - If you're not thinking about it. Personally, I ran a hose and power extension as close to the area of washing as I could without introducing water to power, and went about it that way. I tended to find that worked fine for me - But I'm a funny sod, and don't seem to use things the same way as other people.

And then with regards to the car cleaning:
https://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/cyc-snow-foam-lance - That with the appropriate fitting. I have the precursor to that one, and it's never let me down. It is, though, essentially the same as the one Legoman linked.
https://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/gtechniq-w4-citrus-snow-foam - That snowfoam. Typically, all my foams are PH neutral because I usually spend a day ****ing around with car cleaning, so I don't usually want the extra oomph that a citrus-related foam has. However, I know a guy who sells that particular brand and uses their products exclusively. His cars always look nice.

However! It's a slippery slope and it really does depend on how much you care about your cars paint.

Those brush things will work, but they will invariably leave scratches that will show up under bright light no matter how careful you are with them. IIRC I've never seen anyone scratch through to bare metal with the bristles, but still, your paint will suffer for it.

Like I said, though, it depends how much of a monkeys you give. I know you're more of a "car is a-b transport" person than a "must take care of my mechanical friend" person, so it might not bother you to have kind of crappy (in the sense that it's full of micro scratches) paintwork if it means you don't have to pay that much attention to how involved cleaning it is.

Equally, you could just buy any PW and just blow the dirt (mostly) off the car and sod all this expensive car cleaning paraphernalia. I know I did that with my Mundaneo more than once when I lost the will to wash it properly. Never looked that different, being silver..

 

I had a Bosch and it died after two uses. Oil bloody everywhere.

It may have been that specific model or just crap luck.

 

The paraphernalia does help with being lazy though - three out of four times, for the daily drivers at least, I'll just snow foam, blast it off and then rinse with a DI vessel. A day or two later it looks the same as it would have done had I taken hours over a deep detail anyway.

 

Sure, it helps laziness. But with a daily driver for someone who isn't a car-cleaning fanatic? I'm not convinced it'd make enough difference to make him feel like he's getting good bang for buck tbh.

No problem.

Tbh, I'd be tempted to acquire the PW with none of the odds and sods, and see what you think after just running plain water through the PW over the car. Water pressure alone will move the dirt off the car, it just won't be "clean" in the same way as having used some soap. No touching, so less chance of marking the paint, and the cheaper option.

The reality of all this is, no matter what we car cleaner types do or think, there's always going to be infinitely more swirled paint cars driving around compared to paint perfection cars.