Buying a car wash

[Steve30477]

I’m buying a car wash. It is run down, neglected on operation & upkeep.
This will be my first. It is a 12 bay. 10 self serve, 1 automatic & one empty that had an automatic but has been removed.
I have a few questions.
I’m wanting to make 1/2 of the wash to accept cashless pay. Currently only accepts cash. any help on a cashless system would be great. Best I can locate is Nayax (sp).
looking to put a big digital 2 sided sign.
the wash has no sign now. I’m shooting to double the income on it. It looks closed now with no sign & half of it is actually shut down for some minor maintenance issues.
The wash is in Kansas City mo. I’m looking fir any guidance or help anyone could volunteer that could steer me in the right direction to get started out. Has anyone went from cash to part cashless? What did it do fir your income. Any ideas on how to draw people other that clean it up, get it working properly, sign, etc? Thanks in advance fir any guidance you can give.

 

[MEP001]

I think you're putting too much stock in a sign. A big digital sign can cost $60,000 just for the electronics. Nowadays people use Google and follow the directions. Just make it look good from the street, and make sure it looks like a car wash.

Cryptopay is an excellent CC system, affordable, super easy to install, works on bays and vacs (You want count-up in the bays) and there are retrofits for the most common automatic paystations. You might as well put CC acceptance on everything at once. If you only do half, you'll find people waiting behind the bays that take CC.

Keep it clean and working, give good product, check everything every day. It really is that simple. Keep plenty of spare parts on hand so you don't have to leave a bay down more than a couple hours. Customers notice things left not working.

 

[Steve30477]

MEP001

thank you so much for you help. I will definitely look into the crypto pay. The system I was looking into is pretty expensive. It would cost about 12k to put on coin changers, bays & vacuums.
Maybe I should clarify. The sign I’m looking at is 40x60 & it’s 3k. Just trying to draw attention to the car wash to be sure folks now it’s under new ownership, we take cashless payments, new website for specials, monthly membership, etc.
Do you offer unlimited wash clubs? How well does that work? I’m sure I’ll have a million other questions in the near future.

 

[MEP001]

thank you so much for you help. I will definitely look into the crypto pay. The system I was looking into is pretty expensive. It would cost about 12k to put on coin changers, bays & vacuums.

If you put CC acceptance on bays and vacs, you don't need it on the changer. You could put a CC swiper on the changer and have it pay out tokens, but historically that doesn't work very well without a lot of customer training, and even then they just don't want to use it.

Maybe I should clarify. The sign I’m looking at is 40x60 & it’s 3k. Just trying to draw attention to the car wash to be sure folks now it’s under new ownership, we take cashless payments, new website for specials, monthly membership, etc.

You can do all that with a Facebook page and a Google site, both free unless you promote. IMO people just don't read signs.

 

[Steve30477]

Again great help! Appreciate it. Tokens bring another question. I figured it would be better to use tokens instead of quarters. Since they may not all be used but paid for at time of purchase. Also would save if a break in. I have found many places to purchase tokens but they are .21 each. Doesn’t help my idea at that cost. Is there a place to get them cheap?
The wash is turned the opposite way of the street. Backs up to a strip mall. You almost miss it going by is my hang up in the sign.

 

[Dan-Ark]

My 2 cents (tokens?) is if you go ahead and use tokens, get the higher security type. I went with a basic brass token for "cheap" and have in 3 years collected about 150.00 in tokens we did not sell. (CiCi pizza, good dental visits, and mostly brand new ones from the previous operator of our car wash. His ex care taker must have taken home all the tokens when they shut down. I thought being remotely located, no other business in town dispensing tokens but wish I had spent the extra money up front. It will be a pain to convert. That said, I have not iventoried my tokens, but I estimate I have had about 300 walk off unused that we sold, (almost 3 years) so even with the 'counterfiet' tokens, still money ahead...But customers don't like it and about 60% of our revenue is still quarters. they bring them with them. Some have learned to hit refund on the automatic or vending machine which does not give the bill back, it pays back quarters.

 

[MEP001]

Tokens bring another question. I figured it would be better to use tokens instead of quarters. Since they may not all be used but paid for at time of purchase. Also would save if a break in. I have found many places to purchase tokens but they are .21 each. Doesn’t help my idea at that cost. Is there a place to get them cheap?

21¢ each is cheap if you vend them for $1. I know a guy who takes all currency but only gives tokens at the changer. He has a bill breaker machine that gives three tokens plus the proper change with a $5, $10 or $20 bill and a changer next to it that only pays out tokens and gives a bonus with $10's and $20's. He says he's making more than when he was quarters only.

 

[Rfreeman]

Steve,

Can you give us your address of this wash so we can look it up on Google Street view. I'd like to see the lay of the land. Washes are not hard to run, keep everything running GOOD (not just running but good, i.e. good pressure in the bays, no leaks, good chemicals (see and smell) keep the place clean and at night keep it lit up like a Christmas tree.

My first wash was 5 ss + 1 Auto bay. Only one bay was working when I purchased it. Rehabbed all the existing equipment and vacs gutted the auto bay to start. 1 year later installed a new Ryko Softgloss and the wash is one of the best real estate deals I have done.

