What the maker puts in writing
- “Multi-Purpose Cleaner: Non-butyl degreaser quickly cuts through tough oil and grease; eliminates the need to use several other products to get the cleaning job done”
- “Can be used in equipment such as pressure washers, automatic scrubbers, and steam cleaners; or use it for manual applications by spraying, mopping and wiping”
- “Use directly from the bottle or effective at dilutions as great as half-ounce per gallon of water; providing up to 256 gallons of cleaning solution per bottle”
- “Use with pressure washers, directly on surface or with soap injection; Always consult your machine’s owner’s manual”
- Description: “Our Multi-Purpose Cleaner is perfect for washing cars, RVs, siding, grills, lawn furniture, and many other tough DIY cleaning tasks found around the house”
- Title: “1 Gallon, 88281” · Reference 88281 · Catalog: 4082 g (144 oz)
Its own sibling says it cleans no better, for four dollars less
The Simpson Green Formula at $15.18 carries this in its description:
“Offering the same cleaning power as the Multi-Purpose Cleaner, our Green Formula is perfect for providing extra cleaning power for vehicles, siding, decking, lawn furniture, garage floors, sidewalks, driveways.”
Simpson’s own text says the cheaper bottle cleans as well as this one.
The three siblings, side by side. All share the same non-butyl degreaser claim, the same 256 gallons at half an ounce per gallon, the same four application routes, the same 4082 g (144 oz) weight — 9 lb exactly — and the same 159 × 159 × 298 mm (6.26 × 6.26 × 11.7 in) bottle.
Heavy Duty, $13.85 — “industrial sites, commercial equipment, construction machinery, fleet vehicles”. No domestic surface list at all, no environmental claim.
Green Formula, $15.18 — the same cleaning power, plus non-toxic, biodegradable, no harsh chemicals, and a compliance claim against four agencies.
this, $19.43 — “cars, RVs, siding, grills, lawn furniture”. No environmental claim.
What this bottle has that the Green Formula does not: grills in its surface list, and a part number that matches its title — the Green Formula’s title says 88283 and its catalog reference is 88264.
That is a thin case for $4.25. On the published information, the Green Formula is the one of the three to buy.
Seven point six cents a gallon, which is still the third cheapest here
Every item on this shelf is a concentrate, so the price of the bottle is not the price of anything. What you buy is gallons of ready-to-use solution.
$19.43 ÷ 256 = 7.6 cents.
The shelf, each at its own best published figure:
Simpson Heavy Duty — 5.4¢ · Simpson Green Formula — 5.9¢ · this — 7.6¢ · Kärcher Vehicle — 36¢ · Kärcher Multi — 47¢ · Zep — 58¢ if its 26 gallons is per bottle, $2.31 if for the case · Krud Kutter — 80¢ · Briggs 1-gallon — $1.24 · Briggs 32 oz — $3.56 · Sun Joe and Simple Green — not calculable in gallons
So even the most expensive Simpson is five times cheaper per gallon than the cheapest non-Simpson. The three of them occupy the bottom of the shelf, and the gap is not close.
And the dilution verifies, which nothing else here does
A US gallon is 128 fluid ounces. At half an ounce per gallon of water: 128 ÷ 0.5 = 256 — exactly the figure claimed.
Two numbers that corroborate each other. The rest of the shelf:
Kärcher Multi Purpose — bullet: “up to 40 gallons”. Description: “makes up to 20 gallons.”
Kärcher Vehicle Wash & Wax — bullet: “up to 40 gallons”. Description: “makes up to 20 gallons.” The same discrepancy, same brand, both products.
Krud Kutter — bullet: “up to 20 gallons”. Description: “up to 11 gallons.”
Zep — “up to 26 gallons” on a case of four, per bottle or per case unstated. A factor of four on the most expensive item here.
Sun Joe — “Dilute as recommended.” No ratio at all.
Briggs & Stratton — both bottles consistent at 16:1, and neither contradicts itself.
The qualification the bullet makes itself: 256:1 is the maximum, “dilutions as great as”. At that strength it is a light solution for light soil, and the same bullet offers the other end — “use directly from the bottle”. The real range is 1:1 to 256:1 and you choose.
Which is also the one thing this page should say and does not. With a hundred-fold usable range and five surfaces named, nothing tells you which end a painted car wants and which end a grill does.
Grills, which nothing else on this shelf names
“perfect for washing cars, RVs, siding, grills, lawn furniture.”
Grills are the only appearance of that word across eleven listings, and they are a good application for this chemistry.
Carbonized fat is precisely what a degreaser is for: it will not come off with water at any pressure, and scraping it moves it around. A non-butyl degreaser at a strong dilution softens it so it wipes.
