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sparky
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18-03-2020, 01:26 PM
21

Re: pressure washer Karcher

Originally Posted by Longdogs ->
An interesting post Sparky.
I try and put out there what I can, to educate people, I've worked in engineering most of my life, I know the cons, and the quick fixes, if I can offer advice and save someone a few quid then I'll do it, too many people get ripped off by unscrupulous people.
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18-03-2020, 01:32 PM
22

Re: pressure washer Karcher

Originally Posted by sparky ->
I try and put out there what I can, to educate people, I've worked in engineering most of my life, I know the cons, and the quick fixes, if I can offer advice and save someone a few quid then I'll do it, too many people get ripped off by unscrupulous people.
I think a lot of us have always suspected that certain components are designed to work for a certain amount of time, usually until just after the warranty runs out, so it's nice to know we were right.
sparky
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18-03-2020, 01:39 PM
23

Re: pressure washer Karcher

Originally Posted by Longdogs ->
I think a lot of us have always suspected that certain components are designed to work for a certain amount of time, usually until just after the warranty runs out, so it's nice to know we were right.
I had a mate, he was a sales rep for Black and Decker, he quit his job over it! If you stripped down a drill from the 60's or 70's they had proper bearings in them, keeped them lubed properly and they'd last for years. In the 80's they began replacing the bearings with bushes, these do wear out, he got fed up with complaints from customers who'd paid a lot of money, often around a hundred quid for a drill, based on the theory that buying a dear one meant you were getting something that would last, only to find out that it lasted no longer than a model costing about twenty quid, it's all wrong.
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gasman
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19-03-2020, 12:18 AM
24

Re: pressure washer Karcher

Originally Posted by sparky ->
the thing to look at is the pump, I've worked on hp pumps, so have an understanding of them better than a lot of people. In the smaller Karchers, and a lot of other cheaper makes the pistons are made of nylon, and this is for 2 reasons, 1 the cost, and 2 the length of time they are designed to last.
In a domestic situation any tool is expected to do a limited amount of work over the guarantee period, I remember Black and Decker used to reckon that in the hands of a DIY'er one of their drills would do no more than 6 hours work over a year, the warranty period, there were certain parts in the machine that they knew would only fail after 1o hours use, so if you took the drill in under warranty and one of these parts had failed, they'd deem it to have been used in a non DIY situation and therefore voided the warranty, it was a con basically, especially when you considered that a lot of people had sawing and sanding attachments for their drills.
It's the same with the nylon piston in a pressure washer, they know how long they will last before they fail, they actually melt!, effectively ruining the pump. Now they know that these will only fail in 2 situations, 1, running the machine dry, (remember you should always pull water through the lance before switching on) or 2, the machine has done more than the calculated number of hours during the warranty period, it's ridiculous how they calculate this, believe me.
The best advice I can give to anyone looking to buy a pressure washer is to find out if it's a metal pump, or a plastic one, yes, they're even making some units now with fully plastic pumps!
If it's a metal pump with metal pistons then the O rings can be replaced fairly easily and cheaply, you can do them yourselves. I have a number of Kango breakers, they are all over 30 years old, they don't make them any more, the only thing that ever fails is the piston seals, meaning they don't hammer, a seal kit is about £40 online, I found out the size of them, basically an imperial O ring and bought a box full for less than a tenner, now I can repair these machines at my leisure. it really is that easy, a lot of stuff uses common parts, you just have to identify them, I remember a bearing failing in the washing machine, a bearing from the supplier was about £50, a bearing from the firm who supplied the manufacturer was about a fiver. hope this saves some people a few quid.
Spot on and a good post
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gasman
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19-03-2020, 12:22 AM
25

Re: pressure washer Karcher

Originally Posted by realspeed ->
had a hunt around for supplers of Bosch pressure washers, seems there are very few and none around my area
Have a look here - I have used them lots of times.


https://www.espares.co.uk/browse/mt1...stic-k2-series
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19-03-2020, 02:04 AM
26

Re: pressure washer Karcher

Originally Posted by sparky ->
I had a mate, he was a sales rep for Black and Decker, he quit his job over it! If you stripped down a drill from the 60's or 70's they had proper bearings in them, keeped them lubed properly and they'd last for years. In the 80's they began replacing the bearings with bushes, these do wear out, he got fed up with complaints from customers who'd paid a lot of money, often around a hundred quid for a drill, based on the theory that buying a dear one meant you were getting something that would last, only to find out that it lasted no longer than a model costing about twenty quid, it's all wrong.
I still have a Black and Decker drill from the early 1970s and I can assure you it doesn't have proper bearings, it just has bushes.
 
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