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What Kind of Oil Does a Pressure Washer Use?

Fact Checked By Daniel Wood | Post Updated On: April 29, 2023

When you buy a car or motorcycle at first, you don’t think about time to time you might have to change different things such as engine oil of your vehicle. In the same way, you will have to replace the engine oil of your pressure washing machine. You should not worry much about it as it’s quite easy to change such Oil and they are easily available in the market. This will help your machine run smoothly and give you better performance. Neglecting this fact of replacing the Oil might cause a significant injury to your machine, and in some cases, your engine might fail to work any longer. So you must realize the importance of Oil in a pressure washer.

What Kind of Oil Does a Pressure Washer Use? – Pump Oil Guides

What Kind of Oil Does a Pressure Washer Use

Times of Changing Oil

For better performance, changing Oil on a regular basis is necessary. Now, different machines have different settings, and their oil change time also is adjusted with it. If I say in general, the first oil change is necessary after 5 hours of usage after your purchase. Next oil change should take place after every 50 hours of usage for one year from your purchase. From the second year onwards you can change the Oil after each 200-300 hours. This is the ideal timing for an oil change, but you should follow the instruction provided in your user manual.

What does Oil do?

An engine and a pump of a pressure washer are made of metal pistons that run through one another to operate.

When they run at high speed, they make frictions which produce heat. If your engine heats up quickly, it will either stop working or break down from inside.

Oil in this matter makes the pistons run smoothly to their directions and reduces the heat. Good Oil makes the engine run for a long time without any trouble. After a certain time, Oil becomes thin and doesn’t work properly when you need to change it.

What Kind of Oil does it Go With?

The type of Oil for your pressure washer is decided based on the weather condition and temperature.

For the 40 degrees Fahrenheit or higher you can use all-purpose SAE30 motor oil which will give better performance and low consumption to your engine. If you work in less temperature, 10W-30 should work better for your machine’s performance and starting.

In the latter type, your oil consumption will be comparatively higher than the first type. If you want better performance for all types of weather, you can go for 5W-30 which will give you good service with less oil consumption.

Different Types of Pressure Washer Pump Oil

Pump oil is different from engine oil; in engine oil, there are detergent chemicals that clean your engine during consumption. But, in case of a pump, you must avoid any lubricant that contains detergent chemicals. These chemicals create foam inside the pistons, and for the water pump, this foam is harmful. For the pump, you can go with DP70 pump oil that is specially made for water pumps. If you find difficulty getting this one try using 30W non-detergent Oil.

How to Change your Pump’s Oil

Changing the Oil from your pump is quite easy, and anyone can do it even if he is new to this field. The instruments you will need in the process are two screw removers that fit your pumps screw, a tray to drain the dirty oil, a funnel and the Oil that you want to put.

At first, you have to find out the pump’s oil drain screw, which is generally placed underneath or at the downside. Place your tray under the oil-drainage opening and open the screw to let the Oil come out.

To empty the storage properly, open its oil filling screw that is generally placed at the upper side. Opening this path will let the air go inside freely and help the Oil come out completely. You might have to tilt your machine a little bit to empty the storage fully.

Once you are done with draining all the dirty Oil, it’s time to fill up with the new Oil. Close the drain-hole tightly so that it doesn’t leak. Now put the funnel at oil filling hole and pour some oil and check its level. You will find an oil checking window where it indicates the appropriate amount of Oil. Once your filling reaches the ideal level, stop filling it, and close the opening from the top. You are done with changing the Oil.

How to Change your Engine’s Oil

It’s same to change the engine oil as changing the pump oil. You first have to drain out all the dirty Oil by opening the drainage hole which is placed underneath of your engine. Once the engine is empty close the drainage hole and put new Oil through the filling hole which is places at the upper side. For detail, instruction follows the pump oil changing section above carefully.

What are SAE30 and 10W 30

The flow of any liquid is measured by velocity. Low velocity means the substance will flow freely to different directions such as water. High velocity means it’ll prevent the substance to flow freely to any direction such as ketchup, syrup, etc.

SAE10 has a lower velocity than SAE 30 Which means the latter will not flow as freely as the first one. 10W 30 indicates the multi-velocity oils; this type of Oil will perform as SAE10 in low temperature and SAE30 in high temperature. Now, it’ll be easier for you to decide appropriate Oil for your machine.

Maintenance of a machine is very important to perform better whether you take your pressure washer or any other device. Changing Oil is a quite necessary part of your machine’s maintenance process. Oil lets your engine and pump pistons move freely without making much friction and without producing much heat. It enables you to continue your cleaning work for an extended period of time with any interruption. Oil change in an appropriate time not only increases the performance but also ensures its long life.


About Daniel Wood

Daniel has completed his graduation mechanical engineering from a reputed university in US. He worked as a technical engineer in a pressure washer manufacturing plant for four years. He has a great passion for mechanical devices and has opened a workshop where he does research on various machines in his leisure time. His high interest in technology made him an expert in commercial and residential pressure washers.

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