friction vs touch free cost per car

[tobaccofarmer]

Wanting to create a spreadsheet for friction machine and would like feedback from operators who have a solid history with friction. What is your cost per car running and how does it compare to touchfree? If you could break it down with electricity, chemicals, and water, that would help immensely. I know cost of electricity and water can vary from area to area but if you have a touchfree at same location that would be a great comparison. Thanks for reading.

 

[buda]

Tobacco:

Does not matter the cost. The touchless machines do not clean a dirty car so why even bother comparing costs with a friction. If you want customers to return you have to give them a clean car with good service at a reasonable price.

Unless you live in a desert area where the cars only get dusty you will have to use friction to clean the car properly, in my opinion and experience.

And, if the customer and the manufacturer knew you were using acid and high alkaline chemicals on their paint and glass they would not come to your wash and the manufacturer's would void the warranty on the paint.

Most owners manuals say to now wash the car with harsh chemicals (acid?) and high pressure water.

Regards
Bud A

 

[tobaccofarmer]

Wasnt asking opinions on touch free vs friction simply trying to figure out what it costs per car friction vs touch free. I agree cleaning touchfree simply just doesnt happen at allot of sites, however that is not my problem nor do I want this thread to be about cleaning touch free vs friction, just the cost involved
when compared to each other.

 

[Reds]

I don't use acid in my touch free. And I am in a county where there are more miles of dirt roads than paved roads. I have had a handfull of complaints since I have been open (2005) and thousands of compliments. People drive past other washes to use mine. A friction machine may get some difficult vehicles clean where a touchless may not. But to say that a touchless "does not clean a dirty car" is horse$hit. Or someone who knows nothing about good touchfree operations just shooting their mouth off.

 

[Gabriel]

Owner/Operator

I have owned each sitting side by side and what you have asked is really hard to quantify. Sure, a touchless uses more chemical and that cost is up a little. On the other hand the offset of damage claims and the primary thing that always bothered me was how do you figure in the loss of brush density. Brushes are expensive to maintain and replace. Cleaning is nothing more than a matter of opinion. One does what is expected and 99% of the customers are pleased and return over and over. The other has problems with different shapes and is prone to shadowing on many vehicles but customers loyal to that type wash also return over and over. Scratches! who knows. It is just a kind of trade off and in one area it can go one way and in another the opposite. So, figuring the cost of operating each just kind of depends. Some expenses up on one while other expenses are up on the other. I could never really narrow down the cost of operating one machine against the other because of the variable expenses that applied to each automatic. In the end I just finally went with the one I chose to operate and that seemed to do the best all around job at my wash. I am sure that at other washes the outcome would be different depending on the operator.

 

[rph9168]

I agree with Gabriel. It is hard to quantify the costs. With touch free the chemicals and water is definitely higher than with a friction unit. Both use quite a bit of electricity with the pumps in touchfree and driving the brushes with friction. Also difficult to compare the cost of maintaining and/or replacing pumps as opposed to cloth and maintaining power paks or motors. You could spend a lot of time trying to compare the two but in the long run it is probably a little like apples and oranges.

I think the bottom line is what you think works best in your location and to a lesser degree the competition you face. If all your competition uses friction touch free might be the best choice or if touch free units comprise most of your competition you might want to consider touch free. Which ever you finally choose do the best job possible in keeping your wash clean and inviting and the equipment in top condition to give your customers the best wash possible. Those are the basics that don't change with either type of equipment.

 

[mac]

I've been doing some exact wash costs lately for touchless washes. Most machines will use about .50 per car for a basic wash and around .65 to maybe .70 for a deluxe with tri foam and wheel cleaner. The touchless machines I see will use about 45 to 65 gallons of water.

 

[Waxman]

Tobacco:

Does not matter the cost. The touchless machines do not clean a dirty car so why even bother comparing costs with a friction. If you want customers to return you have to give them a clean car with good service at a reasonable price.

Unless you live in a desert area where the cars only get dusty you will have to use friction to clean the car properly, in my opinion and experience.

And, if the customer and the manufacturer knew you were using acid and high alkaline chemicals on their paint and glass they would not come to your wash and the manufacturer's would void the warranty on the paint.

Most owners manuals say to now wash the car with harsh chemicals (acid?) and high pressure water.

Regards
Bud A

Touchfree has a place in the carwash industry. How much share you capture depends upon the specifics of your particular market. The touchfree is a maintenance wash. Occasionally cars need friction with certain types of soils. I have many many customers who use nothing but the touchfree in between details. Their cars always look great. Yes with friction you can get harder to clean cars cleaner as well as cars that have gone too long between washings. But how can you really compare friction and touchfree fairly? They are so different by design.

Can't we just end this debate and agree that each has its pluses and minuses?

 

[RykoPro]

Chems are the main cost difference. Do you want to buy soap every two weeks or every 4 months? The other issue is when placed side by side, people choose the brush machine 2:1.

 

[tobaccofarmer]

This was never intended to be a debate between the two, just a cost per car comparison. Im also seeing water usage has to be also a major difference since allot of these machines only require city water pressure or may have a small starite instead of 35 GPM high pressure pump, which obviously uses more water. Once again this is not to debate which format is better or worse just a cost per car comparison.

