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Four machines, ranked by what they actually do rather than by their headline pressure. If you read nothing else: compare litres per hour, not bar.
The first pressure washer is usually bought on bar and regretted on flow. Here is the order that matters.
Pressure breaks the bond between dirt and surface; litres per hour carry the dirt away. A machine with plenty of one and little of the other cleans slowly whatever the box says. The Kärcher K 4 publishes 420 l/h and the Nilfisk Core 140 465 l/h, so both can be compared honestly. The Bosch UniversalAquatak 125 publishes none, which is stated on its page rather than guessed at.
Five metres puts the machine inside the area you are cleaning; seven or ten keeps it at the edge. Working radius decides how often the machine gets dragged over — and dragging is what kinks a hose at the gun and eventually splits it.
The Nilfisk’s adjustable pressure is the feature that makes one machine safe on a car and useful on concrete. Most of the harm domestic washers do happens at full pressure because full pressure was the only setting available.
125 bar · 3-in-1 nozzle · 5 m hose
The cheapest machine here, and the one whose single nozzle does the work of three.
Best for: A first pressure washer for a small garden, a bike and a car, where price decides
≈ £135 / 97 €
120 bar · Foam Jet nozzle · T 1 patio cleaner included
The entry Kärcher, sold as a bundle with a patio head — which is the part that decides whether the machine gets used.
Best for: A small courtyard, garden furniture and bikes, where the machine is used a few times a season
≈ 150 €
130 bar · 420 l/h · 30 m²/h · 5.7 kg
The first Kärcher that publishes its flow rate — and the number that tells you what the machine will actually do.
Best for: A terrace, a drive and a car, cleaned two or three times a year, where the K 3 would need too many passes
≈ 220 €
140 bar · 465 l/h · 40 m²/h · 1 800 W
The machine in this group that publishes every figure it should — pressure, flow, area and power — and lets you turn the pressure down.
Best for: Mixed jobs — a car one weekend and a terrace the next — where being able to lower the pressure matters
≈ £195 / 165 €
For a terrace, a car, garden furniture and a bike, 120 to 140 bar is enough — provided the machine moves a reasonable volume of water. Above 150 bar you are buying the ability to damage things faster, not to clean ordinary dirt better.
A surface cleaner, before anything else. It is the difference between an even terrace and a striped one, and between spray on the wall behind you and none. Then a detergent, because dwell time does what pressure cannot.
Pressure washers and floor washers swing by a hundred euros or more across the year, and the biggest "discounts" often land at prices the same model sold for six weeks earlier. UniverTrack tracks the real price history across retailers, spots fake reductions, and alerts you when it is genuinely the moment to buy.
