In this Karcher K 3 Follow Me review, we put the compact electric pressure washer to the test and see whether it measures up to the best pressure washers on the market. Below, you'll find all the essential info about the product including what you get for your money and how well the K 3 Follow Me does the job.
From our tests, we felt that the Karcher K 3 Follow Me delivered great cleaning performance, but it wasn't quite as easy to use as we'd expected a pressure washer designed in this way would be; whilst it is smaller than some units, this small size did present some frustrating issues during usage.
John Carlsen has been creating content for Top Ten Reviews since 2013 and has covered everything from smart home and home security devices to ceiling fans, fitness aids and cleaning devices. He reviewed the Karcher K 3 Follow Me pressure washer for performance and ease of use and compared it to some of the other top products in our buying guide.
Karcher K 3 Follow Me: Design
Instead of sitting upright like the rest of the washers we tested, the Karcher K 3 Follow Me resembles a canister vacuum cleaner, with the water hose running out the back and the quick release wand hose in the front.
This is one of the smallest electric pressure washers we tested, which makes it a good option if you don't have much space in your garage to store it. Additionally, it's the second-lightest model we tested, weighing only 12.8 pounds, so it’s easy to carry.
This is nice but also necessary, because you must carry the whole thing to your project site rather than pulling it behind you like a piece of roller luggage as with larger power washers.
Karcher K 3 Follow Me: What's in the box?
When we pulled the Karcher K 3 Follow Me from the box, we were intimidated by how many parts were loose. However, you can assemble the machine in a few minutes by attaching the pressure hose and spray handle and snapping the wheels onto the bottom. Its assembly process is still more involved than that of most machines we tested, including the Craftsman CM1800 and Greenworks GPW1501, which are relatively complete in the box.
This pressure washer comes with an adjustable nozzle, which is great for different cleaning tasks but more trouble than swapping out nozzles, especially if you're a novice. One of the adjustable nozzle’s notable features is its separate mix setting that applies soap from the onboard detergent tank when you wash your car.
Karcher K 3 Follow Me: Performance
While cleaning a car and driveway in our tests, we found the Karcher K 3 Follow Me quite capable of doing the job, though it didn’t match the impressive cleaning performance of the RYOBI RY14122 and Craftsman CM1800. It was one of the quieter machines we tested, producing only 84 dB of noise.
Unfortunately, the K 3 Follow Me's small size works against it in several ways. For example, we chose to test this pressure washer to see if it could out maneuver larger two-wheeled models with its four wheels.
Disappointingly, its wheels didn't work very well and kept getting caught and tangled on the power cord and water hose. Similarly, there isn't much space to store the cord, hose and pressure gun, making it harder to keep neat in storage.
The hose connectors snap together, which makes it easy to set up the pressure and water supply hoses. During our tests, however, we had trouble connecting the water hose to the back of the Karcher K 3 Follow Me, which caused it to spray water everywhere. We got a better seal on the second try, but it's still an issue to be aware of.
