Tommy System In-Bay Rollover Question

[BrianLorenzen]

Anyone have or see the Tommy in-bay automatic rollover? I guess it converts a 35 foot bay to a mini tunnel that can handle 50 cars per hour.

I’d like to visit one. I’d like to hear from anyone that installed one. I live in NW Ohio about 50 miles south of Detroit.

 

[soonermajic]

Same

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

I'm curious as well to see one in the wild.

I saw a new unattended Macneil mini tunnel in Denver recently and promptly paid for the top wash and went through it. I was thoroughly disappointed. From the poor cleaning job to the crappy drying I left not impressed at all.

 

[washnshine]

I'm curious as well to see one in the wild.

I saw a new unattended Macneil mini tunnel in Denver recently and promptly paid for the top wash and went through it. I was thoroughly disappointed. From the poor cleaning job to the crappy drying I left not impressed at all.

I saw a Sonny’s mini tunnel down south and it was awesome. Not saying that because it was Sonny’s, they just had all the chemistry right and everything really dialed in. Probably like any IBA - if it isn’t set up right and dialed in, you won’t get good results.

 

[OurTown]

I would imagine conveyor speed on these really short lengths plays into the wash and dry quality.

 

[washnshine]

I would imagine conveyor speed on these really short lengths plays into the wash and dry quality.

It sure does. And that’s why the claims of 50 c.p.h. - or whatever, have to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[OurTown]

We saw a new Turkey Hill C-store with a mini tunnel and the conveyor was so slow it was painful to watch. Maybe they did that because it was new and wanted to get cars clean.

 

[DiamondWash]

I have one (tommy in bay express) in my town and it constantly has problems with customers not putting their vehicle in neutral and driving through causing a shutdown.

 

[Roz]

Given the challenges some customers have with a friction machine on rails I can only imagine.

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

Given the challenges some customers have with a friction machine on rails I can only imagine.

Yep. Most of the reasonI’m pulling my friction and will have dual Petits

 

[Roz]

Yep. Most of the reasonI’m pulling my friction and will have dual Petits

It’s a trade off. Your operating costs for soap and water are much higher with a TF. Razor uses about 70/car. Petits looks cool but not many installed so a leap of faith. Will be interested to hear about your experiences from installation to operation whenever you have some good info.

 

[John J Spokas]

Given the challenges some customers have with a friction machine on rails I can only imagine.

Un-attended conveyorized car washes are a crime against humanity.......or something like that. I see plenty of these around Chicagoland and they always have customer caused damage more than once a year. I am sure none of them do close to their potential volume!

 

[MC3033]

I haven’t seen the Tommy’s but I’ve seen some other super mini tunnels. Some with belt some with conveyor.

The belt one I went through was surprisingly good, but obviously cars come out rather wet and the ability to offer extras are limited.

Unattended tunnels are scary, throughput is limited and they are more expensive then a IBA. Personally, I wouldn’t consider a mini tunnel unless it was attended and free standing with vacuums.