 

[Gabriel]

Placeing these machines side by side in no way affects cost of operation. A blanket statement about which will double the other if just plain B.S. If that were true Ryko's OHD Touchless Automatics should be avoided at all cost. My ownership of each was the exact oposite--and that is not a blanket statement. It was a fact, so apparently every location differs and customers in different areas have different preferences. To avoid a dumb debate B.S. is sufficient.

 

[RykoPro]

Not sure what you are trying to say but EVERY side by side machine I have seen or heard of the brush machine will wash twice as many cars. Look into it if you dont believe it.....
I have access to hundreds of machines and this is what we have found. For the most part a properly run brush machine is cheaper to operate than a touchless.

 

[Waxman]

Is attendant cost factored in? I would not hesitate too much to be unattended with touchfree but cloth / friction I would want to be attended because of 1. damage claims and 2. safety protocol.

 

[RykoPro]

First of all cloth is basically obsolete, why would you use material that will scratch paint when its new (I have used new cloth like scotchbrite to prep sand for a paint job)? I see no difference between needing an attendant for touchless or brush (we have plenty of unattended tunnels even).

 

[rph9168]

Sorry to post something not in the spirit of comparing costs to operate but I could not let Waxman's post slide without comment.

There is no need for an attendant at a friction automatic any more than at a touch free. There are very few damage claims with friction if any more than touch free.

Even in days gone by the amount of damage by friction machines was grossly misstated. Years ago the vast majority of damage claims that actually occurred came from oil company automatics that were seldom well maintained which led to possible damage due to lack of proper lubrication or malfunctioning units that were not properly repaired. This also caused a misconception concerning bristles. While todays friction media is probably safer, they would also create problems if there was an insufficient amount of water and/or chemical applied.

 

[Waxman]

But what about all the restrictions for friction; ladder racks, roof racks, bug shields etc.?

I prefer attended and have run that way (not 24/7/365 mind you) since opening.

Just because operators run friction unattended doesn't mean it's the best idea. Too much opportunity for problems IMO. May work for others, but not me! I know the wash runs better with fewer problems and makes more money when attended.

 

[Gabriel]

What I am saying is that you cannot compare Apples to Oranges and make a blanket statement. I have already tried them side by side and I had the opposite result than the one you discribe. My Touchless Automatics doubled the Brush--easy to understand. I removed the Brush and almost doubled wash volume. If a Ryko OHD cannot compete with a Soft Gloss Ryko should stop making them. Why offer a machine that is inferior. My customers factually will not even enter a brush machine. In addition when I figured cost of operation I included damage claims as an expense (They Were). I considered damage to the brushes an expense (They Were) and I also needed on site attendants to handle the problems caused by brushes and hand clean up for shadowing problems (Expensive). Sure chemicals were higher, but other expenses off set that cost. I also got a good nights sleep after removing the brush..

 

[norton]

Cost for my touchless wash right now breakdown like this. .20 cents per wash for a single pass High PH presoak and .35 cents for a double pass of high PH. It is very strong presoak at this cost and is not done in anyway to save money. Water usage runs between 35 to 75 gallons per wash. WIth sewer figured in on the 75 gallon wash it cost me ..35 cents for water and sewer on the top wash.
When I had a friction wash detergent was around .15 cents per car. The top wash used around 36 gallons of water so the water cost was around .20 cents. Trifoam waxes etc are the same for each wash. The friction was about .35 cents per wash cheaper to operate except that maintenace cost and damage claims were much higher on the friction. Also the downtime was higher on the friction machine. In the end it turned out that for me the touchless wash process was the way to go.

 

[robert roman]

Examine a data base containing thousands of in-bays at gas stations and convenience stores and you would find roughly a 5 to 6 percent difference in total operating expense, friction being less than touch-free.

The chemical expense for friction is less than touch-free but maintenance expense for friction is greater than touch-free. Claim expenses are higher for friction but this has changed significantly with the advent and penetration of foam cleaning material.

Surprisingly, there is only a slight difference in water and sewer expenses in this data base, friction slightly less than touch-free. The why is because touch-free can use twice the water as friction and, therefore, there is a higher presence of reclaim in the touch-free population.

So, if you want a fair comparison, visit OEM sites and gather the specs for the machines you are considering. For instance, if you visit Autec website, among others, you will find typical cost of operation for machines.

http://www.autec-carwash.com/pdf/EV-1ChemWaterTime.pdf

Bud did bring up a salient point, indirectly.

For many self-service owners, friction or touch-free is a matter of personal choice. For others, like gas/c-store chains that have networks of washes the issue is a business decision. Clearly, the competition has been gravitating towards friction-only and hybrid.

Over the most recent three year period for which data is available, the ratio of friction to touch-free equipment spending has changed from 36 percent / 64 percent to 46 percent / 54 percent.

Due to the increasing cost to operate a touch-free in-bay (chemical and water) and improvements in friction technology, little disruptive change is expected in the trend towards friction/hybrid in-bays.