Pressure Washer Use on Automobiles; Play it Safe With High Pressure

If you are like most you realize that it costs a lot to have your vehicle professionally cleaned. Full service carwashes often charge over $15.00 with just a few extra options, such as “hot wax” or tire dressing (armor all). To have your car, pick-up or SUV detailed it can easily coast over $150.00 or more, as auto detailing experts or self-proclaimed experts do not come cheap. And even when you have your car washed or detailed you are rarely completely satisfied and for those prices, well you should be, shouldn’t you?

It is for this reason so many people end up buying their own pressure washers to do it themselves. You cannot blame them can you? They realize that if they want it done right, like their father’s told them, well then you have to do it yourself. When using a pressure washer to wash your car please consider the “one foot rule” that is to say never get the nozzle closer than one-foot of the paint job. You should not ever get too close with a pressure washer, I recommend even with a 40 degree tip no closer than a foot. Do not attempt to blast bugs off at close range because if you have a bit of pealed paint or rust underneath you could take a chunk of paint off.

I doubt if you will take off the paint off unless you were a few inches a way at 2500 psi, but if your paint is already damaged it is possible. You should not expect to get the film off from the road crud with a pressure washer alone, it will take some soaping and elbow grease too. But a pressure washer is indeed excellent at knocking off the major crud and thus simplifies the wash process. Think on this in 2006.