Like Mep said go with CryptoPay for CC and I would clean the place up, getting it working first, and get new LED lights in the bay. Maybe add a neo LED light strip to the room to call attention to the place at night.

 

[Wildcat83482]

Send me a PM. I think i can help you out.

 

[JLanman]

I’m buying a car wash. It is run down, neglected on operation & upkeep.
This will be my first. It is a 12 bay. 10 self serve, 1 automatic & one empty that had an automatic but has been removed.
I have a few questions.
I’m wanting to make 1/2 of the wash to accept cashless pay. Currently only accepts cash. any help on a cashless system would be great. Best I can locate is Nayax (sp).
looking to put a big digital 2 sided sign.
the wash has no sign now. I’m shooting to double the income on it. It looks closed now with no sign & half of it is actually shut down for some minor maintenance issues.
The wash is in Kansas City mo. I’m looking fir any guidance or help anyone could volunteer that could steer me in the right direction to get started out. Has anyone went from cash to part cashless? What did it do fir your income. Any ideas on how to draw people other that clean it up, get it working properly, sign, etc? Thanks in advance fir any guidance you can give.

PM me, We have some cool options that can likely save you some head aches.

 

[Steve30477]

Sorry been awhile since I checked in here. Been buying and selling a lot of real estate. Car wash is bought. For those of you that were wondering address is 11510 winchester Kcmo.
Anyone have any great contacts on buying vaults fir the self service bays? Looking fir something like in this picture.

 

[MEP001]

Are you looking for parts or a whole vault/drawer/locking cover?

 

[Steve30477]

The entire vault. Mine now looks like this. It’s a combo lock & sucks.

 

[Steve30477]

Hello again. Been busy trying to get this place in shape. I’m having issues with my bay floor heater. I have 12 bays. Estimating 7000 ft of line. Maybe I’m way off. I found that it was low on antifreeze. I have put 62 gallons of straight antifreeze along with 62 gal. Of water to get my 50/50. This thing still is not full and barely returns any back to the pot. I have checked everywhere fir any kind of leak. I can’t find anything leaking anywhere. It seems no matter how much I put it once I turn the pump on it’s just gone in a few seconds. I googled how much liquid 1/2 pipe holds per ft. Multiplied that times the est. ft. & come up with around 72 gal plus I have several feet of 2” pipe inside the building. Im still thinking somethings not right. Am I somehow missing something or is this amount typical?

 

[wrassler]

Im thinking you have some broken pipes underground...Need to add fluid by each zone. Very slow process but you will at least know which ones are leaking. Open one zone up. Close the others off. Fill open one. Close it. Open the next. Fill it. Close it etc.....

Also may want to consider filling with water to see what's working since glycol antifreeze at $140/5 gallons.

 

[Steve30477]

Thanks for the great advise. That is my next step.
FYI you can buy it for half if you buy a drum but still a lot of money to just dump down the drain. Lol

 

[SplashDash]

MEP001

thank you so much for you help. I will definitely look into the crypto pay. The system I was looking into is pretty expensive. It would cost about 12k to put on coin changers, bays & vacuums.
Maybe I should clarify. The sign I’m looking at is 40x60 & it’s 3k. Just trying to draw attention to the car wash to be sure folks now it’s under new ownership, we take cashless payments, new website for specials, monthly membership, etc.
Do you offer unlimited wash clubs? How well does that work? I’m sure I’ll have a million other questions in the near future.

I would definitely have a sign - its a must for any business a electronic message center is a great addition to advertise on, they really are not too expensive depending on the brand some are not user friendly- Daktronics is a great user friendly brand definitely buy the warranty. We use crypto pay credit card acceptor on all our SS & have CC on auto, people still use cash but it definitely enhanced our business. We haven’t found a wash club computer version we like yet that’s user friendly.

 

[Steve30477]

Thanks for your reply. Do you have recommendations on where to get a sign? The sign I was looking at was a rip off. When I went to check out they wasn’t 1500 shipping.
I ended up going with nayax for credit & cashless payments. I ended up financing them since it wasn’t that much extra money overtime. It allows more money to put in wash upfront. I can’t swear to how they are but you get an app with the system to run unlimited wash & specials. I think that will be an easy way to do it. I know this was posted some time ago but finally got closed in the wash December 10th.
If there is anyone around KC that has washes, laundromats or multifamily for sale I would be interested.

 

[SplashDash]

Thanks for your reply. Do you have recommendations on where to get a sign? The sign I was looking at was a rip off. When I went to check out they wasn’t 1500 shipping.
I ended up going with nayax for credit & cashless payments. I ended up financing them since it wasn’t that much extra money overtime. It allows more money to put in wash upfront. I can’t swear to how they are but you get an app with the system to run unlimited wash & specials. I think that will be an easy way to do it. I know this was posted some time ago but finally got closed in the wash December 10th.
If there is anyone around KC that has washes, laundromats or multifamily for sale I would be interested.

A Sign Company in your area that actually installs & manufacture not a fast sign. There’s another board budget friendly called Sirus Electronic board- go to signsearch.com to find a sign company in your area have a couple meet you at your wash to see what you need if there good they will know immediately. I own a sign company too so you can always ask me questions & I’ll tell you honestly.