Budget pressure washers
Budget here means the cheapest named machine that still washes a car and a patio without being a toy. Not the cheapest box on the shelf, and not whatever turns up in the middle aisle this week. That machine is the Bosch UniversalAquatak 135 at £114.98, and it beats the cheap Kärcher on street price and on specification at the same time: 135 bar against 110, and 7 m of hose against 4 to 5 m.
Two other machines earn a place on this page. Buy the K2 Home only if you already own yellow bottles and lances, or you specifically want a light Kärcher for one small car. Buy the Greenworks G24PW only if the tap or the outdoor socket is missing. And if you can stretch to £169, the honest advice is to leave this page and buy a K4 instead.
The three worth your money
Bosch UniversalAquatak 135
135 bar, 7 m of hose and a metal three-cylinder pump for under £120. The cheap machine that still does a car and some slabs properly.
Kärcher K2 Home
110 bar and about 4 kg. Worth it if you already live in yellow bottles and lances, or the job really is one small car.
Greenworks G24PW
24 bar off a battery, drawing from a bucket through a 6 m siphon hose. A rinse, and the answer when there’s no tap or socket.
- Bosch 135
- Kärcher K2 Home
- Greenworks G24PW
- Under £90
- Cordless
- The £169 step up
- What we won’t push
- FAQs
Compared
This table is here so you can see that the Bosch is the useful cheap machine, not so we rank a K2 as the Bosch minus some pressure. For scale: a garden hose runs at about 2 to 4 bar. A battery gun at 24 to 56 bar is a rinse. 110 bar on a K2 is a careful car wash and a slow rinse of anything else. 135 bar on the Bosch is the useful home class at a budget ticket.
| Model | What it is | Max pressure | Flow | Hose or water | Weight | Typical UK price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bosch UniversalAquatak 135 | Useful budget mains | 135 bar | 410 to 450 L/h | 7 m PVC, tap-fed | 7.9 kg | £114.98 |
| Kärcher K2 Home / Power Control | Light mains | 20 to 110 bar | 360 L/h | 4 to 5 m, tap-fed | About 4 kg | £147.98 |
| Greenworks G24PW | Cordless siphon | 24 bar | 180 L/h | 6 m siphon, no tank | 4 kg | From £89.99, or £95 tool-only |
| Kärcher K4 Power Control Flex | The usual step up, not a budget pick | 20 to 130 bar | 420 L/h | 8 m PremiumFlex | 11.5 to 12.1 kg | £169 |
Flow is how fast the soap leaves. 180 L/h on the Greenworks feels thin, and 410 L/h on the Bosch is the comfortable one on this page. Then walk the hose in your head. Three metres is a bench. Four to five metres means dragging the machine round a car. Seven metres walks a small car if you park at a corner.
1. Bosch UniversalAquatak 135: the cheap machine that still works
The metal three-cylinder pump is what separates this from the genuinely cheap end. Plastic pumps are the first thing to fail on budget machines, and at £114.98 a metal one is not a given. Behind it is a 1.9 kW motor making 135 bar, which is real household cleaning power rather than a number designed to look good on a carton.
It’s also the lightest thing here that can do a proper job. 7.9 kg comes up a flight of stairs in one hand, which matters if you’re carrying it out to a parking bay rather than wheeling it out of a garage. The 3-in-1 nozzle covers fan, rotary and pencil in one part: fan for paint, rotary for stone, and pencil nowhere near a car. Detergent lives on the lance in a 450 ml bottle and runs at high pressure, so soap goes on properly.
On price, Bosch lists it at £184, and that has never been the street price. The Amazon listing has not always carried a featured offer either, so it’s worth checking both that and the official Bosch listing before you buy. One thing to know if you’re coming from the yellow side: connections are push-fit, and a T 5 patio head will not clip on. More in our full review and the Bosch brand page.
