Karcher K5 Premium Flex 2000PSI 1.4GPM Cold Water Electric Pressure Power Washer

I love this machine! Quiet, powerful, easy to connect and disconnect. It does the job and it looks great doing it. Easy to move and store. There is nothing bad I can come up with! You need this in your garage! At the price point, if it gets me through a couple springs of cleaning 10 or 12 cars after the salt season, it owes me NOTHING! I would replace it with the same again and be happy about it! (I hope it lasts 5 years or so, but hey, nothing lasts forever!)Be careful of tipping the thing over by pulling on the wand/hose. If you tip it over, it absolutley will do a face plant and break the plastic garden hose quick disconnect fitting. Then you'll be doing a Lowe's or Home Depot run for a brass unit.A tip for you all. The quick disconnect on the front of the unit used to connect the garden hose was so tight it was nearly impossible to snap all of the tight together. I finally got so mad, I put the 2 halves together by hand as far as I could and I then put the partially assembled quick disconnect between my knees and used the muscles of my legs and my arms combined to force the parts together. I thought I was likely going to break the fitting! I gave a mighty squeeze and to my shock, it snapped together!!! I took it apart and repeated this a handfull of times. Soon, I was able to just use my hands and snap it all of the way tight, but with great effort. After 50 or 100 times, it was getting easier. Now I can reach down with the end on the hose and snap it together how one would expect. A medium firm push and a noticable CLICK. For a while I was forced to put a foot behind the machine and bend down to get lined up for a really firm push that might take a few attempts, but like I said, now it's normal feeling and not a dramatic event.This pressure washer is mush quieter than my old 110V electric "Husky" 1200 PSI pressure washer. All around, this thing is a great unit for a home user. I don't use it daily or weekly, but come spring when my cars needed de-salted, I put around 20 hours total time on the unit. It still acts, looks and functions like new.I have noticed that if I empty the garden hose out completely while rolling it up to put away and then I put the empty hose to the Karcher washer and follow that by walking to the water valve to turn on the flow.... the unit gets very unhappy with the air in the pump and has trouble priming the system clear. It will go in and out of prime and not spray near as hard as it does after it finally gets a good water-solid prime on the pump. Then, once it is clear of air, the pitch changes from the motor and the power out of the spray nozzle becomes dramatically stronger.http://youtu.be/8jrJOPZ8ckwhttp://youtu.be/HvKuLwpcDpM

I did a lot of research on pressure washers to replace the old one I had that was dying, and this one seemed to fit my needs. I liked the fact that it had on-board storage for the hose and power cord. That was a big selling point for me, since my previous unit did not, and that made it hard to transport from the garage outside while trying to gather up the hose and power cord. This one has a high pressure rating for an electric washer.I received the unit, assembled it (not very hard to do) and went to use it, and it didn't work properly. There was a problem with the on/off switch. I contacted the seller, Staplemaia, through Amazon, and they immediately make provisions to send out a replacement unit. I didn't have to send my broken one in or do anything, they sent me a new one. Excellent customer service from Staplemania.The second unit arrived and works fine, with the exception of the wand. The wand on both units turns to a dribble when you turn it to pencil setting. There must be a design defect in the wand somewhere. The wand seems to be a common complaint here, so that was the reason for 4 stars. I use the unit for washing the wheels on my cars and cleaning the driveway, so the lack of the pencil setting is not an issue for me, I always use the wide spray setting. Otherwise, the unit works great. It's quiet, has good pressure, and is easy to tote in and out of the garage. The plastic pressure hose is a bit of a PITA, since it wants to roll up constantly, but that seems to be what most manufacturers are using on their pressure washers. I'm hoping to find a rubber replacement hose. All in all, I'm satisfied with my purchase. It meets my needs perfectly.I will comment on two things. First, de-bubble your garden hose before attaching it to the unit. Pressure washers don't like air, so take 30 seconds and let the air run out of your garden hose before hooking it up. Second, there were several complaints here about the garden hose quick-disconnect fitting breaking off if the unit fell forward and did a face-plant. I bought a 6" or so flexible garden hose extension, the kind with the spring wrapped around the outside of the hose. I leave it on the unit and simply attach my garden hose to the extension when I want to use the unit. I've tipped the unit over numerous times, and the flexible hose extension seems to cushion the fall. I have not yet broken my plastic quick-disconnect fitting as many have.

I have owned this product for 7 months now and gone through 2 warranty claims and it's broken again. The plastic pieces they use to connect the hoses are cheap and have broke after a couple uses. I have taken it out to use 5 times in seven months and it worked well when I could actually use it the durability has been terrible. The replacement parts come from "local" repair centers "nearest one 50 miles from my house" which are basically hardware stores where the people have no interest in helping you because its such a hassle on their end. I've actually given up on this product and have no interest in even fixing it at this point so do yourselves a favor and stay away.

I purchased my second Karcher pressure washer, Model K 3.540 X-series, which shipped on Jan. 2013. The box was opened and the unit was used for the first time for one hour in June of 2013. Unit was OK. The next usage was June 2014. The unit had a major leak, water spraying out of the unit. I removed the outer case and found a plastic part had been installed improperly, a stress bend in a plastic part. While the unit was not in use for a year the part cracked allowing water to spray out on the second usage. I notified Karcher of the failure in workmanship, they would not replace the part.I will not purchase another Karcher Product