9 Best Hose Nozzle For Washing Cars (+Bonus)

Cars don’t always get dirty during the week, but there’s no denying how stunning they look after a fresh wash!

Which is why most of us prefer to clean them up at least every other weekend. Now, you can take them to a car wash or, better yet (and this will save you some cash), you can do it yourself.

This is where you need the best hose nozzle for car wash. Because, let’s face it, washing cars is not easy or enjoyable. But with the best hose nozzle for washing car, your job will become easier and quicker!

For example, with a hose nozzle, you won’t have to go back and forth to your faucet – only to control the water flow!

How To Shop For The Best Hose Nozzle For Car Wash?

With a hose nozzle, you can control the water pressure with your hand. And yes, that includes its spray pattern, so you can transition from washing your car to watering your plants and cleaning your furniture, BBQ grills, patios, driveways, and more. Here are a few features to look for in a hose nozzle:

Material

Metal is highly durable, but it can also be expensive. If you are on a tight budget, plastic hose nozzles are also available, but they can break easily too. However, with a combination of rubber and metal, you can also get a nice balance of durability, comfort, and price.

Comfort

You should hold the hose nozzle for longer durations, which can get tiring for your hands. So, try to look for a hose nozzle that is ergonomically designed with rubber padding and indentions for your fingers.

Spray settings

For a small car, a fixed spray pattern is ideal. But for a larger car, you might need an adjustable spray setting to cover more area faster or switch to a focused spray pattern for tougher stains. The rainfall spray pattern can also come in handy when watering plants.

Warranty

Don’t forget the warranty, especially if you ordered a plastic hose nozzle, as they can break quite easily.

Top 9 Best Hose Nozzle For Washing Cars

Now that we have briefly looked at some of the desirable features of a hose nozzle for washing car, let’s finally get into our top 9 (+1) picks for the best car wash hose nozzle.

Best Bang For Buck: Gilmour Zinc Pistol Grip Nozzle      

Best High-Pressure: Gilmour Fireman-Style Nozzle        

Best Popular-Entry: Fanhao Garden Hose Nozzle Sprayer

Gilmour Zinc Pistol Grip Nozzle

The first entry on this list is viral, with 8,490 reviews on Amazon the Gilmour Pistol grip hose nozzle. We started this list with a budget entry, so if you are new to hose nozzles and want to know how these work, this hose nozzle would be best for you.

You can test them out to get familiar with them. And if you break them, well, guess what? This hose nozzle costs less than pizza and a bottle of soda!

And breaking them isn’t easy either. A customer even reviewed that one can last for more than eight years with proper care! It can withstand a 4-foot drop without showing any signs of damage.

This Gilmour hose nozzle is trigger activated, and the more you depress the trigger, the stronger will be the water flow. At its max setting, it can spray water up to 32 feet. This is still very impressive, considering it is a budget entry.

However, there is no locking mechanism for the trigger, so you must keep holding down the trigger to make water flow through it. This can be tiring for the hands after some while. 

Melnor 65020-AMZ Metal Nozzle

Nobody wants to keep looking for a replacement product after every few months. This Melnor hose nozzle is for you if you want a safe option, which is durable, doesn’t supply a sloppy spray, and (especially) doesn’t leak.

It is trigger-activated, and the knurled knob gives you control over water coming from your garden hose.

What we particularly love about this pressure washer is that it has a substantial chunk of metal. This makes it a little weighty but tells you that it is manufactured from premium-quality material. The spraying end is plastic, though, to make it capable of supplying varied spray patterns.

Although the Melnor 65020 is durable, the gasket between the nozzle and hose connection point does become loose after a while and generate leaks. However, that’s common with all types of such connections. So, make sure you have spare gaskets in your home.

Dramm 12380 Heavy-Duty Brass Hose Nozzle

The Dramm 12380 is one of the simpler designs of the best hose nozzles for washing cars. The reason is that it doesn’t have many moving parts like the pistol grip models. You can variate the spray settings with just a twist of the barrel of the hose nozzle.

And not having moving parts is a gift that keeps on giving. It improves the hose nozzle’s durability. This, combined with metal construction and brass finish, ensures the hose nozzle lasts a very long time. Additionally, a simple design makes it more budget-friendly as well.

The 100 percent Brass finish makes it resistant to rust and corrosion for a long time, so you keep using it to wash your car and clean your walkways, gutters, patios, etc.

However, you might be unable to use it to water your plants or shrubs, which tells you about the intense pressure delivered from the hose nozzle.