Buy it for
- A house or flat with a tap and a 13A socket
- A car plus some slabs, which is the job most people actually have
- Flats with a parking bay, and carrying up steps at 7.9 kg
Skip it if
- You only rinse one small car and will never touch the slabs, where the K2 covers it
- You already live in yellow bottles and lances
- There’s no outdoor tap or socket, which is the Greenworks
- You can spend £169 and want one machine for the whole house, in which case buy a K4
2. Kärcher K2 Home: the cheapest named Kärcher
Let’s be straight about where this sits. The K2 costs more on the street than the Bosch and gives you less: 110 bar against 135, 360 L/h against 410, and 4 to 5 m of hose against 7. If you’re choosing purely on what the machine can do, the Bosch wins and it isn’t close.
What the K2 has is the yellow ecosystem. If there are already Kärcher bottles, lances and a patio head in your shed, buying into a different brand means buying all of that again, and that changes the sum completely. It’s also genuinely light at about 4 kg, and 110 bar is enough for one small car if you foam first and stay on the wide Vario setting.
Two things to watch. The T 1 head in the Home box is fine for a tiny yard and hopeless on a terrace, and it is not a T 5. And putting a T 5 on a K2 later does not turn it into a K4, because the pump behind it hasn’t changed. There’s also an Argos Car & Home kit that has been listed noticeably cheaper than the Home box, so check the current Argos tile before you settle, and the official Power Control Home listing is worth a look too. Note that Argos quotes 74 bar rated on that kit, which is the working figure rather than the 110 bar maximum. Our K2 review and the K2 vs K4 argument cover the class properly.
Buy it for
- One small or medium car and light furniture
- Anyone who already owns yellow bottles, lances and heads
- A machine light enough to carry out with one hand
Skip it if
- You’ll wash a car and some slabs and you’re not already in the yellow ecosystem, because the Bosch is cheaper on the street and more useful
- You already know you’ll do the drive twice a year, in which case buy the K4 rather than anything on this page
3. Greenworks G24PW: for a place with no tap or socket
Twenty-four bar is a rinse, not a quieter K2. Say that out loud before you buy, because the G24PW looks like a small pressure washer and behaves like a very good hose that goes anywhere. Bikes, garden furniture, muddy boots and a careful rinse of a small car if you foam first. Not a patio, and not a neglected drive, whatever the price tag suggests.
Be honest about the real cost too. The £89.99 headline is tool-only, Greenworks UK has listed it at £95 tool-only, and some kit listings sit around £107.23. If you’re new to Greenworks 24V you’re paying for a pack and charger on top, and a 2Ah pack has been around £30. Runtime isn’t published, but the practical shape of it is simple: a 2Ah pack is one dirty bike and a pair of boots, and a 4Ah is the one to have if chairs or a car join the list.
The 6 m siphon hose with a filter is what makes it work without plumbing. Drop it in a bucket or a water butt and you’re cleaning. There’s no tank, so you are carrying water rather than pushing it. Our G24PW review has the detail and the cordless guide covers the whole set.
Buy it for
- No outdoor tap, or no outdoor socket, or neither
- Bikes, furniture and boots
- A careful rinse of a small car with a 4Ah pack and some foam first
Skip it if
- There’s already a tap and a socket, where the Bosch does far more
- You already run Ryobi ONE+ or Worx 20V, where a bare gun on your own batteries is cheaper
- You won’t carry a bucket, because the alternative is a tank trolley and that’s over this budget
The under £90 Kärchers
Under £90 is furniture and a bike, not a car you walk around. Two boxes sit down there and both are the same 110 bar class as the K2 Home, with the hose cut back to 3 m.
The K2 Classic is £84.99 and gives you that class with a 3 m hose, and it’s available at that price. The K2 Horizontal is £59.99, a low box with the same 3 m hose, and it’s the cheapest way into the range.
We’re not going to talk anyone into either of these as a driveway tool. Three metres of hose means the machine is never where you need it, and if you wash a car every weekend that will annoy you on day one. If the budget genuinely stops at £85, buy one knowing it’s for a bench and a bike, and don’t expect it to grow into the job later.
If the socket is the problem
A mains washer needs a 13A socket and a garden hose, and no amount of specification invents either. If one of those is missing, a battery gun is the workaround. It is not a quieter Bosch.
