Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing How to wash your car!

Pressure wash the wheels...certainly, but nothing else.
Too many chemicals for my taste.
All seemed a bit obsessive.

I was always warned not to use pressure washer on wire wheels as this could force water into the gaps between the spokes and the rim and would contribute to rust forming. This may only apply to CWW and not so much to Stainless Steel.

I used to quite happily pressure wash mine, with no issues, but I do not do it as much now since I started using "waterless" washing.

I would have been seriously p****d off if I had paid £80k for a car and seen those great chunks of lead on the outside of the wheels.

Steve: I was given similar advice, for the same reason, by a well respected Morgan dealer.
I tend not to use a pressure washer on any part of my 4/4.
I much prefer a gentler approach and use a watering can to remove soap suds.

Bud
4/4 - Stanley

You can also damage the tyres if the pressure is too high. Why bother.

Pleased you said that Simon. It confirms I'm not going mad (just yet) - Hope you and Suzie are doing well.

I don't personally use a pressure washer on my cars, but to be fair to those that do, it's very easy to avoid doing any damage by simply using them from farther away. Although it's true that the jet can do an awful lot of damage when used close up, the effects diminish very quickly with distance.

For a demonstration, take a garden hose with a standard nozzle on it adjusted to give a narrow jet and squirt it up in the air, 45 degrees for max range. If you have decent water pressure it'll go a significant distance. Now do the same with a pressure washer. The water comes blasting out of the nozzle with a couple of magnitudes more pressure than the hose, but won't go anything like as high in the air. I can squirt water from my garden hose a good 20 metres or more across the garden but the pressure washer turns into mist in less than 5.

Harley-Davidson switch over from classic bearing to industrial bearings around 2000. The problem was: more and more riders uses
a private Paket pressure washer with degreaser. The grease was washed out - the bearing collapses.

The same thing with bicycles. A lot of BikeComponents have a very short living... not only the bad quality.

René

Made me wince watching that

Too aggressive with the Mohair could lead to pilling on the surface & pressure washing may break the bond between the two fabric layers
Far too much PW into the wheel arches, on a trad there's a lot of exposed bullet connectors tucked under (yes it was a CX) & he was so close with the lance, then with multiple squirts of TFR that would strip waxoil type underseals
Multiple applications of traffic film remover on the topcoat paint will quickly strip your highly buffed wax protection
Then some nasty thing that blead purple, with the comment it's acidic...yikes !

Phew, I feel quite faint

I have been using the Bilt Hamber APC as long as I can remember, it won't touch the Undercoat, but certainly will affect the life of the wax or sealant top coat.