kmb1966 wrote:
Was telling a friend of mine that has been in the tire business for about 30 years that I had to clean my tires with a pressure washer and he mentioned that it wasn't a good idea to use a pressure washer on tires, and then I came home and GOOGLED IT and found several articles about the possibility of damage to tires by pressure washing your tires. So then I became concerned.
First, nobody can say it's bad or say it's not bad without knowing the details. Unfortunately, when you say pressure washer, some are thinking 1,200 psi at 1.5 gallons with a fan tip at a 45 degree angle, while the article and warnings are based on 3,000 psi at 2.5 gallons with a chisel tip at a 90 degree angle. So in fact a pressure washer can damage a tire just like it can rip the surface of a concrete driveway if used incorrectly.
For the most part, typical household pressure washers used incorrectly will only damage the rubber's outer surface resulting in crumbs being blasted away. It wont have any real impact on the tire except odds are it will always look like it's covered in black sand. Your really have to be using a cutting or chisel tip to do any structural damage.
