Extreme express mini tunnel

[briteauto]

I saw this youtube video of a new mini tunnel by Sonny's. They packed a lot in a short space - 35'.

If I had something like this, I'd rather see the hp wheel/rocker spinners before the wraps. Also, I'd like to see if they could squeeze in a pair of small rocker panel brushes. Only one touch on the sides makes me a bit skeptical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZGZ2KOKH10&NR=1

Mike

 

[mac]

It's relatively easy to make a video showing clean cars coming out of a short tunnel. I would rather see a real one and talk to the owner. The idea certainly has merit.

 

[Boogie]

McNeil has a 38' mini tunnel that has wraps and rocker panel brushes. I agree about the HP. It's too close to the tire shine in my opinion.

 

[robert roman]

After watching the video, I believe all this product shows at this point is how much carwash equipment it is possible to cram into a small building.

Since most in-bay buildings at self-service sites are 38’ to 40’ or longer, it is unclear to me why anyone would want to downsize to a 35’ long “three-touch” system?

If you use a 55’ long conveyor and 40’long building, you can have automatic bay doors, “five-touch” system with dual CTA’s, high pressure wheels, tire shiner and 75-hp driers, no need for problematic tire brushes because you can get the chemistry to do the bull work.

As for producing 45 to 50 clean, shiny and dry cars an hour from a 35’ wash module with a conveyor chain speed of 45 cars an hour, good luck.

The 55’ conveyor mention above was designed to reach 35 to 40 cars an hour with chain speed of about 45 cars an hour. Over the last two years, the best “hour” has been 32 cars.

This isn’t 45 or 50 cars an hour but it is a lot more than 6, 12 or 15 an hour and higher quality supports a lot more money per car than the typical in-bay.

 

[buda]

HANNA Pioneered the Small Space Carwash System

Back in the mid-60's when I first went to work for Hanna Carwash, Dan Hanna introduced his "mini-washes" which were 14' wide by 28' long modular car wash with the frames serving as the building. Just put walls on the equipment modules and top it with a roof and voila, you had a car wash.

In fact, he had a chain of more than 12 such operations in Portland.

That said, today we have two short tunnel car washes in Portland, one in a 45' building with a 65' conveyor that washes several thousand cars a month.

Another is 50' in a small suburban town outside Portland that has washed up to 7,000 cars per month.

Have taken my black sedan through both washes and can say that they come out clean and dry. The packages are a combination of equipment from AVW, Hanna, etc.

Regards
Bud Abraham

 

[smokun]

Rediscovery Of Things HANNA Implemented Decades Ago

Rightly so, Bud refreshes our awareness of groundbreaking innovations that Dan Hanna brought to the industry many decades ago.

Glad to see that Dan's efforts still ring true, even when others often step up and "reinvent" his concepts for a new generation of carwashers. Thanks for not letting us forget, Bud!

 

[mac]

There's another element to this that is often overlooked. Let's just fantasize for a minute and imagine you have invented a way to wash, clean, and dry a car or truck in a 30 foot self serve bay, and do it all in 15 seconds. It could happen some day. Would the thing be a success? Could you charge $10 to $15 for the wash? My guess on both is no. People would feel cheated that it didn't actually take longer. It's like when you wait for your turn in the barber chair. You don't want to wait, but when you get in the chair, you want the barber, or stylist for the sophisticated, to take their time and do it right. I had a barber that I swear must have competed in the Guniness record book for fastest time to cut hair. He could do it in 90 seconds, and it looked decent and the price was inline. I stopped going there. I felt I wasn't getting my money's worth.