pressure washing safe for every- wash use?

CTSV said:
fantastic! I believe the pump on mine is 6% , I'll have to check if this is enough for my car wash but good to know I won't need to spend $$$ on a separate unit.





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Do you have a soap tip? you have to have a special tip that goes into the end of your wand. It tells the injector to start sending soap from a change in pressure.

Contact Bob at Pressure Tek. He will help you get set up.
 
Justin Murphy said:
Do you have a soap tip? you have to have a special tip that goes into the end of your wand. It tells the injector to start sending soap from a change in pressure.

Contact Bob at Pressure Tek. He will help you get set up.
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the wand tip that I have has a feature to start the built-in suction . It's one of those adjustable spray pattern/pressure tips, so you just go low pressure wide angle to start the vacuum.
 
Justin Murphy said:
OK. You'll be fine. The trick is getting your soap ratios right.
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That will be interesting, the manual says it's supposed to be doing 16.6:1, the reccomended ratio for the wash I'm using is 1 ounce product per 359.04 ounces water :/
 
Dan said:
IMO, its safer when used properly and in most cases uses less water than a traditional hose. The biggest advantage over a hose is it will wash away nearly all of the abrasive dirt from the finish of the car. All that remains is the road grime film which is non abrasive. This means you can get rather careless about your wash technique and not get any wash induced swirls as there is no dirt to push around. You can get rid of the extra buckets, extra time fussing over clean mits,etc. Its a huge time and money saver.



Someone is going to come in and say you can cause serious damage, especially with a gas pressure washer, and yes, when used improperly, you can create a great deal of damage.
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Are you saying pressure wash then wash with one bucket?
 
Bunky said:
Are you saying pressure wash then wash with one bucket?
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Yes, one bucket with traditional wash. I used to ONR with two buckets, but now I don't even do that. If you PW there really is no abrasive dirt left on the finish.
 
I still use a grit guard. It really works....especially with ONR.

Plus, I could not live without my pressure washer when doing floor mats on full details. You can vac, extract, or scrub but you'll never get them cleaner faster than with a pressure washer.
 
Used the pressure washer on my beater today. Litertally night and day difference-- even without a 2bucket method. The wool mitt I've used was hardly dirty at all! Even more surprising since I washed it on a car that's outside 247. I may need to tweak the foaming though, I think it was using too much product to get some good suds going.
 
Yeah, it doesn't take a lot of foam. While the foam canon shots look really cool, they waste time, money and aren't great for the environment. I really try to minimize chemical runoff. For dirty cars that will get re-waxed, I like a mild APC+Soap combo sprayed on dry paint, then powerwash the dirt and grime off.
 
I use my pressure washer every wash (AR383). In my experience, I have a lower water consumption and cleaning wheels is a breeze even w/o the use of wheel cleaner. As long as you stick with a wide-spray pattern and stay away from the "lazer beam" spray then you should be good to go.



I have a foam cannon as well but I only use it for full-on, start-over cleaning which is pretty much just twice a year (winter prep & spring cleaning). It just seems to be a time-waster for maintenance washes as the car is never really dirty to begin with. A quick circle around the car with the pressure washer using only water is good enough to dislodge or dissolve most of the dirt particles.



Also, be SURE to secure the nozzle tip/stick to the wand and do a test spray AWAY from the car. I have seen way to many nozzles transformed into weapons-of-paint-destruction because they were not fully clicked or twist-locked into the gun...
 
MCA said:
Also, be SURE to secure the nozzle tip/stick to the wand and do a test spray AWAY from the car. I have seen way to many nozzles transformed into weapons-of-paint-destruction because they were not fully clicked or twist-locked into the gun...
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This is a really good tip, that to many of us just seems like second nature. Always start spraying away from the car and move the wand onto the car. Especially important after you change nozzles or if you have one of the ones that is adjustable.
 
Be a little careful about directing the pw output at the tire bead where it meets the rim. A few years ago I think it was Michelin that was warning people about pws messing up their tires when people got all aggressive about it.



Dan said:
Yeah, it doesn't take a lot of foam. While the foam canon shots look really cool...
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IMO the only reason to want foam is to help it cling so it increases the dwell time, and it doesn't need to be really thick/foamy to do that.
 
Accumulator said:
Be a little careful about directing the pw output at the tire bead where it meets the rim. A few years ago I think it was Michelin that was warning people about pws messing up their tires when people got all aggressive about it.







IMO the only reason to want foam is to help it cling so it increases the dwell time, and it doesn't need to be really thick/foamy to do that.
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yeah, good tip there. generally I need just a twitch tigher than it's wides setting, so it shouldn't be a big problem.



also quick question, this is just a Harbor frieght unit, the manual doesn't state anything about the detergent feature on it, but there's a spring-loaded screw type thing near the detergent suction nipple. Does anyone else have a similar adjustment screw on their unit? Just wondering if this is for the detergent system.



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CTSV said:
yeah, good tip there. generally I need just a twitch tigher than it's wides setting, so it shouldn't be a big problem.



also quick question, this is just a Harbor frieght unit, the manual doesn't state anything about the detergent feature on it, but there's a spring-loaded screw type thing near the detergent suction nipple. Does anyone else have a similar adjustment screw on their unit? Just wondering if this is for the detergent system.



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That's the unloader adjuster. Has nothing to do with the detergent injector.
 
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