pressure washer

To wash you pickup truck with? Do you get tar or crude oil on it? If not, you really don't need a pressure washer to wash normal road dirt.

If you do get one be careful, you can cause damage to your paint, rubber parts and plastic parts with a pressure washer...

Get one. The truck is only the beginning. I hauled mine up on the roof yesterday and blew the crap out of my air conditioner (evap unit). You can take it around the house and pretty much destroy whatever you want as well as actually clean stuff up. I blew the middle out of a prickly pear cactus (simulating flesh).

Anyhow, you need to consider psi and gallons per minute. I bought a 2450 psi with 2.5 gpm and 5 hp gas engine at Home Depot. It cleans the accumulated grease off the front end and engine of my 67 F-100 as well as the garage floor and whatever else you point it at. Mine has a Honda gasoline engine. I would recommend that you get at least 2,000 psi and at least 2 gpm.

There is a lot of information on pressure washers on (believe it or not) THE POWER WASH NETWORK

Just go to the PowerWasher forum. It's mostly professionals but you'll get a lot of advice. Justremember gpm and psi, the more the bettter. One other thing, these things are dangerous. If you get an appendage in the way it will take it off or give you what they call and injection wound. The danger enhances the experience! Good luck. jor

Hi all,

I just want one which is the same psi as the commercial car wash one. I get sick of using a brush going underneath to clean the underneath. I travel on dirt road eveyday and by the end of the week, the truck looks very very dirty and full of mud that stuck underneath and very difficult to clean.

David

The coin carwash is usually less than about 1500 psi since they do not want to remove any paint. Most I have seen are in the 700 - 1000 psi range. I have a 3000 psi unit that I set at 15-1700 psi for car washing. Even that removed the paint from the roof of my 1990 F150 a few years back but .... that got me a free paint job from Ford. It was already showing signs of delaminating. BTW, nozzle choice makes a big difference in the performance of the washer. Wider patterns tend to be more gentle on the finish. The turbo nozzle I bought a few months back at 3500 psi will remove iffy paint. Excess pressure will also remove the protective coating from the frame and chassis very easily which may result in corrosion. Do not get aggressive on strong cleaners to help the washer. That can ruin the finish after a while. Nothing is better than a hand wash job but, during the winter monthes, any wash is much better than nothing.

And regardless what size you get, don't use it to try to clean the bugs out of the radiator or A/C cooling cores ;-(

And that is the best suggestion that I've yet read........

Denny

i have a 2003 f250 that i get pretty muddied up.. i have a 6.5HP home depot

2450 PSI pressure washer.. i try not to get too close with it cause it may damage the paint really close...

I havent damaged anything yet but dont wanna take any chancesd.. the pressure washer is great for getting mud off the tires / wheels / step bars.. and the undercarrage... for the rest i usually dont have much mud on it

dont get an elecvtric whatever you do they stink

I use a 3000 PSI pressure washer on my F350. I don't use it to blast crud off the truck from close range and always use the "fan" setting. It knocks off the mud like gangbusters and when you're done hittin' it with a sponge and some soap, rinses the beast off in no time.

Do I need 3000 PSI for truck washing? No, but it works great on driveway stains and cleaning off the fences/deck/patio slab. Buy one, you'll use it all the time.

I bought mine from the Sears scratch & dent store for half what it would have cost new. All I had to do was replace 1 gasket and buy a new tip for the washer wand to get it running. I've been flogging the crap out of it for 4 years now without a single problem.

Thank you all for all the input.