Friction or Touchless? What do customers want?

[carwashireland]

I am just curious to know how the market is trending in 2017 in regards to friction v/s touchfree. I started operating touchless washes in 2004 and found the revenue they earn't in comparison to the friction machines I replaced them with was 300% more. With the advent of "soft washes" using foam carlite brushes, have customers switched back to friction? Or is touch free the better revenue earner? I have washes to replace and am unsure which way to go.

 

[robert roman]

In U.S., the writing is on the wall.

Between 2000 and 2011, the number of in-bays at gas sites and self-serve dropped by 36 percent and 22 percent, respectively, and industry wash revenues from these segments dropped by 69 percent. About 80 percent of these units were touch-less.

The number of in-bay suppliers has dropped by 50 percent and equipment spending on in-bay is down almost 70 percent compared to levels in 2005. Current touch-less/friction spending might be 50/50.

Today, conveyor washes account for over 74 percent of the total available market. Probably 95 percent or more of conveyors are friction or hybrid.

So, there is sufficient evidence to conclude consumers want very clean and shiny vehicles. Moreover, they don’t want to tie up a lot of time getting a wash or to pay a big price to have it done for them.

Touch-less washing isn’t going to disappear but its presence in the U.S. market has been marginalized.

I suspect your Hanna counterparts in U.S. might concur with some of this.

 

[mac]

Friction has definitely made a strong comeback. That is due to the newer materials used with closed cell foam material. We have replaced many touchless washes with friction, and in all cases their revenue substantially increased. Doubling or tripling of revenue is common.

 

[Jeff_L]

I have one of each. Number of washes is slightly higher on the touch less, but not by much. If you can, do both.

 

[robert roman]

Touchless is still popular in certain regions like Midwest but most others have experienced huge contraction. For example, between 2000 and 2011, per capita spending on touchless washing dropped from $21.00 to $12.00.

Moreover, climate in Midwest is very different than Cork, Ireland. Cork has over 100 days of fog a year, over 200 rainy days a year and almost no snowfall. Pretty tough environment for producing high quality wash with touchless.

 

[mac]

Out of curiosity Bob, where do you find those stats? As a salesman those are nice numbers to know.

 

[carwashireland]

My god Bob its like you are looking out my window as it is currently foggy and raining!

 

[Scrub Free]

I did a ton of research and still today am interested in a friction IBA. I chose to install 2 touchless with my renovation. The three main reasons were 1. My customer base is full of high end often low cars, and larger trucks/duallys.
2. I want to operate as remotely as possible.
3. My immediate competition all went full friction.
I do believe most customer's "in the box" are looking for friction.

 

[seattleguy]

I have a Wash World touchless and a Ryko friction. Customers use Ryko 3 to 1 over wash world. The Ryko does a much better job and has less equipment hassles.

 

[robert roman]

“….where do you find those stats?”

I’ve been data mining since 1999. Information comes from variety of sources such as Wash Trends (defunct), PC&D, ALN, ICA, IBISWorld, U.S. Census, NACS, NOLN, independent studies, research, etc.

 

[carwashireland]

Having operated many rollover friction machines over the past 15 years I strongly believe an unattended friction iba is an awful idea. The top brush will regularly trip and somebody needs to reset the wash. Spare wheels, tow hitches, rear spoilers etc can all make the machine trip and require someone on site to reset the wash. Having customers stuck in the wash would be a nightmare. For unattended iba's a touchless is the only way to go imo

 

[rph9168]

Having operated many rollover friction machines over the past 15 years I strongly believe an unattended friction iba is an awful idea. The top brush will regularly trip and somebody needs to reset the wash. Spare wheels, tow hitches, rear spoilers etc can all make the machine trip and require someone on site to reset the wash. Having customers stuck in the wash would be a nightmare. For unattended iba's a touchless is the only way to go imo

What brand of friction washes did you operate and how old were they?

 

[carwashireland]

I owned ryko premier plus from new, Ceccato and an Istobal but also serviced Washtech machines, California Kleindeinst, Ryko Italia and Karcher so a pretty big range. Oil company sites on gas stations mainly so the washes were replaced about every 5 to 7 yrs. I originally found Touchless to be far less maintenance heavy and busier. Now though I am not so sure on the revenue between friction and tf as all my machines are at least 8 yrs old.

