Stuff We Use: Under Pressure (Washers)

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we use and have purchased with our own meager income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.


We’ve mused before on these digital pages that a clean car seems to run better – a missive that apparently holds true for sports cars and hot hatchbacks, though burly off-road pickup trucks and SUVs may take umbrage with that assessment. Nevertheless, most gearheads tend to like keeping their ride relatively clean, explaining the sheer number (and type) of pressure washers marketed toward consumers.


For ages, this writer used a gasoline-powered pressure washer, firm in the belief it ran better and more reliably than any cheap electric plug-in unit ever would. Besides, having an extension cord flailing about whilst water is sprayed wildly does not inspire confidence in the back of my brain. Perhaps I’ve watched too many episodes of CSI, studying Gil Grissom’s investigations into strange and grisly deaths.


All but identical to this example, the pressure washer was biblically loud under load but always provided great performance – even during times when the water pressure from my artesian well was less than ideal. It came with a metal lance and spray gun, a quartet of tips in different spray angles, and a decently robust metal frame. For those unfamiliar, those spray tips that attach to the end of a nozzle dictate the aggression with which the water flows forth from your pressure washer. A 25-degree tip is not as vigorous as a 10-degree, for example – though you might not wish to use the latter on yer new car. Read the manual and know what’s best for your particular task. And, yes, I speak from experience after accidentally blasting away paint that was precariously hanging on over rust bubbles on my old Ram pickup truck.

This author has recently discovered that (gasp!) battery-powered household tools have come a long way from the Bad Old Days – and are even light years ahead in terms of performance than those on sale just a few years ago. In my garage now resides, of all things, a pressure washer powered by a lithium-ion battery from a company called DK2, belting out 2,200 psi and blasting away dirt from my Challenger and house siding alike.


The battery is a large cube and sits where the gasoline engine resided on my old pressure washer, consuming about the same amount of space. Its total capacity is just over 1.0 kWh and is paired with a brushless electric motor which the manufacturer claims is very similar in construction to units found on road-going EVs. It sure seems stout and I have no reason to doubt that claim.

All the literature I could find failed to make much (official) mention of run time on a full charge but my experience so far has been very positive. It’s no trouble to wash two or three cars at a time and not run out of juice, even at my notoriously leisurely pace. The same goes for washing the siding of my home, a surface that gets reliably gnarly thanks to a droke of trees surrounding our place. It is estimated recharging takes about twice as long as discharging, though I tend to just simply plug the thing in overnight; it’s always full the next time it is needed.


In fact, the battery can apparently be used as part of a DK2 ecosystem of products which include the likes of woodchippers and log splitters. Extra batteries can be stacked for more endurance at work or turned into a power bank for home use when the grid goes dark. By itself, the battery in my pressure washer can juice items through a couple of USB ports located on its anterior side. A separate device can be purchased to provide household-style outlets if you plan to double the thing as a 2000-watt source of backup power. My sole complaint is that this is a heavy bugger, weighing more than a hundred pounds which is way more than my old gas unit. Good job it rolls easily on its tires.


As planned, this series of posts will continue to focus on items we actually use and have bought with our own money. We hope you found this one helpful.

[Image: Author]

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Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • ToolGuy ToolGuy on Oct 30, 2023

    1600 bucks? Not for me.

    Since we have a freeze warning tonight, on my to-do list for today is to run some 'pump saver' through both pressure washers - the 'serious' gasoline-powered one and the wimpy plug-in electric one. And bring the 56V batteries inside the house (and 40V, and probably the M12 batteries too why not).

    My electric pressure washer has its own GFCI, so the chances of electrocution are less than 27.4%.

    My sister's kid works on a farm sometimes. He chose to clean his truck wheels using the Very Serious hot-water pressure washer on the farm. Which is fine if you want to remove the finish along with the dirt...

    • See 1 previous
    • ToolGuy ToolGuy on Oct 30, 2023

      I ordered a "EVEAGE 2-in-1 Undercarriage Pressure Washer Water Broom, 16" Under Car Pressure Washer Attachment with Extensions" back when it was cheaper and I was more optimistic. I use it as a 'broom' (pointing forward and down) after using my 15" Surface Cleaner on paved areas, but if I lived in a place where road salt was an issue, it would be just about ideal (spraying 'up') for cleaning off the bottom of a vehicle.

  • FreedMike FreedMike on Oct 31, 2023

    Thinking of getting (a much cheaper) one to clean off my wheels.

    • See 1 previous
    • ToolGuy ToolGuy on Nov 01, 2023

      I am thinking that if I had totaled the vehicle of any of the women in my immediate family by rear-ending another vehicle, I would probably not be alive now.


