So, about these pressure washer nozzles for cars. I figured, how hard could it be? Grab a nozzle, point, clean car. Yeah, right. It turned into a whole thing, let me tell ya.

My car was looking like it went mudding, even though it just sits in the driveway most days. Pollen, bird stuff, the usual grime. The garden hose was doing squat. So, I dragged out the pressure washer I bought ages ago and barely used.

Finding the "Right" Nozzle - The Fun Part

I had a little pack of those colored nozzles. You know the ones. Red, yellow, green, white, black. Looked simple enough. I thought I'd just pick one and go.

First up, I stupidly grabbed the red one. The zero-degree. Pointed it at a dirty patch on the wheel well, from a safe distance, I thought. Man, that thing nearly blasted a hole straight through to next Tuesday! Scared the daylights out of me. Okay, lesson learned: red is NOT for car paint. Not unless you want to strip it bare. That one went right back in the box.

Then I tried the yellow one, fifteen degrees I think. Still felt a bit too punchy for the paintwork. Good for blasting caked-on mud from under the chassis or tough grime on the wheels, but I was nervous about using it all over the body. My hands were already getting tired of swapping them.

The green one, twenty-five degrees, seemed a bit more reasonable. It did an okay job of knocking off the loose dirt. Felt like a decent all-rounder if you're careful. I used this for a first pass, just to get the worst off.

Then I switched to the white one. Forty degrees. This was much gentler. Good for rinsing, wider spray pattern. I felt a lot safer with this on the actual paint. It’s what I ended up using for most of the rinsing after soaping.

And Then There's Soap...

Oh, and the black nozzle! The soap nozzle. Low pressure, designed to suck soap from the machine's detergent tank. Well, the tank on my cheapo pressure washer is a joke. It barely worked. So, the black nozzle was kind of useless for me in that setup. That was a whole other problem to solve – getting decent suds on the car.

• Red (0°) - Absolutely not for paint. Maybe for cleaning concrete stains.
• Yellow (15°) - Still very strong. Use with caution on tough spots.
• Green (25°) - A decent middle ground for general cleaning, still need to be careful.
• White (40°) - My go-to for rinsing paint safely.
• Black (Soap) - Depends heavily on your pressure washer's soap system.

I ended up getting a separate foam cannon attachment later. That changed the game for soaping. The onboard detergent tanks and the black nozzle? Not for me. It’s like they give you tools, but half of them don't quite do what you really need them to do, or you need another tool to make that tool work. Sound familiar?

It took a couple of washes, a bit of "oops, maybe not that one," and some wet clothes, but I sort of got the hang of which nozzles to use for what. Started with just wanting a clean car, ended up learning a lot about water pressure and spray patterns. You live and learn, I guess. Mostly, I stick with the white nozzle for rinsing and the green one if I need a bit more oomph before soaping. The red one stays firmly in the shed, might use it to clean the patio grout someday. Maybe.

Why do I even bother with all this? Well, I took my car to one of those quick wash places once. Just once. Came out with more swirls than a cinnamon bun. They swore it wasn't them. Yeah, sure. That's when I decided, if you want something done right, sometimes you just gotta do it yourself, even if it means figuring out a bunch of silly colored nozzles first.