Anyone Own A Car Wash?

Seems like the type of biz a GRM'er might own. Curious about experiences with it. I imagine that it is lots of work to get up and running, then a fair amount to keep the machinery and building maintained and attractive, and a perpetual project of effectively marketing. On the flip side, it's probably a good consistent business if the location is right.

the automated car washs around here are all attached to gas stations. Only a couple of self serves still exist. There are however quite a few hand car washes. $10 for a hand wash vs $6 for an automated. Real money is in detailing anyhow...

Well, my Father's AA sponser owns a self serve. I worked there one summer cleaning out the bays. Interesting to say the least.

I once knew a guy whose f-i-l had a car wash with gas bar. The economics of it were interesting: the gas pumps paid everybody's wages, and the washes were gravy. Overall, the business put $200k in the owner's pocket every year, in 20-years-ago dollars. The secret was, the guy owned the land his business was on, so he didn't pay rent to an oil company or any other kind of landlord. The unpleasant part of the operation was cleaning out the gunk below the wash area. As the new son-in-law, my buddy got assigned to that a lot.

I worked at one in MI while I was in college. One guy to take the money, 2 to do the rinse/pre-soak and send them through and 2 to dry with towels at the end.

Winter was suckage, weekends had 120-130 cars per hour. Minimum wash was $4.95. You split the tips.

I have an acquaintence that began servicing washes and the built owning them into a pretty good size business. Contracts with new car dealers were cash cows...

One of the most expensive operating costs is servicing them... that's one of his built-in advantages against his competiton (some of which he continues to service)

Lately, I've seen these dudes in parking lots washing peoples cars. They are mobile wash services. Maybe not a new idea, but new around here. I think it's genius.

Drop another quarter in the jukebox folks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLKhUnl_yhc

Or if you have younger kids, they might like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Gw5e1AnMc

The one near my work seems to be incredibly busy. Every time we go out for lunch everybody marvels at how busy they are, even still, this late in the year. I think they do close up December through March, but man, they have to be just raking it in.

In reply to PeterAK:

I own two car washes. Their names are Brad and Steve, and they are 16 year old twins. I don't make any money off them, but I do save a little.

In reply to PeterAK:

I own two car washes. Their names are Brad and Steve, and they are 16 year old twins. I don't make any money off them, but I do save a little.

Funny you say this I've been looking in to it myself... Most machine distributors don't want to talk to you on the phone they want to come out and see the property 1st... I've been tring to gather prices and stuff before making offer on a property... One place i was looking at as there is not one for 15miles radius i found a great lot 1/4 mile from a dealer..talked with town hall...it is outlawed in there by-laws...WTF.

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My boss has attended the car wash show. It has all the equipment and products you need. We were looking at making manifolds for the hookups.

I believe this is a tough business to get into due to costs.

http://www.carwash.org/carcareworldexpo/ccwe/Pages/default.aspx

My father had 2-3 self-serve locations for many many years, all throughout my childhood. When I was a kid one of the 3 locations got eminent domained out from under him, and he never replaced it. These were a side business as he was employed full time at a major company as well.

Overall they did quite well for him, and it's an all-cash business, so, well, you know... I remember buying all our gasoline with rolls of quarters for many years (and with piles of singles after change machines got invented).

We would typically stop by Monday and Friday nights to empty the coin boxes, fix the busted stuff, empty the trash cans, etc. Normally it was a couple hours to do both locations, but if there was a lot of vandalism it could slow you down a lot. We'd lose a Saturday every couple months on a major repair. Winter sucked usually but we made good money when it was not actually snowing.

The mechanicals themselves are fairly straightforward on the self-serve wand/brush types, and if you can do basic car maintenance, you can keep a place running. I could fix/replace a coinbox unit when I was in 7th grade, and replace hoses, belts, etc. I even did pump rebuilds as time went on. I have no experience with the automats, though.

I'll add more later, but I will say it depends a lot on location and somewhat whether you pay rent or own (we owned one, lease property under the other). It's a good business but I had no real desire to inherit it when dad died.

