Engineered to fail

[jzmtl]

I have a little Simoniz electric 1800 psi power washer, it's a lot handier than a gas one since I only use it a few times a year, and it does an okay job for cleaning stuff.

When the weather finally rose above freezing, I dragged it out to blast all the road salt and dirt off my car like I do every spring. This time it was a bit different though, when I turned on the water and came back, it was absolutely flooding and blasting water out from somewhere inside. Oh crap, there goes 200 bucks. The motor still works fine so I managed to clean the car with water leaking all over.

Of course being the cheap ass I am, I'm not about to throw it away. So out comes my newly acquired Bosch 12v impact driver and Milwaukee bits (they make excellent power screwdriver, way better than the actual power screwdrivers). After lots of wiggling and figuring out where all the screws are, the power washer is in parts.

The motor and pump is one unit, all cast metal including the motor housing, fan blade, pump housing, except one...

The water inlet is molded plastic, the only plastic part on the whole friggin thing. I connected water hose and turn it on, guess where's the leak is? There's a hairline crack on the plastic inlet which opens up and spray water all over under pressure, but otherwise invisible. It's very complex shaped, so unless Bob is my neighbor and I have a CNC in the basement there's no way I can replace it. After some thoughts I decided to just reinforce the crack with JB weld, coating the parts in thick layer on both side of the crack. In retrospect, I should have added a sheet of aluminum flashing for extra reinforcement.

But after a few days of curing, initial testing showed it's holding. Haven't had a chance to use it yet so dunno if it's going to hold in long term.

If the damn thing is made of cast metal like every other parts on the unit, it would easily last years to come. But I guess that's not something the manufacturer want, so a plastic part is slipped in which fails after a few years. Since it's out of warranty, and they don't sell any actual parts, ka-ching, they just sold another washer, and the old one is in the landfill.

Things like this really annoy me to no end, but well, what can you do?

[ducttapetech]

That's sucks man! Would you be able to J.B. Weld the crack?

live from Nate's mobile

[RT1969]

I hear you.
I hate it when a manufacturer does this, without even adding a spare part. 

Two weekends ago I was carrying a maybe 4 year old watch. On Saturday the loop around the strap (to hold the end of the holed strap, I don't know how it's called) broke. Ok, I can live with that. On sunday, the strap broke 

Good thing is, the watch still works and I now have an excuse to order some Paracord.

[JAfromMn]

If I was fixing it I would use a epoxy made for plastic.

I don't know why they got to use plastic on crap. It always breaks.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I think you have the same brand (Broken Inc) that I have.  My pressure washer is pretty well exactly the same.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[jzmtl]

I think you have the same brand (Broken Inc) that I have.  My pressure washer is pretty well exactly the same.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

CT special?

[Whoey]

they don't call it crappy tire for nothin!

[Grant Lamontagne]

I think you have the same brand (Broken Inc) that I have.  My pressure washer is pretty well exactly the same.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

CT special?

It probably was- my father actually gave it to me.  I need to replace the wand as well, so it's probably easier to just replace the whole bloody thing.

I'll keep my eyes open at Princess Auto and get a gas powered one instead.

Def

[jzmtl]

If you use it often it's probably worth it to get a decent brand, Sears just had a craftsman 2500 psi gas on sale for $200.

I used mine to do some small stuff and so far the JB weld is holding, if it leaks again I'll look up some plastic specific epoxy  (not as brittle?) assuming the plastic part didn't explode into pieces.

[jzmtl]

I just fixed something else. All it needed was a simple o ring, but of course nobody sells it, just the complete assembly.

I ended up using polyurethane in a tube to make a seal and it's working so far, at maybe 0.1% the cost...

I'm not a tree hugger, but things like this still annoys me to no end, with all the stuff that wouldn't end up in landfill otherwise.

[derekmac]

We just bought a new pressure washer last weekend.  It's a 2800 psi Ryobi (which I usually hate), but it has a 4 stroke Honda engine in it, and it idles down when not spraying.  It's regular $429, but it was on sale for $379.  Let me tell you, that thing has POWER!!  It's also very quite, which was surprising.


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[jzmtl]

From what I read, the most important part is flow rate, pressure secondary. I don't have a place to store it, and have to haul it outside every time I need to use it. So yeah, a big gas power washer wouldn't work, don't think I can lift it up and walk up and down stairs. 

[jerseydevil]

From what I read, the most important part is flow rate, pressure secondary.

Correct.    Gallons/Liters per minute is the most important part of the power washer equation.  the machines we rent vary from 2.4-3.5 GPM.  The higher the pressure, the more likely you are to start blowing shingles off of your house or chunks out of your deck.    And yes, that happens often enough, despite what we tell customers. 

[Chako]

You know, this title sort of fits an old neighbour of ours when we lived in a rental. Not only that, I have a fitting story to tell that is off topic, but relevant to the topic at hand.

