My Karcher K4 within a year broke a plastic part, luckily it was easy to source the metal upgrade from Karcher and repair.. but this early failure left a bad taste in my mouth about the brand.
yesterday, the 3?4? year old K4 wouldn't power up, i decided to look into the internal leak it had for sometime, but all the internal clips had rusted etc, so it was unsavable.
So, i'm loathe to buy another Karcher, but i do have a decent selection of accessories, and their new 5 year warranty puts my mind at rest. But i also know i can buy adaptors to use the K series accessories on other brands
I've got a £300 budget in my head, wants to have a bit more oomph than the k4 and decent hose management , so was looking at K5, and Nilfisk core 150
prefer something with a great warranty or user fixable, which the Karcher seemed to be (spare parts availability) until i opened it up
There seemingly quite a few threads lately, about pressure washers 😀 There are fans of all the brands, and ppl with bad experiences of all of them too... seemingly pot luck
I have a 3year old Nilkfisk 140 like the NF 150, as I wanted the variable power output, which many don't have. I can see the NF 150 also has it and a proper length of hose, as mine only has 6m. I didn't realise this would be as annoying as it is, I keep meaning to buy a new one, but there quite expensive for 'just' a hose.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/off-topic/what-jetwash/
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/off-topic/sorry-pressure-washers
I've gone Karcher-Nilfisk-Karcher as each in turn has disappointed. Fwiw I've just got a K4 bundle from the Karcher outlet.
In terms of the products themselves, there's a big jump in performance as you go up from the smaller to more powerful units - everything is just quicker and more efficient - so a £300 budget is a great place to be and you should get the accessories you want as well.
Longer hoses also make jobs much quicker and easier.
yer i missed the previous threads :S
looks like none of them like to be kept outside in winter, not surprisingly.
So Karcher and Nifilsk are on a level with each other
Stihl have good praise...
Kranzel(sp) when i up my budget
AVA kit has a 10 year warranty, im interested....
Keep reading these threads but unable to make a decision! Has anyone used the Stihl battery and water connection-less type? It would get around the issue of tripping over both a trailing wire and hose, it's a smaller unit so easier to store and just makes more sense for me.
I bought a refurbed AVA P40 from https://www.cleanstore.co.uk/brand/ava after a previous discussion on here. Had a K3 that developed the dreaded leak and eventually failed. The P40 did have develop sort of issue when it smelled of burning and started to fail, returned to Cleanstore and they fixed it under warranty. Its been great since, much more powerful than the K3 and the hose is much better than the light plastic rubbish from Karcher.
My Karcher K4 is fine, when it's not spitting out yellow inserts and losing o-rings. Absolutely done with it at this point. K4 upwards are metal pumps I believe... that may have changed.
AVA kit has a 10 year warranty, im interested....
I have the P60 Evo (although it was closer to £400 with the accessory bundle). Works well (although I've only used it for car washing to date), as posted on another thread I did have an issue where the hose (to the gun/lance) split on the pressure washer end but it was minimal hassle to get them to send a replacement (just logged a ticket on their web-site and provided proof of purchase when asked). The replacement hose has been fine so hopefully was just a manufacturing defect with the original.
It seems pretty well made and you can buy spares and service kits from them (although some parts aren't cheap and often show as out of stock) but hard to say with my limited use how it will hold up over time. I had a cheap Karcher before, to be honest that was fine in terms of performance (for my needs) but I wanted something with a built-in hose reel and a bit more power.
I’ve got a 10yr old Karcher K4, which is still going good, bought from B&Q on a deal. Reading the forums the Karcher quality is hit and miss, but expensive brands can go wrong over time too.
My only niggle with it is that the wheels don’t turn, and dragging it round is a PITA, so just bought a 10m extension hose cheap off Bezos
If it broke now, I think I’d go for another cheap one and take the risk (K3 is on offer at £120 in Halfords, £108 after Brit Cycling discount)
Do people really spend £400 on something to make washing the car a bit easier? I ask after looking at Karcher stuff yesterday when I went to use my hose and bucket combo and the cheap expandable hose fell apart while using it, the head came off and the hose itself was leaking heavily. £200 for the K3 kit seemed like a lot in my opinion. Currently have 2 cars which are infrequently cleaned, does having a washer help force you to actually use it?
i hate washing my car, but i wouldn't dream of doing it without at least blasting and foaming the worse of it off.
but what i do really want a better bit of kit for is to be able to wash the fascia of the house down with the extendable pole.
