Car wash consultants

[WetBay]

Hello.


First timer here and looking forward to learning from you all.

I am looking for recommendations on car wash consultants for a turn-key start to finish start-up for a possible combination of self serve bays and IBA's.

My experience level:
I have never owned a car wash before and am working toward my first. I believe it will be a starting from scratch scenario, depending on approvals of where I I want to start mine. I understand that I am novice at the moment and have spent countless hours reading differing opinions on what to do, what to know and best practices to be successful. But reading can only get a person so far. I need to start taking action; which is why I landed here and am looking for a consulting company to guide me down a path that can help lead to my success.

Any suggestions for companies you have worked with and found value in and what you did with them would be greatly appreciated!

Also, any idea on ballpark pricing would be nice to hear. Of course this can vary a lot depending on what they provide.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Roz]

I wonder if there is a new business opportunity here when I retire from operating my washes.

 

[8th Street Car Wash]

Whether you're building from scratch or remodeling a wash, I would recommend starting by reaching out to the equipment distributors that would serve your area. This is highly important because if something goes drastically wrong they are your lifeline. You'll need to weigh your options based on a variety of criteria such as:
How long it takes them to respond to you.
Distance from their facility to yours (our distributor is about a 5 hour drive from us).
What brands they service/install.

For example, when we opened our wash, we reached out to multiple companies to see who would actually service our area (Northwest Washington State). We narrowed it down from there by looking in to the equipment the companies install. We asked about example washes to go look at that they installed and service, to see what we thought about the equipment and how good of a wash they gave. We narrowed it down to Bellanger and Mark VII friction washes. We ended up going with Northwest Wash Systems who is a Mark VII distributor for several reasons. The guys were all very professional, they were quick to respond to queries, and they were closer geographically. Bellanger on the other hand took 3+ months to give us our quote, never did a site visit, were located geographically twice as far away etc..
Mark VII was a more expensive product, but think about the amount of money you lose per day with your machine down if it takes a week or longer for your distributor to come out to diagnose an issue.
Northwest Wash Systems installed our In-Bay Automatic, two self serve bays, plumbed the wash, set up all of our our credit card systems, put in vacuums, and -this is key- TAUGHT us how to operate our car wash. I make sure that we have a great relationship with our distributor so that when something bad happens, they WANT to help you out, whether its a catastrophic equipment failure, or just a quick text message to ask about some type of solenoid.
Our distributor made opening our wash about as turn-key as it gets. Pick a good distributor, treat them well, and you will have a good experience.

 

[WetBay]

Whether you're building from scratch or remodeling a wash, I would recommend starting by reaching out to the equipment distributors that would serve your area. This is highly important because if something goes drastically wrong they are your lifeline. You'll need to weigh your options based on a variety of criteria such as:
How long it takes them to respond to you.
Distance from their facility to yours (our distributor is about a 5 hour drive from us).
What brands they service/install.

For example, when we opened our wash, we reached out to multiple companies to see who would actually service our area (Northwest Washington State). We narrowed it down from there by looking in to the equipment the companies install. We asked about example washes to go look at that they installed and service, to see what we thought about the equipment and how good of a wash they gave. We narrowed it down to Bellanger and Mark VII friction washes. We ended up going with Northwest Wash Systems who is a Mark VII distributor for several reasons. The guys were all very professional, they were quick to respond to queries, and they were closer geographically. Bellanger on the other hand took 3+ months to give us our quote, never did a site visit, were located geographically twice as far away etc..
Mark VII was a more expensive product, but think about the amount of money you lose per day with your machine down if it takes a week or longer for your distributor to come out to diagnose an issue.
Northwest Wash Systems installed our In-Bay Automatic, two self serve bays, plumbed the wash, set up all of our our credit card systems, put in vacuums, and -this is key- TAUGHT us how to operate our car wash. I make sure that we have a great relationship with our distributor so that when something bad happens, they WANT to help you out, whether its a catastrophic equipment failure, or just a quick text message to ask about some type of solenoid.
Our distributor made opening our wash about as turn-key as it gets. Pick a good distributor, treat them well, and you will have a good experience.

Thank you!