It is also the point at which this shelf meets the steam shelf on this site, where the McCulloch names “grills” among its surfaces for the same reason — heat and chemistry both work on baked-on fat where pressure does not.
A car is the surface to think harder about. The risks of a strong degreaser on a vehicle are not the paint but what surrounds it: clear coat, rubber trim, plastic lenses, and any wax or sealant already on the surface, which a heavy degreaser strips.
The alternatives here for that job: the Kärcher Vehicle Wash & Wax at $14.39, which calls itself a gentle soap, leaves a wax film and names “car, truck, SUV, motorcycle”; and the Green Formula at $15.18, which names “vehicles” first and adds non-toxic and no harsh chemicals.
Start dilute, test a small area, and rinse before it dries.
Non-butyl, which names what is absent
“Non-butyl degreaser.”
Butyl here means butyl cellosolve — 2-butoxyethanol, a glycol ether that has been the workhorse solvent of heavy degreasers for decades because it dissolves oil and grease extremely well. It is also a skin and eye irritant, absorbed through skin, and restricted or discouraged in a number of applications.
So this names what is not in the bottle, and it is the most informative line on the page. All three Simpson bottles here say it.
What the rest of the shelf declares:
Simple Green, $23.99 — “peroxide-powered”, “without harsh chemicals”, plus EPA Safer Choice Certified in the title — the only third-party certification on this shelf
Simpson Green Formula — non-butyl, non-toxic, biodegradable, “meets or exceeds OSHA, USDA, EPA, DNR requirements”
Krud Kutter, $15.98 — “bleach free”, “biodegrabable”, and uniquely “anti-corrosive agents to help safeguard pressure washer components”
Sun Joe, $25.97 — “bleach-free”
Zep, $59.99 and both Briggs bottles — claim mold stains and declare no chemistry at all
What this page does not claim is anything environmental. No biodegradable, no non-toxic, no compliance — all three of which its own Green Formula sibling claims for less money.
Four ways to apply it, and the one that needs explaining
“Can be used in equipment such as pressure washers, automatic scrubbers, and steam cleaners; or use it for manual applications by spraying, mopping and wiping.”
The widest application range on this shelf, shared with its two siblings.
Automatic scrubbers are the walk-behind floor machines of a warehouse or a supermarket.
Steam cleaners is the unexpected entry, because the steam shelf on this site is built on the opposite argument — the McCulloch there leads with “CHEMICAL-FREE CLEANING… uses ordinary water”, and four machines sell the absence of a consumable as the whole point. A detergent naming steam cleaners is addressing the commercial end, where a pre-spray before steaming is normal practice.
Manual use matters practically: a detergent you can brush on reaches what a washer cannot. Nine of eleven items here offer it; the two Briggs & Stratton bottles do not.
And bullet four gives the warning every listing should: “Always consult your machine’s owner’s manual for specific instructions regarding use of detergent.”
Which is more important than it reads, and the Sun Joe listing is the only one on this shelf to say why: “may require the use of a soap nozzle. Other models may need to use a soap-sprayer attachment.” A pressure washer will not draw detergent through a high-pressure tip — the siphon is a venturi and only pulls at low pressure, which is what the wide black soap nozzle on the lance shelf of this site is for. Fit a green 25° tip and nothing comes through, and most people conclude the soap is at fault.
“Soap injection” in the same bullet is the other route: a dedicated injector in the machine’s low-pressure circuit, which is the proper plumbing for this.
What is not published
No dwell time, and this is the omission with a real cost. Krud Kutter is the only listing on this shelf that publishes a method: “allow product to remain on the surface for 3–5 minutes to penetrate”, “work in small sections”, “rinse thoroughly without allowing it to dry on the surface”. Contact time is how a chemical cleaner works, and dried detergent leaves a film worse than the dirt. Briggs gives the other half: apply to a dry surface, then switch to a high pressure tip to rinse.
No surface coverage. Two listings publish square footage: Krud Kutter 5,800 sq ft at $15.98 — about 0.276 cents a square foot — and Simple Green 6,400 sq ft at $23.99, about 0.375 cents.
No dilution guidance by surface, as above — the single most useful thing a page with a hundred-fold range could add.
No environmental claim, as above.
No certification.
No anti-corrosive claim. Only Krud Kutter mentions the machine, and the detergent passes through your pump on the way out.
No foam cannon compatibility, which both Kärcher bottles name.
No mold or algae claim. This is a degreaser, and it says so — where Zep leads with “algae, mold and mildew” and Simple Green brings peroxide to the same job.
Availability
Read on the day this page was built: $19 at the American Amazon shop.
Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 2026-10-05. The live price is at the top of the page.