The only real downside (but not a dealbreaker) is that the rubber O-rings supplied might need to be of better quality, and they break down quickly. You will have to keep spares with you for that scenario.

Gilmour Fireman-Style Nozzle

Stubborn stains need that elbow grease to be washed off. But with pressured water, you rarely need to bother yourself with scrubbing.

And the best thing about this fireman-style nozzle is that you get high-pressure water without using a pressure washer! It can supply water around 250 PSI, and if that doesn’t impress you, wait till you find out about the PSI in our home pipes and garden hoses – it’s somewhere between 30-80 PSI!

This Gilmour fireman-style hose nozzle is just what it is named – a fireman nozzle. This means it can supply powerful streams at 250 PSI, which is plenty to wash cars, clean up patios, and take care of all kinds of messes.

Despite its high force, it is relatively easy to control. And especially with the grip guard, using it becomes a breeze even after extended periods. There’s also a lever located at the base of the nozzle, so you can easily adjust the water pressure from powerful jet to light rinse.

The Gilmour fireman style is also durable, thanks to the rubber around the spray head, which reduces the impact damage if you drop the nozzle. Besides, it has a heavy-duty, die-cast Zinc construction, which makes the hose nozzle long-lasting and fit for everyday wear and tear.

And if you somehow managed to break it (with regular usage, of course), you still have a lifetime warranty!

Even though the water pressure is adjustable, it might still be too intense for delicate plants. However, what’s troublesome about this hose nozzle is it doesn’t fit 5/8 or 1/2-inch garden hoses. It does fit a 3/4-inch garden hose to perform up to its maximum capacity.

Related: Read more on the Top 10 Best Garden Hose For Pressure Washers.

Spraytec 9-Pattern Hose Nozzle

Although the Spraytec Hose Nozzle gives you the 9-spray pattern option, for us, the big selling point is its durability and ergonomic design.

It has an all-metal body and a trigger as well. And as for the tip of the nozzle, it is rubberized – meaning dropping it even on concrete floors won’t damage it at all.

The grip is comfortable with rubber padding and has a locking mechanism, so you won’t have to hold the trigger down and tire your hands while spraying.

It is a one-piece design, backed up with multiple internal rubber O-rings, to ensure a tight seal and prevent leaks. If the rubber O-rings wear out (which they do after a while), you are also given five rubber washers.

Additionally, you also have a lifetime warranty if your Spraytec Hose Nozzle starts misbehaving.

Although you have a 9-spray pattern setting, there’s no independent flow control knob to control the pressure of water. It depends on how hard you depress the trigger, which might be a drawback for this hose nozzle.

TriNova Foam Cannon

This foam cannon from Trinova is one of the best car wash hose attachments out there. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t work with regular garden hoses, and you need a pressure washer for its operation, but it fulfills an essential task for washing cars.

If you have washed a car before, you have undoubtedly used soap or detergent, which is why we felt it necessary to include one of our favorites – the best car wash nozzle with soap dispenser – on this list.

This Trinova Foam Cannon is a durable product, particularly at the weakest link of foam cannons, too – the neck. Typically, most foam cannons have a narrow neck that cracks easily, but you won’t face such a problem with this foam cannon. It has an extra-wide neck to ensure your entire unit isn’t wasted with a tiny crack.

It produces high-quality foam with plenty of suds, so the chemicals can easily loosen up all types of dirt, grime, dust, etc., from your vehicle. And then, it is just a matter of simple rinse and wash.

Besides this foam cannon being limited to only pressure washers, it has one slight drawback too. It can get quite heavy, especially when filling the canister with your soap or detergent.

Adam’s Premium Foam Gun

Ladies and gentlemen, we got you another one of the best car wash hose attachments. It is a foam gun that works almost similarly to the previous foam cannon entry on the list. But here’s the best part: it works with a regular garden hose!

It produces thick foam with a good amount of suds to help you wash your car quickly, and it can also be used with car shampoo, wax & wash, wash & coat, etc.

It is also durable, considering its parts are manufactured with CNC machining – typically employed for heavy-duty construction. Additionally, the fittings are constructed of stainless steel instead of more common and weaker plastic fittings that crack easily.

The downside is that as this isn’t used with a pressure washer, it uses more soap to compensate for the missing power. The good news is that you can make your own soap with ingredients already in your home! Click here to read more on How To Make Homemade Detergent For Pressure Washer.