I own a few residential rentals in addition to my day job and was thinking about how I want my life to look 10+ years down the road. My wife enjoys work, I don't mind it, I'm in the mortgage business. Owning a biz like a car wash and my rentals looks like it would make a decent living. Like any business I see risk and work, but, also flexibility and stability if you are actually working your business. Keep the thoughts coming gang!

This board has the most interesting topics.

Around here, there's a problem with the self-serve bays during hunting season. Great way to clean a carcass, apparently. Ewwwww.

There was a guy fought for years to get permission to put one up here, a mile from my house. Finally got it - and the gas station across the intersection added one almost immediately. The owner of the stand-alone one was also planning to put one in across the street from my house until the market dropped, so there's obviously some money...

The popular one in town is right on the main drag. Lets you wash your car and show it off at the same time on Saturday night, I guess.

My local government is now looking into the environmental impact of self-serve car washes as the run-off is not being monitored right now. They have not imposed a moratorium yet, but I'm sure that's coming because that's what they like to do. As far as a good business model goes; it's definitely not a hands-off business as the other posters have said so far. My local car wash owner is there every day cleaning the bays of the carcass guts, mud, and whatever else the "patrons" decide to leave there. It is a cash business however and if somebody wants to write you a check, they can always write it out to your company name Carwashes Are Simple and Handy or CASH for short.

Did somebody say carwash...

spriteracer wrote: As far as a good business model goes; it's definitely not a hands-off business as the other posters have said so far. My local car wash owner is there every day cleaning the bays of the carcass guts, mud, and whatever else the "patrons" decide to leave there.

sounds like a great job for a retired guy who works for you 2-3 hours per day.

I bought one for my business 6 years ago. We clean the customers cars after service. I think it has been down 3 days of the 6 years. 53,000 car washes. You put soap in the barrel and lube the joints occasionally. The bigest problem is flat rate techs that leave the thing before it's done. The safetys kick in, and you have to physically push the thing back to the start. Usually the second time the tech has to clear the shop to fix it, they learn the lesson.

I was talking to a friend in the supply business and he said the Northern States and Canada are awesome for car washes all fall and winter.

He said everyone "thinks" Los Angeles would be a huge market but they don't get the nasty snow and salt and crud like up north. And the folks wash their own cars a lot.

I have an uncle who is (apparently?) quite well off. At one point, one of his side businesses was a car wash. He also did bus driving and airport transport (took folks to and from the local airports, which, depending on where you were flying from could be 1 or 3 hours away by car) he's now retired.

Owning your own location, in most areas, is key, as is location along a busy highway and security. Besides that, being available to fix problems quickly is also a biggie. BTW, my uncle's car wash was totally automatic.

Keith wrote: The popular one in town is right on the main drag. Lets you wash your car and show it off at the same time on Saturday night, I guess.

Yep, plus the regulars who hang around A) tend to wash their cars a lot, B) know when it is and when it is not OK to tie up a bay for a while, and C) tend to keep an eye on the place and reduce vandalism by their mere extended presence on weekend nights, and will let you know when things are down.

I've got plenty of stories. Kilotons of mud from weekend swampers, pickup loads of construction garbage, etc. One time we had an entire boxvan load of rotting vegetables left for us as a present. That sucked pretty hard. I had a lady who indignantly expected me to sift through 30+ gallons of vacuumed-up cigarette butts, hair, and carpet dirt looking for her engagement ring.

One time we came in and one of the vacuum cleaners looked like it had been dynamited. We thought at first it was plain vandalism, but after asking some of the regulars, one of them gave us the story. Two guys came in with an outboard boat that apparently had water in one of the gas tanks, which they proceeded to vacuum out. Now, the vacuum units are located on top of the drum and are open-winding motors... the enclosure got nice and full of gas and vapor before it finally stacked up enough to hit the armature brushes. Then, KABOOM. It would have been well worth the total loss of the unit to have seen that in person.