That Really Is a Car Pressure Washer That You’re Using, Isn’t It?

They make pressure washers for different kinds of purposes. Some of them can be very high pressure models, meant for use on concrete surfaces. Models that do very high pressure like that are certainly not suitable for use on a car. You could actually cause damage to working car parts or plastics this way. For car cleaning and detailing, what you’re looking for is a car pressure washer.

Can A Pressure Washer Be Too Powerful?

You’re probably wondering – could you really cause damage to a car using not a purpose-built car pressure washer, but an all-purpose one?

You know, think about it this way – the window seals on your car are rated for a certain amount of pressure. If you aren’t careful, a stray blast from your pressure washer could really hit your window seals, and rip the rubber right off. Not to mention, it could shatter the glass. If the stray blast were to hit a windshield wiper, it would blast the wiper right off. After all, we’re talking pressure that’s meant to scrape dirt off concrete.

How Much Is Too Much?

A purpose built car pressure washer typically uses pressure that’s no greater than about 800 pounds per square inch. Sometimes, to clean really stubborn dirt, you could raise the pressure to about 1500. But that’s about it. Any higher, and you would probably blow a hole in the plastic of the bumpers. Even if you didn’t do that, even if you were careful to keep to the metal parts of your car, you could still cause damage to the finish.

You’re not going to run a distilled water line to your washer, are you? Water does contain impurities. At very high pressure levels, little particles of grit in the water would knock bits of your paint work off. In short – never make the mistake of using a general purpose pressure washer device to wash your car with.

How Good Is My Jet Washer?

Let’s say that you have a good pressure washer device lying around. You don’t really know if it’s meant for cars or not. How do you find out?

You could check out the pressure rating of course. It shouldn’t be any greater than 1500 pounds per square inch. But there’s another way to know, too. The more pressure a washing device puts out, the more water it’s going to use up. You don’t typically want anything that uses up more than a gallon a minute. Anything higher than that, and your talking concrete washing pressures.

If you were to use a purpose built car pressure washer, you could actually get a steam washer. You will find steam washers do a far better job.