  • Steve S. Steve was a car guy. In his younger years he owned a couple of European cars that drained his bank account but looked great and were fun to drive while doing it. This was not a problem when he was working at a good paying job at an aerospace company that supplied the likes of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, but after he was laid off he had to work a number of crummy temp jobs in order to keep paying the rent, and after his high-mileage BMW was totaled in an accident, he took the insurance payout and decided to get something a little less high maintenance. But what to get? A Volkswagen? Maybe a Volvo? No, he knew that the parts for those were just as expensive and they had the same reputation for spending a lot of time in the shop as any other European make. Steve was sick and tired of driving down that road."Just give me four wheels and a seat," said Steve to himself. "I'll buy something cooler later when my work situation improves".His insurance company was about to stop paying for the rental car he was driving, so he had to make a decision in a hurry. He was not really a fan of domestics but he knew that they were generally reliable and were cheap to fix when they did break, so he decided to go to the nearest dealership and throw a dart at something.On the lot was a two year old Pontiac Sunfire. It had 38,000 miles on it and was clean inside and out. It looked reasonably sporty, and Steve knew that GM had been producing the J-car for so long that they pretty much worked the bugs out of it. After taking a test drive and deciding that the Ecotec engine made adequate power he made a deal. The insurance check paid for about half of it, and he financed the rest at a decent rate which he paid off within a year.Steve's luck took a turn for the better when he was offered a job working for the federal government. It had been months since he went on the government jobs website and threw darts at job listings, so he was surprised at the offer. It was far from his dream job, and it didn't pay a lot, but it was stable and had good benefits. It was the "four wheels and a seat" of jobs. "I can do this temporarily while I find a better job", he told himself.But the year 2007 saw the worst economic crash since the Great Depression. Millions of people were losing their jobs, the housing market was in a free fall, people were declaring bankruptcy left and right, and the temporary job began to look more and more permanent. Steve didn't like his job, and he hated his supervisors, but he considered himself lucky that he was working when so many people were not. And the federal government didn't lay people off.So he settled in for the long haul. That meant keeping the Sunfire. He didn't enjoy it, but he didn't hate it either, and it did everything he asked of it without complaint.Eventually he found a way to tolerate his job too, and he built seniority while paying off his debts. There was a certain feeling of comfort and satisfaction of being debt-free, and he even began to build some savings, which was increasingly important for someone now in their forties.Another bit of luck came a few years later when Steve's landlord decided to sell the house Steve was renting, at the bottom of the housing market, and offered it to Steve for what he had in it. Steve's house was small and cramped, and he didn't really like it, but thanks to his savings and good credit he became a homeowner in an up and coming neighborhood.Fourteen years later Steve was still working that temporary job, still living in that cramped little house that he now hated, and still drove the Sunfire because it wouldn't die. For years now he dreamed of making a change, but then the pandemic happened and threw the economy and life in general into chaos. Steve weathered the pandemic, kept his job when millions of people were losing theirs, and sheltered in place in that crummy little house, with Netflix, HBO, and a dozen other streaming services keeping him company, and drove to and from work in the Sunfire because it was four wheels and a seat and that's all he needed for now.Steve's life was secure, but a kind of dullness had set in. He existed, but the fire went out; even when the pandemic ended and life returned to normal Steve's life went on as it had for years; an endless Groundhog Day of work, home, work, home. He never got his real-estate license or finished college and got his bachelor's, never got a better job, never used his passport to do some traveling in Europe. He lost interest in cars. "To think how much money I wasted on hot cars when I was younger", he said to himself. He never married and lost interest in dating. "No woman would want me anyway. I've gotten so dull and uninteresting that I even bore myself".Eventually the Sunfire began to give trouble. With 200,000 miles on the clock it was leaking oil, developing electrical gremlins, and wallow around on blown-out shocks. Steve wasn't hurting for money and thought about treating himself to a new car. "A BMW 3-series, maybe. Or maybe an Alfa Romeo Giulia!" He began to peruse the listings on Autotrader. "Maybe this is just what I need to pull out of this funk. Put a little fun back in my life. Yeah, and maybe go back to the gym, and who knows, start dating again and do some traveling while I'm still young enough to enjoy it!"Then his father passed away and left him a low-mileage Ford. Steve didn't like it or hate it, but it was four wheels and a seat, and that's all he needed right now."Is it too late to have a mid-life crisis?" Steve thought to himself. For what he needed more than that stable job, that house with an enviably small mortgage payment, and that reliable car was a good kick in the hindquarters. "What the hell am I afraid of? I should be afraid that things will never change!"But the depression was like a drug, a numbness that they call "dysthymia"; where you're neither here or there, alive or dead, happy or sad. It was a persistent overcast, a low ceiling that kept him grounded. The Sunfire sat in his driveway getting buried by the needles from his neighbor's overhanging pine trees which were planted right on the property line. "Those f---ing pine trees! That's another thing I hate about this damn house!" Eventually the Sunfire wouldn't start. "I don't blame you", he said to the car as he trudged past it to drive the Ford to another Groundhog Day at that miserable job.
  • Yuda Cool. Cept we need oil and such products. Not just for fuel but other stuff as well. The world isn't exactly ready to move to wind and solar and whatever other bs, the technology simply isn't here yetNot to mention it's too friggin expensive, the equipment is still too niche and expensive as it stands
  • Rna65689660 Picked up my wife’s 2024 Bronco Sport Bad Lands!
  • Inside Looking Out Android too.
  • Ajla I'm replacing the transmission in a 2006 GMC van.
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