K4 i had couldn't really give enough oomph with enough spread to do it efficiently. granted i only do it annually..but that, a few car washes, a few bike washes, and an occasional patio clean....
Our Karcher wouldn't power on - no noise from the pump, nothing happening, and I thought it was broken
In our case, I found this link on YouTube and it worked for us. (The video says Karcher K5 - don't know what ours it, but it isn't that model).
Basically, disconnect the lance, run water for several minutes to get rid of any trapped air, reconnect lance and try to switch it on.
Do people really spend £400 on something to make washing the car a bit easier? I ask after looking at Karcher stuff yesterday when I went to use my hose and bucket combo and the cheap expandable hose fell apart while using it, the head came off and the hose itself was leaking heavily. £200 for the K3 kit seemed like a lot in my opinion. Currently have 2 cars which are infrequently cleaned, does having a washer help force you to actually use it?
I bought a jet wash for a number of reasons - one of which was to hopefully speed up cleaning the car. In my head, I thought that using a snow foam attachment to pre-wash the car would help speed up the washing process & make it all a bit easier.
I think I got a K2.
The reality is that by the time I got the jet wash out, plugged it all in & set it up I would have been a fair way into just washing the bloody car without it 🤣
Also, I kept getting the power & water hoses tangled up & having to sort that out.
Maybe it would get better with practice, but the whole thing seemed like a massive ball ache compared to just doing it with a couple of buckets & the garden hose for wetting surfaces & then rinsing.
Do people really spend £400 on something to make washing the car a bit easier? I ask after looking at Karcher stuff yesterday when I went to use my hose and bucket combo and the cheap expandable hose fell apart while using it, the head came off and the hose itself was leaking heavily. £200 for the K3 kit seemed like a lot in my opinion. Currently have 2 cars which are infrequently cleaned, does having a washer help force you to actually use it?
Do not look at Kranzle then, £700 and it doesn't even come with a load of accessories or even in a big gaudy plastic case to cover the working bits up.
The only bit of car washing it actually speeds up is getting all the caked on shit out of wheelarches. Pre washing it with the jetwash is just blasting all that grit into the paintwork. Snowfoam is a gimmick for instagram. A way of using liters of expensive products whilst making sure that 99% of it never touches the actual dirt. TFR, or just some car shampoo, diluted in a garden sprayer works just as well. Rinsing, the jetwash does it, but then so would a normal hosepipe by that point.
What they do do well is cleaning off stuff without pouring gallons of surfactant into the sewers. Getting weed / algae / barnacles off the boat, blasting weed off the trailer, flushing the sal****er out of the trailers chassis. Cleaning commercial vans (jetwash off the loose stuff, spray with TFR, agitate with a big sweeping brush and soapy water, jetwash off the remains, swirl marks and expensive detailing products be damned).
Same with the patio / path. You can use all sorts of bleaches and cleaners, or you can just blast off the dirt with a jetwash.
We have a place in the Lakes with about 150 sq metres of slate paving that needs frequent attention to stop the surface becoming a slippery death trap.
After years of putting up with a somewhat underpowered Karcher K2 (which is still going strong(ish) we have just upgraded to a K7. Absolutely brilliant - it was just like the first time using disc brakes after years of cantilevers. You know that feeling when you laugh away to yourself when something is just brilliant, and so much better than you were expecting…
Bought through an introductory offer from Tool Station for £360, so not too bad for what you get.
Nice long hose, adjustable pressure gun and PLENTY OF POWER.
Could have typed the above but 150m2 of wood and stone terracing, upgrade from a K2 to Nilfisk 150,. Night and day with a terrace washer attached.
The K2 is about 15 years old tho' so kudos for that.
I'l also need it to wash the house ( I needto paint this summer) - cleaning the car is the least thing it does. I normally don't use it for that. Sponge and hosepipe
