I think that generally speaking car wash prices are too low. I see a lot of that evidenced here in this survey.
My car wash is in a middle to lower income region of Massachusetts. I also offer car detailing. We have gone up considerably on our prices in the last 7 to 10 years. I realized I was working far too hard and never seemed to get ahead. Our overhead is very reasonable so a price increase was implemented. People do complain about the detailing prices and for some reason they think they can negotiate. However I have a good manager in place and I delegate customer service in the detail department to him. I tend to get insulted when people try to "talk me down" so I removed myself from that part of the business.
When I had
Autowash Maintenance install my new
razor a few years ago I ran Numbers and contemplated pricing for quite some time. I finally settled on a nice high price and while some customers do protest it's actually not that many and you would be surprised at my percentages for the top package. I also raised my start up price in the self serves and vacs.
Business is much more enjoyable when there is a bit of extra money to make improvements etc. that's why were here!