One day he wanted to clean his truck. He got the bright idea to use his new power washer. He apparently did a nice job on a fender before he noticed that it was not only cleaning the dirt, but also the paint. Now that is bad enough, but it gets better. I recall his yelling and moaning at the damage he did. It actually brought me out...so no, I didn't get to witness his cleaning job first hand. I did get to witness how he went about to fix it. He used a paint roller and, you guessed it, latex paint. The paint peeled off in no time at all. One could say the neighbour was engineered to fail. This was the same guy who one winter, revved up his engine one super cold winter day and blew a piston through the hood. Now to a 9 year old...that was awesome.

[jzmtl]

Latex paint...

Mine's a crappy 1.8 gpm I think, still better than a hose though.

[ironraven]

My software.

We have a problem. Our developers can't figure it out. So they wrote a new error message. And now it is working as designed. Now they don't have to figure it out. Two years latter, we still piss off a fair number of customers while development just edits the data to make it look like there was never a problem at all.

[RT1969]

We have a problem. Our developers can't figure it out. So they wrote a new error message.

This reminds me:
We have a bottle deposit/refund system in Germany. And machines at the store where you return the bottles to. Now there are 2 events than can happen when you put a bottle into the machine:

1) The machine reads the barcode and passes the bottle to the container.
or
2) The machine gives the error message 'Bottles must be put in bottom first'.
No matter what the problem is, there is only this message (instead of e.g. 'An error occured. Try Again'). You always see this message, no matter how you tried to stuff the bottle in there.

And if your lucky, you get the bonus error 'This store does not accept this kind of bottle.'. HAppens mostly with bottles, you bought there 

[ducttapetech]

You know, this title sort of fits an old neighbour of ours when we lived in a rental. Not only that, I have a fitting story to tell that is off topic, but relevant to the topic at hand.

One day he wanted to clean his truck. He got the bright idea to use his new power washer. He apparently did a nice job on a fender before he noticed that it was not only cleaning the dirt, but also the paint. Now that is bad enough, but it gets better. I recall his yelling and moaning at the damage he did. It actually brought me out...so no, I didn't get to witness his cleaning job first hand. I did get to witness how he went about to fix it. He used a paint roller and, you guessed it, latex paint. The paint peeled off in no time at all. One could say the neighbour was engineered to fail. This was the same guy who one winter, revved up his engine one super cold winter day and blew a piston through the hood. Now to a 9 year old...that was awesome.

That's some funny stuff there. Loved to seen that piston fly and the look on his face.

live from Nate's mobile

[jzmtl]

This reminds me:
We have a bottle deposit/refund system in Germany. And machines at the store where you return the bottles to. Now there are 2 events than can happen when you put a bottle into the machine:

1) The machine reads the barcode and passes the bottle to the container.
or
2) The machine gives the error message 'Bottles must be put in bottom first'.
No matter what the problem is, there is only this message (instead of e.g. 'An error occured. Try Again'). You always see this message, no matter how you tried to stuff the bottle in there.

And if your lucky, you get the bonus error 'This store does not accept this kind of bottle.'. HAppens mostly with bottles, you bought there 

We have the bottle/can deposit system too, but it generally works and you can return cans to any machine.

Still think it's retarded though. We have big recycling bins that's picked up every other week by a big truck that's going to come regardless, yet we have to waste gas spewing toxins to haul them back to store. Nothing more than greenie feel good movement that does more harm than good.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Every time I think about buying a new pressure washer I stop and think about what I want it for, and most of the time I realize that I would just use it for washing the car or one of my Jeeps.  Just a few blocks away from me is a coin operated, 24 hour car wash, so for $3 I can get it done and not have the mess in my driveway, not have to worry about maintaining another machine or wand, not have to worry about dragging out the hose and putting it all away.  For $3 it's worth it, especially since I don't wash my cars that often since it rains quite often here.

Def

[Whoey]

I goto a similar place, altho it's 1eur/fixed time amount (I don't recall exactly) usually costs me at least 2 eur, sometimes 3 depending on what bugs/foreign matter I need to clean off between cycles. I don't have a driveway or anywhere locally to have a powerwasher, so it also makes more sense.

[derekmac]

I like to power wash everything!    I like to wash all of the siding on the house a couple of times per year, wash the walkways, decks, driveway, and Jeep.

[jzmtl]

I like to power wash everything!    I like to wash all of the siding on the house a couple of times per year, wash the walkways, decks, driveway, and Jeep.

I think that falls under the category of "if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail". 

If I had a gas powered behemoth I'd power washing everything too. 

[Whoey]

I think someone who goes offroading a lot needs their own powerwasher...

[dks]

I have a pressure washer but I rarely use it.  I just drive the car through some deep puddles to wash the mud off.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I think someone who goes offroading a lot needs their own powerwasher...

Lately the rain and wind here have qualified as powerwashing.   

As for anyone who off roads, well I like to leave the mud caked on my Jeep for a while after.  It adds character. 

Although I have always wanted to have a run with a dozen or so trucks, where we all get caked in mud pretty bad, then all go to one of those automatic drive through car washes.... 

Def