 

[slash007]

I have had a mostly unattended Ryko Soft Gloss for the past 4.5 years and have not experienced any of the issues that you mention. It does out wash my TF unit, but not by a large margin.

 

[washnshine]

Having operated many rollover friction machines over the past 15 years I strongly believe an unattended friction iba is an awful idea. The top brush will regularly trip and somebody needs to reset the wash. Spare wheels, tow hitches, rear spoilers etc can all make the machine trip and require someone on site to reset the wash. Having customers stuck in the wash would be a nightmare. For unattended iba's a touchless is the only way to go imo

If the top brush is the main concern, Autec machines work around that by using a mitter. I know most people recognize that a mitter does not have the cleaning power of a top brush, but you can offset that somewhat by washing in both directions with the mitter (Ryko and Belanger cannot do this with their top brush) utilizing hp to assist in cleaning and applying presoak as the car enters to increase chemical dwell on the top surfaces. While this still may not give you exactly the same level of cleaning as a top brush, it will certainly out clean any touch free machine and will eliminate the top brush tripping on other friction machines.

I am seriously considering and Autec for my next soft touch IBA.

 

[termn8tr]

Autec has no competition out there. Their AES 425 friction unit is a WORK HORSE and out cleans any other friction unit on the market.
Now granted the chemicals you buy play a huge part in the cleaning process!

 

[Waxman]

You tell me what customers want: I've got a 10 year old Superior Side Trac 700 Touch free. Busy week with line ups all day every day.

I own an apartment building in the next town. A year ago they installed a nice, new friction rollover across the street from my 8 plex. I've been over several times this week rehabbing an apartment and I've noticed their line compared to mine. When I have 7 cars they have 1. When I have 10 they have 2. That's real world observations in my market. The customers have spoken. They want touch free.

 

[mac]

Holy Cow. It's getting so deep here I had to put on my waders. A lot of you out there simply don't understand this market. Look, I can take any POS automatic and put it in a killer location and it will do well. As a traveling salesman, I have seen this many, many times. To claim that a unattended friction is a bad idea is weapons grade idiocy. Come down here to FL and I will show you many that are doing very well, thank you. I sell the Istobal machines. If it faults out, we can reset it from our phone. And the best of all is claiming that the Autec is the workhorse and master of cleaning is just too rich. I can show you five locations very close to me that had the Autec, and all, repeat all, have been taken out. Part of that reason is their distributor here, a Mr Sosa.To claim that a frigging mitter will clean the bugs from a windshield means you have had way too much tequila. Sorry, but true. I can back up everything that I just said by showing you these places. Come to southwest Fl and I'll give you a tour. Maybe even buy you an adult beverage. A lot of the claims on this thread bear no connection to logic. It's like saying that because you hit 5 numbers on the lottery, you must have worked real hard.

 

[washnshine]

You tell me what customers want: I've got a 10 year old Superior Side Trac 700 Touch free. Busy week with line ups all day every day.

I own an apartment building in the next town. A year ago they installed a nice, new friction rollover across the street from my 8 plex. I've been over several times this week rehabbing an apartment and I've noticed their line compared to mine. When I have 7 cars they have 1. When I have 10 they have 2. That's real world observations in my market. The customers have spoken. They want touch free.

Waxman,

You mentioned your machine and the friction rollover are in different towns, so I am assuming you are not competitors. Also, what is the competition in the town with the friction rollover? Is the rollover maintained as well as your site?

I'm not disagreeing with you - I know this is first hand experience, I am just curious what the locations are up against in terms of competition and if that may factor into the success of each wash.

 

[BBE]

Customers want a clean vehicle...period. I understand all of the real world examples of ripping out a friction and putting in a touch free and tripling revenue, or vice versa, and I can't help but think that it had actually nothing to do with the change from friction to touch free or vice versa. It was the complete gut and redo of the wash itself and the fact that it was something completely new. People equate remodel and something new and different from what was there before as better and an upgrade, regardless of whether it was friction to touch free, or touch free to friction.

I have a friction and a touchless side by side, and I've actually had customers comment that they thought they were the same wash, they've used both and can't tell the difference. I will say this though, if you have one of them go down, you want the friction one down, not the touchless, as the people who do have a preference, always have the specific preference towards the touchless because of the usual negative stigma with friction washes. A person who has no preference will just happily use the friction instead as they don't care, they just want a clean car. This is my two cents.