Pressure Washer dying, recommend a replacement?

[Welly]

My faithful 1998 Karcher 620M is finally dying the aluminium casting on the high pressure water side has split, I think the recent freeze worsened it but its been on the cards for over a year.

It has a massive electric motor, a brass cylinder head, motor 'off' sensor when you let go off the lance trigger and it delivers 130Bar. Generally it came from a quality era when stuff was good.

Seen a few pez-powered ones for £170.00 ish but suspect they'll either be a world of pain, be noisy enough to wake the dead, or both.

A Karcher K4 seems to fit the bill but has a silly LED screen built into the lance the same sort of lance I tend to drop a lot, or throw around.

The DIY stores tend to have them made down to 'their' *special* sale price so are flimsy and poor quality.

Any experiences in recent years?

[steve_earwig]

Can it not be repaired? You are meant to drain them out when you're not using them and especially in winter[/waggy finger]

Petrol powered? Is this so it sticks out hot water or just to power the thing? Pointless if so.

Does the led actually tell you anything useful? I think there's a gauge of some sort on my Karcher's wand but I've never looked at it...

[Welly]

I tried to open it up a couple of years ago and mashed one of the allen bolt heads in a rage, it leaked a bit after, this is where the high pressure bit meets the cylinder head, now the water is spraying out of the aluminium casting quite badly I think its actually split on a seam. I've mentally written it off especially how it doesn't sense me using the snowfoam lance and I stand there like a twat waiting for it to pump full-chat, 20 minutes yesterday and I came to the conclusion our time together was over

Pez-power would just be to drive the thing, a bit OTT but my drive is quite large so it would be less hassle than trailing leads everywhere, by the time I get the Hoover out there's hoses and leads all over the place and I HATE packing away leads. I'm thinking the noise could be an issue though in our very quiet street. I borrowed a commercial petrol one last year and my mate who lives in the next street said he could hear me

My Karcher has a pointy compass type gauge in the lance which I never look at, f*ck knows what this LED screen does and why you'd ever need to look at it. I don't think they'll rest until our kettles have an LED touch screen

[steve_earwig]

I am in absolute horror of buying anything new these days, the quality just seems to be disappearing down the plug hole Maybe you can pick up a whole new pump for it, hell, you're still in the UK so there's not a host of parasitic importers lined up to fleece you any time you try and buy anything out of the ordinary. Must be worth a try.

Pez washer is made from finest* Chinesium no doubt. Just buy a decent extension cord on a reel, you lazy bugger Then you can spend actually money on a pressure washer, rather than another motor that'll need servicing/fettling all the time.

I've noticed here that nobody seems to bother buying any equipment that's petrol/diesel powered, I guess it makes far more sense to buy a genny and then you can run more or less anything you would use at home off it.

Which reminds me, I've not run my genny yet this year...

[Welly]

Just had a looky, this is the bit that's knackered: https://www.buyspares.co.uk/pressure-wa ... ref=609754

£109.00

Also need the pressure sensor thing which I can't find but no doubt be expensive.

[steve_earwig]

http://www.nextday-parts.co.uk/acatalog ... Parts.html 4th thing up from the bottom. iffin that's the same thing...

Parts diagrams PDF - https://www.sparesgiant.com/media/pdf/k ... 20%20M.pdf

Not that I can find a pressure switch

What's this microswitch here do? https://www.ransomspares.co.uk/diagram/ ... 73-865.0)/ (#7)

[Welly]

Ooh blimey cheers steve, that's really helpful and much cheaper. Might do a kinda strip down and make a list of parts.

Pressure switch - I dunno, it's the bit that senses you've pulled the lance trigger...water starts flowing...then the pump starts. It shows a micro switch maybe that's it, it must have electrickle connections.

[steve_earwig]

Hopefully that helps, I wasn't sure if it was the same thing but I can't think of anything else looking like that that'd be in a pressure washer.

That's the only bit I can see with electrickeral connections, just looks like a Burgess microswitch to me. Maybe the thing that looks like a small piston (labelled "bracket") works on it against the pressure of the spring. Excess current? Has this been translated from German via Chinese?

[Doggy]

That be a V3 microswitch to give it it's generic title, available from RS or probably a lot cheaper from CPC / Farnell [/2p worth]