I wanted a vacuum cleaner for my cars and came upon this Karcher for a very low price. It’s suction power coupled with its blowing function make it ideal for cleaning cars, although you can use it for many other purposes. It is light and easy to use, perfect for reaching awkward spots in cars, and can even suck up liquids.

We bought this to help us during a big house renovation project. It’s actually a good vacuum and the bag certainly helps keep all the dust in when we empty. It is not so good if you simply want to use it to Hoover around carpets as it doesn’t really have a very suitable head but for our purposes, it’s done fine.

It comes out as quite a plasticky piece of equipment, but it was a cheap price, so fair enough. We bought it to hoover up leaves in our garden and it does a very good job of that, so we are pleased.

I bought this to replace a very heavy garden vacuum which I struggle to carry and empty.
The Karcher wet and dry vac is so lightweight and easy to manoeuvre on its wheels that I can now blow all the leaves that gather on my patio and driveway and then vacuum them up easily and quickly.

You’ll need a carpet compatible head as the one provided is not ok to do big room carpets. Otherwise good unit.

Great little hoover, used it to hoover the decking as brushing alone wasn’t working, brilliant and sooo satisfying! Have hoovered cars out with it too, so far all good. yes I’d recommend.

This works really well. It’s very easy to use and the instructions are very simple to understand. It’s not too heavy to carry which is great. Suction power is better than I expected. Good value for money.

I needed a vacuum cleaner which can suck up water and this one does the job well.
It’s not heavy and can be used for any work needed. It has 2-way functions – sucking the air and blowing the air, can be used outside and inside. It is powerful, I washed my carpet and used this vacuum cleaner, it sucked a lot of water and helped to decrease the drying time of the carpet. Great gadget to have for any job.

Quick verdict: This Krcher WD 2 Plus Wet & Dry Vacuum Cleaner is pretty impressive. Its best features are the light weight, solid handle, ease of use and the blower function, which is handy for garden, cleaning old electronics and antiques, and drying your car for detailing. Although it’s a bit of a compromise in places, it’s good value and cleverly designed. It lacks bundled accessories, but comes with the basics.

For the price it offers a lot of versatility and some clever design features, but it’s got a couple of compromises. For everything that it does well, it lacks any sort of cable storage. That’s about the limit of the downsides, though – it’s a safe, solid buy and a great addition to your shed or garage.

If you want more detail – keep reading.

So – I normally associate Krcher with jet washes, and this is a new product to me. I’ve used the fairly obvious two alternatives – the orange bucket on wheels and the cheerful red fellow – and they both had their own pros and cons. This is not directly comparable with either, while it does a lot of what both offer for a very competitive price.

What’s in the box:

You get the vacuum bucket and motor, hose with two rigid extensions, a wide bar head with clip-in brush and wiper, and a crevice tool. There’s also a pre-fitted canister air filter, four wheels to push in to the base, and a vacuum bag which you would use if wanting an indoor vac – as a shop vac, leave that off and let the canister do the work.

It’s all very lightweight, flexible plastic – softer than the brittle shells of some other brands – and looks very repairable with clips holding the bucket to the wheeled base and so forth. The wheels are packed inside the vacuum bucket, so if you unpack it and wonder where they are – look inside!

The hose attaches with a simple push fit/click and is designed to be quickly detached – as it can also be attached to the exhaust of the motor to act as a blower.

Once you’ve pushed the wheels in it’s stable and follows you about like an obedient little vacuum puppy. If you’ve had the other brands of wet & dry vac you’ll appreciate the soft, easy-fit clamps that hold the motor to the bucket, they’re very easy to fasten and undo.

What’s less impressive, but acceptable for the price, is the main ‘brush’ attachment. It’s flimsy, and the main part clips in with big plastic clips. This does mean it can be dismantled for cleaning, but it feels very cheap. The crevice tool and plastic hoses are as basic as you like, nothing fancy, nothing wrong.

With the tools popped onto their storage slots and the cable coiled up, it’s easy and lightweight to pick up with the chunky handle.

Using as a vacuum – wet and dry.

Unless you’ve cleaning for hypoallergenic purposes, you don’t need to worry about the bag. The cleaner’s cartridge filter means you can just get to work on any mess, dust or spills, and empty the compact bucket easily. Because the bucket (or bin if you prefer) is so small and light, it’s easy to empty and can’t hold so much stuff it gets unreasonably heavy.

The power control is big, easy to operate and takes lessons from the jet washes. You could operate this with gloves on, no worries – but it is just on/off, no speeds, and the only visual confirmation it’s on is the position of the dial.

The hose and crevice tool work very well, there’s plenty of suction. The brush end for car carpets is less impressive – hopefully there will be a compatible upholstery brush out there. However the rubber strip does flick dry dirt out of the carpet – I wouldn’t want to use it on nice interior trim after it’s been used a few times for dirtier jobs though.

It does come apart for cleaning – but given how simple it is, hopefully a spare wouldn’t be that expensive.

For wet cleaning I gave it a challenge I hate tackling – my MX-5’s roof lets water through and at this time of year it’s grim. The rubber wiper and suction dried the roof out very quickly – no more raindrops in the car – and as a bonus that rubber blade is also very good at removing defrosted ice from the inside of the windscreen as well, working like a squeegee.

FInally, I used it to clean up a load of mess of rust and mud swept up from one of my old cars. It managed that perfectly, as you’d expect.

When the bucket was emptied the filter was already quite dirty, and had a wet patch from the water. There is a foam filter alternative and that may be a better choice for more frequent wet cleaning.

Blower functions.

I used to use a blower for drying my car – it was almost 3x the motor power of this, and quite impressive. However, this proved very useful – fit the crevice tool and it achieved two things I’m impressed with. First of all, you can just vacuum up water drops that fell into the car from the door shuts, then swap over and blow the water out of the gaps in the door handle, mirrors and seals. This is really useful when polishing, as you often end up with trapped water spoiling the finish.

Second, it de-iced the doors! They were beginning to thaw a little, but with the blower attachment I could quickly clear all the ice from the windows and more importantly, the frozen door shuts. It’s not heated but it’s above freezing, and that’s enough to free off a stuck window or door shut.

I also tested it as a leaf blower – I’m impressed. It moved some moss off the concrete as well as loose leaves.

This moderate power as a blower also means it’s useful for cleaning old computers, where you can blow all the dust away and avoid the risk of physical or static damage to components from vacuuming.

Summary:

Neat touches: The blower, the two tool/hose storage rings on top, the large, easy to use handle and power switch, acceptable noise levels.

Downsides: Flimsy accessories may not last as long as the rest, no power cable storage (the larger one has a hook).

Overall a really neat, compact and efficient workshop or garage vacuum that’s perfect for cleaning cars and cleaning up spills, and even comes in handy for gardening thanks to the blower. Very well designed for the price, and good value. Very much recommended.