Fanhao Garden Hose Nozzle Sprayer

The Fanhao Garden Hose Nozzle Sprayer is the perfect example of never judging a book by its cover. It is compact, but it packs plenty of power and will do an excellent job of cleaning your car. Its sharpest stream can reach at least 15-20 feet away. Now, you can imagine the power delivered when you wash the car 3-4 feet in front of you.

It has a complete metal construction, making it sturdy and durable even at the weakest links – the joints where hoses attach or detach. Additionally, it will withstand knocks and drops, which isn’t uncommon for someone who regularly washes their car. The metal makes it highly resistant to rust as well.

It has a one-piece design along with fine copper threads. When you combine that with multiple internal O-ring washers, you get an absolute no-leakage and tight seal design.

Like the Spraytec model, it also has a clip to hold down the trigger and keep the water flowing. This prevents your hands from tiring, and you can use the Fanhao Garden Hose Nozzle for longer.

We say this because this Fanhao nozzle can get slippery, and there’s no rubber model to assist with the grip. And yet, the 13 thousand+ reviews tell us that the grip isn’t that big of an issue for most users. You would want to use it for longer, but the bigger question is: can you?

Dramm 14502 One-Touch-Revolution Spray Gun

This versatile entry from Dramm can be used for multiple purposes. With just a turn of the nozzle, you can go from watering your plants to washing your cars. It can also clean boats, decks, sidewalks and gently water plants and flowers.

With being easy to use, it is comfortable to use as well. It has a rubber grip with indentations for your fingers. And considering the one-touch valve at the top – that brings all the water control to a simple movement of your thumb – the overall model becomes incredibly ergonomic.

Granted, this spray gun hose nozzle doesn’t supply the very highest water pressures, but it is still decent considering the water pressure in home faucets is about 30-80 PSI. If you need higher pressure than that, then you will need a pressure washer, or refer to this fireman-style nozzle entry on this list. Besides, if you are getting a dedicated spray nozzle for your garden hose specifically, we think you should have one with several uses. It is also somewhat pricey but provides good value for money.

MaxFlo High-Pressure Garden Hose Nozzle [Bonus]

This hose nozzle is 4 inches long but can supply water at 120+ PSI. It has a brass finish that protects it from rust and corrosion. It is also fairly easy to use, as you can go from a jet stream for washing cars to cone spray for watering your plants.

Although the website doesn’t mention this, the packages for this MaxFlo nozzle arrive with a warning sticker that says it contains Lead, according to some customers. Lead is poisonous, so verify your purchase before ordering.

FAQs

What nozzle is best for washing cars?

Many hose nozzles will do a decent job of cleaning cars. For example, the very popular Fanhao Garden Hose Nozzle packs quite a punch in its small size. But if you are looking for absolute power, Gilmour Fireman-style hose nozzle would work best for you.

Is there a hose nozzle that works like a power washer?

Having a hose nozzle that works like a power washer might be an unfair demand because power washers have a dedicated pump and run on some fuel source. Meanwhile, hose nozzles have only the PSI of water pipes in our homes, which has a meager value of only 30-80 PSI.

What PSI is best for washing cars?

Although it is recommended to have at least 500 PSI for washing cars, that is only possible with a pressure washer. Hose nozzles that operate with the pressure in our water pipes and garden hoses can supply a maximum pressure of around 250 PSI. There’s also this Adam’s Premium Foam Gun that can deliver quality suds at approximately 100 PSI, which is still saying something, as the input pressure might be as low as 30 PSI.

Is it better to wash a car with a hose or a pressure washer?

It is much better to wash a car with a pressure washer than with a hose. This is because the high-pressure water will help in the easy removal of stubborn deposits. However, something is always better than nothing, so if you don’t have a pressure washer, go ahead and wash your car with a hose. A hose nozzle would help you supply extra power at a much lower price than a pressure washer in this scenario.

Final Thoughts

Washing our cars is a necessary task that might be borderline challenging. But with the right tools, you can ensure that never happens, and it stays fun, exciting, and as easy as ever!

With a hose nozzle for a car wash, you might not be able to achieve as high as a pressure washer, but you can certainly come close to it. And with those models designed specifically for car wash, you can achieve almost a similar level of cleaning. Granted, it might take longer, but you won’t have to pay the price of a pressure washer.

And if you own a pressure washer, yay! Three cheers for you!

Some of the above entries will combine magnificently with your pressure washer to have an even better and more efficient car washing.

So, what do you say? Are you ready to get your best hose nozzle for a car wash? Let us know in the comments which one you chose for your ride!