The Ryobi RY18PWX41A runs at 41, 22 and 7 bar, feeds from a tap or a bucket, and sits at £120 to £129.90 bare. It’s the better gun if you already run 18V ONE+, and it takes any ONE+ pack you own. The tool on its own is sold bare.
The Worx Nitro HydroShot WG633E peaks at 56 bar with a rated high of 38 bar, at £129.99 bare, with kits from about £159. It’s the one to have if you already run Worx 20V.
Neither replaces the Bosch for a weekly wash of a dirty family car. Travel and a front garden with no outdoor tap are the honest jobs. The cordless guide has the full set, and the tank machines all sit over this budget.
If you can find £169, leave this page
The £200 household machine is still a Kärcher K4. At £169 it gives you 20 to 130 bar, 420 L/h and 8 m of PremiumFlex hose, and that combination is the difference between a machine that copes and one that doesn’t have to. It weighs 11.5 to 12.1 kg, so it’s not the one to carry up steps, but for a house with a garage it’s the last pressure washer most people need to buy.
That is a step up, not a budget win, and we’re not going to pretend £169 belongs on a page about spending £115. But if the extra £54 is findable, it’s the better use of the money than anything above. It’s widely available at £169, and we’ve written it up in the K4 review, the mains hub and the Kärcher hub.
What we won’t do is send you further up the range from here. Cars do not need 145 bar, and a bigger K number is a driveway decision, not a budget one.
What we won’t push
Budget on this site means a named 240 V machine you can still buy next year, or a named battery gun you can still find a lance for. That rules a few things out, and it’s worth saying why.
Supermarket weeks and own-brand frames. A Lidl week, an own-brand trolley and an Aldi special come and go, and the spare guns go with them. If that’s your money, we’d rather you bought less washer from Bosch or Greenworks than more washer from a brand that won’t be on the shelf in March.
The odd corners of the yellow range. A K3 is a footnote rather than a budget hero, the OC 3 jugs are rinsers rather than pressure washers, and EasyAquatak is a different and lighter class again. None of them is the answer to a car and a patio at this money.
On paintwork
Wide fan, and at a distance. Leave the rotary, the dirt blaster and the pencil jet off lacquer, glass, sensors and tyres, because that’s where the damage comes from rather than from the machine itself. Foam, or the bottle on the lance, is the soap step and not a reason to skip the mitt. The full order of work is on our car guide, and first-use setup, nozzles and the frost drain-down are on the how to use one walkthrough.
FAQs
What’s the best budget pressure washer in the UK right now?
The Bosch UniversalAquatak 135 at £114.98, if you’ve got a tap and a socket and you’ll wash a car and some slabs. A K2 Home is the cheaper named Kärcher only if the job is one small car or you already own yellow accessories. The cheap cordless is the Greenworks G24PW from £89.99, and only if the tap or the socket is missing.
Is a K2 good enough?
For one small car and light furniture, yes, as long as you foam first and accept the short hose. For a patio or a neglected drive, no. The under £90 Classic and Horizontal boxes are a bench and a bike rather than a car you walk around.
Can a cheap pressure washer clean a driveway?
The Bosch will do a small, lightly dirty bay. A K2 will do it slowly, and only if the dirt is light. A green, neglected drive is a K4 job. Don’t buy a Classic for a drive, and don’t buy a supermarket own-brand hoping the extra bar printed on the carton will save you.
What if I’ve got no outdoor tap or socket?
A mains washer won’t invent either one. Buy the Greenworks from this page, or a bare Ryobi or Worx if you already own that battery family. A K2 sitting in the kitchen with a lead through the hall is not a plan.
Will Kärcher accessories fit a Bosch?
No. A T 5 clips onto a Kärcher Home and Garden gun, and Bosch uses push-fit connections instead. If you already own yellow bottles and a patio head, stay on the Kärcher side, and buy a K2 only if the job is genuinely light.
The short version. Tap and socket, and a car plus some slabs? Buy the Bosch UniversalAquatak 135 at £114.98. Already in yellow, or the job really is one small car? The K2 Home. No tap or no socket? The Greenworks G24PW, understanding that it rinses. And if £169 is findable, close this page and buy the K4 instead.
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