Mud Bog In Town - Would You Close?

[PaulLovesJamie]

I'd staff the wash during the event to turn away mudders, and close overnight.
Why?
Mudders do not provide any significant revenue for me, short term or long term. So I have no desire to accomodate them or advertise to them - I run them off all year, why would I do otherwise for 1 day?
I pay to have my pits pumped because I dont have anywhere else to go with it and I'm concerned about the future liability of using it for fill on the farm. So it's not just the labor and the mess, its also the pit cleaning cost.

I certainly like the sound of profiting from these guys for an evening, but even if I tripled the price I dont think I'd make enough $ to make it worth the time, effort, and inconvenience to my regular customers. I dont know, maybe if there were hundreds of them and they ALL came to wash off... but I doubt that would be the case.

 

[Red Baron]

My outside bay is well-equipped for mud, with 1500 psi, and a squeegee where customers are encouraged to push the heavy mud off the edge of the concrete so I can pick it up with my tractor/loader. That said, I rather not deal with it any more than absolutely necessary.

A high percentage of my mess makers aren't regular customers, they're farmers just trying to knock off the big clumps coz the wife doesn't want it in their driveway...that guy's truck hasn't shined in 2 years coz he don't care if it's clean.

 

[JustClean]

If I had to build my wash again I would extend the slope from the bay to the outside a bit. I would do it in a way that it wasn't really visible to the customer. Then I would also shorten the HP hose. So all the run-off would stay inside the bay and not run out into the yard.
One night I was dreaming about an automatic wash-down pipe alongside the walls that turns itself on automatically every now and then... I guess I was dreaming

 

[Red Baron]

One night I was dreaming about an automatic wash-down pipe alongside the walls that turns itself on automatically every now and then... I guess I was dreaming

I had that same idea. Also, my next IBA will be poumbed more exact so that all undercarriage and tredle hoses come out under the rail so as to eliminate all hoses on the bay floor that make it harder to wash out the bay. Also, I thought about making the concrete areas that are outside of the rails pitch twice as much as usual so as to give the floor a better chance of cleaning itself.

 

[mac]

Some of my customers have washes close to the mud bogging places. Unless you have seen one of these, you would not believe how much mud can be carried on one truck. The ides of putting up signs and directing them to certain bays fails in two big ways. They come at night, and they have usually been consuming large quantities of alcohol. So unless you want to sit around all night, it ain't gonna work. Most of the operators I know close the wash when they leave. Did I mention that many carry firearms also? I do not understand the fascination with getting dirty for the fun of it, oftentimes to impress a female. I saw one wash after they had been there. Reminded me of pictures you see of bombed out cities. BTW, Big Leo, clever note after the post.

 

[Jeff_L]

Okay, maybe you all have convinced me otherwise. I guess a truck could carry a great deal of mud on it, which could be troublesome. Maybe I would close as well, even go so far as to block off the driveway so the muddy tires don't dirty up the lot too.

I did like the one post that someone came up with, which was to create your own "mobile wash" and take the wash to the Mud Bog and offer a service there.

 

[Red Baron]

Okay, maybe you all have convinced me otherwise. I guess a truck could carry a great deal of mud on it, which could be troublesome. Maybe I would close as well, even go so far as to block off the driveway so the muddy tires don't dirty up the lot too.

I did like the one post that someone came up with, which was to create your own "mobile wash" and take the wash to the Mud Bog and offer a service there.

In a rural area they can trash a wash in 1 night with their mud.

 

[MEP001]

In a rural area they can trash a wash in 1 night with their mud.

No doubt, I've had one truck trash the whole place with mud in a half hour. He used a self-serve bay to knock off the biggest clumps, went through the auto to let the undercarriage get some, then used another ss bay to finish. In all he drove around the lot three times trailing mud the whole way and left two bays plus the auto unusable. No one could get out of a bay with a clean car without driving through his mud.

 

[Red Baron]

No doubt, I've had one truck trash the whole place with mud in a half hour. He used a self-serve bay to knock off the biggest clumps, went through the auto to let the undercarriage get some, then used another ss bay to finish. In all he drove around the lot three times trailing mud the whole way and left two bays plus the auto unusable. No one could get out of a bay with a clean car without driving through his mud.

And no doubt if you'd have said something to him he'd have looked at you as though you were speaking German. Afterall, anything goes at a car wash.

I come from a long line of farmers, my dad was the first to leave the farm after more than 125 years, and I have a lot of respect for farmers. But, I have a little less respect for them after going in the car wash business. Many of them seem to be masters at making the biggest possible mess for the least possible money spent. And they're so used to slogging around in the mud on the farm, they don't know what all the fuss is about when they leave 4" of sticky gumbo on the bay floor then track it across the parking lot so that everyone leaving the auto bay has to drive through it.

 

[mac]

One other aspect of the mud that hasn't been mentioned, is the grease and oils it can contain. If the mud bogging place has been around awhile, there haver been numerous instances of cracked oil pans and transmission cases. These dump a lot of oil into the mud, and it can stain the painted walls real nicely. One idea here has a lot of merit - why not set up a mobile wash at the site and either rent it out to the owner or do a coin op with it? A new bogging place here has a semi high pressure spinning rinse arch that the people drive through. Not only gets the mud off, but has the enlightening possibalities of wet t shirts. Now that's innovation.

 

[Reds]

I had that same idea. Also, my next IBA will be poumbed more exact so that all undercarriage and tredle hoses come out under the rail so as to eliminate all hoses on the bay floor that make it harder to wash out the bay. Also, I thought about making the concrete areas that are outside of the rails pitch twice as much as usual so as to give the floor a better chance of cleaning itself.

On my second IBA I pitched the floor a lot more than my original IBA floor, and raised the rails so that there was no less than 1" under the rail at any point. This let the mud and debris flow to the pits. Also put any plumbing under the floor. That bay is easy to clean and stays clean. Way better than my original bay, in which the mud lays along the walls and mud/debris stick under the rail making the situation worse. I am going to raise the rails in the original bay to make mud/debris stop sticking under it.

 

[mac]

Reds, this seems to me one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't scenarios. While it is much easier to clean the bay into the pit as you describe, it also means your pits will fill much faster. There are many places now where the EPA or some other government agency, deem pit waste as hazardous waste. That means it has to be hauled away by a hazardous waste carrier at 6 to 10 times the cost of what septic companies used to charge.

 

[Red Baron]

Reds, this seems to me one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't scenarios. While it is much easier to clean the bay into the pit as you describe, it also means your pits will fill much faster. There are many places now where the EPA or some other government agency, deem pit waste as hazardous waste. That means it has to be hauled away by a hazardous waste carrier at 6 to 10 times the cost of what septic companies used to charge.

Yep. But, I decided long ago that I dislike the job of cleaning up muddy bays enough that I'm willing to spend more to pump my pits more often rather than spend additional time avoiding pit pumping costs. I won't even drag out the wheelbarrow and shovel anymore - I have a tile scraper I got from Home Depot that will quickly cut through the hardest dry mud, scrape it to the grate, and wash it into the pit. I do save a little by using my clamshell to remove a wheelbarrow or 2 from the first bay that fills up between pumping, in order that I can put off pumping by an addition week or 2 until several other bays need pumped too.

By the way, the tile scraper does a good enough job on dry mud that often I don't even need to wash the bay down after scraping it.