{"id":225,"date":"2018-05-15T00:07:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T00:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/?p=225"},"modified":"2021-01-25T13:40:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T13:40:18","slug":"karchers-maintenance-rip-off-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/?p=225","title":{"rendered":"K\u00e4rcher’s excessive maintenance costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some years ago I had bought a “K\u00e4rcher K 4.650 Jubilee” high-pressure cleaner (I<\/a>\u00a0don’t remember the exact price but it must have cost something\u00a0in the 300\u20ac range):
\n\"K\u00e4rcher\"
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Funtionality wise the device did a decent job but the big disappointment\u00a0hit hard when some signs of (normal) wearout kicked in and the time for repairs had arrived (there are many videos on Youtube useful\u00a0for do-it-yourself repair):<\/p>\n

At first the machine started to leak water (Interestingly the leak had nothing to do with the high-pressure stuff but originated from the o-ring seals of the motor cooling enclosure). Then\u00a0some other day the pressure collaped. Upon disassembly of the device this problem was also quickly located:\u00a0The spring used for one of the\u00a0three pistons of the pump had broken into three fragments.<\/p>\n

No big deal, one might be tempted to think.. Shouldn’t be difficult\/expensive to replace one little steel spring (maybe 5cm in length)? Wrong! Firstly K\u00e4rcher does NOT sell you this spring separately and then you have no idea about K\u00e4rcher’s “spare parts” pricing (e.g. see https:\/\/www.buy-spares.ie\/pressure-washer\/k4650-1180-6080\/catalogue.pl?path=401194,68311&model_ref=8499257<\/a>): The CHEAPEST part you’ll find goes for more than 3\u20ac and that will get you ONE smallest size o-ring or screw. So the spring that I needed to repair my device costs 20\u20ac (without shipping) and comes with an extra replacement piston that I don’t need.<\/p>\n

Given the fact that one of the 3 piston springs had already broken due to the wear, I would normally be ordering 3 replacements and to replace all of them – rather than wait some weeks for the next one to break.. but then that’s already 60\u20ac. Replace the 3 wornout piston rubber seals as well – another 15\u20ac.\u00a0 Add another 15\u20ac for the respective three oil seals.. you haven’t even started to renew the various o-rings that might need changing after some years of use.. and none of the really expensive components have failed yet – but it’s 90\u20ac in replacement\u00a0wearing material already! A steep investment considering the fact that you’ll get a similar NEW cleaner for about 100-150\u20ac in the hardware store and there is a big risk that more of the used K\u00e4rcher’s stuff – that you haven’t touched yet – will breakdown next.<\/p>\n

K\u00e4rcher’s “spare parts” are so riddiculously expensive that the device\u00a0would probably cost you 10x the price of the new machine\u00a0if you were to build it\u00a0from spare parts.\u00a0 Technically the K\u00e4rcher could be easily repaired – but K\u00e4rcher’s “spare parts” pricing makes it an economically absurd possibility and thereby a throw-away product:<\/p>\n

My neighbours never repair their K\u00e4rcher when it fails – but get a new one instead… I will certainly NOT make the same mistake again and whatever pressure cleaners I may be buying in the future it won’t be a K\u00e4rcher – never again!<\/p>\n

update (January 2021)<\/b>: The next parts have failed on my K 4.650: Yet another one of the 3 “pistons springs” has broken (one that I had not replaced last time since I had not wanted to waste 60\u20ac to replace all 3 “piston\/spring sets” in advance) and this time the cylinder head has cracked (it seems the “cheap” PP66\u00a0 material used by K\u00e4rcher just does not sustain the high pressure and has to be considered “consumable material”).<\/p>\n

K\u00e4rcher still does not seem to sell certain spare parts (e.g. “cylinder head” for this model) directly to retail customers (see german online store) and in some countries it does not seem to sell any spare parts to retail customers at all (see K\u00e4rcher’s bad joke french “online store” – to which the german store will still forward you if you are trying to buy spare parts\u00a0from France). Depending on where you live it may be practical to use 3rd party stores like “K\u00e4rcher Store Schreiber” for bulk orders as a workaround (they seem to provide more reasonably priced spare parts as compared to the 3rd party store mentioned in the above text).<\/p>\n

Also it seems that some of the spare parts are actually\u00a0interchangeable between different pressure washer models, i.e. the above mentioned piston springs are not listed as an individual spare part for the K 4.650 (at least not in the product documentation that I found on K\u00e4rcher’s website).. but instead of buying the suggested excessively expensive “piston set” for 20\u20ac it is actually possible to just buy a 2\u20ac piston spring listed for a *different* pressure washer model (if you are feeling lucky that the respective part is indeed interchangeable – which it may or may not be) and\/or if you are willing to waste extra money on postage for having to potentially order in a foreign country. Sadly K\u00e4rcher seems to go out of its way to make life difficult for those retail customers that just need specific spare parts at reasonable prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some years ago I had bought a “K\u00e4rcher K 4.650 Jubilee” high-pressure cleaner (I\u00a0don’t remember the exact price but it must have cost something\u00a0in the 300\u20ac range): Funtionality wise the device did a decent job but the big disappointment\u00a0hit hard when some signs of (normal) wearout kicked in and the time for repairs had arrived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228,"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wothke.ch\/blacklist\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}