We get to see a lot of government wash operations here, and the majority of them are junk. A lot of school districts bought machines to wash the buses. I have yet to see one do a good job. Either the machines are junk or it was never set up correctly, or both. Just got a nice little job replacing old equipment at an airport. They were washing with a pressure washer using only reclaim water, and had no soap or wax. A local county bus system really took the cake. Keep in mind this is a Belanger machine. It had no spot free rinse, had no good way to apply the soap, no wax, the water softener had not used salt in four years, and they placed the UCW right at the final rinse arch, with reclaim water no less. I asked them if any factory guy ever came there, and sure enough he was there once a year. What he did is still a mystery.
government wash operations
- Thread starter mac
- Start date
Greg Pack
Wash Weenie
carwashireland
Active member
I see government washes all the time doing terrible jobs. They are mainly done on a tender so the cheapest one wins. Even if it is bloody awful. Procurement should not buy washes, engineers should!
MEP001
Well-known member
The worst car wash I've ever seen was a N/S at an airport car rental. The top brush was broken and propped up to a set height by a 2x4, and the side brushes were bungee-corded for springs. They'd just ram the cars through to make the brushes part, and used only water.
carwashireland
Active member
Ha. Mac that is very true!
Over the years I’ve seen some real messes at government, rental car and airport car washes. I think the biggest problem is they aren’t car wash people, they don’t understand what it takes to run and operate a car wash. The only thing they are concerned about is how much it’s going to cost and how much money will it bring in. Awhile back I was doing monthly maintenance at a local Army Post. They have a directive that forbids them from heating an unoccupied space. The car wash was managed by the base gas station, one evening the manager saw weep water running out of the guns and went into the equipment room to turn off the water because they can’t have the water run, they’re wasting water when she opened the equipment room door she could feel the heat in the equipment and she saw the glow of an electric space heater. She turned off the water and unplugged the heater, locked the door and left. That night it got down to 10 degrees, everything and I mean everything froze, piping, pumps, water heaters, Hydrominders, chemicals, etc. The next morning the manager called me and asked me to come out as she had a problem. Since the repair/rebuild was more than $10K they had to put it out for bid. The low bidder was a company 1200 miles away who didn’t come up look at the job, it went way over the budget. The manager, nothing happened her, all she said was she was following the energy conservation directive.
L
loewem
Guest
When I bought my wash I was referred to a company out of Fayetteville NC. I had already had some bad dealings and had no idea what I was doing. The company did some work on the self serve side of my wash and took down and installed a laser 4000 for me. I had to have the local PDQ distributor come and fix many aspects of the laser and I have redone everything the company did on the self serve side. Turned out that the company had a contract to run the car wash at Fort Bragg Military Base. I can only imagine how the wash at Fort Bragg is run.
Just got another example of how these get screwed up. We got a bid request from a really big city bus and train wash for chemicals. They wanted pricing for two chemicals. They stated the bid would definitely go to the low bid. They gave vague specs on the chemicals. Nothing that is important. They didn't say a thing about dilution ratios for crying out loud. There was no performance demonstration. And the contract ran for 5 years, in which you could not raise the price. So they will end up with watered down crap that won't do much. And remember, this is our money they are doing this with.
carwashireland
Active member
If interested Mac, mail me - I may have a solution for your soap needs. sales@washwell.co.uk
Washmee
Fullservice Tunnel
Why would they bother with those pesky details Mac? Lol
L
loewem
Guest
Very frustrating to hear this. I work full time for the Federal Government and have experienced similar situations. What kills me is when the government limits the ability of the contractor to do the work and then blames the contractor for the poor results. I've seen that a lot in my career. It is never just the contractors fault and often not the entire fault of the contractor. The fact that it is our money is important. Government staff needs to think of the money as their own and manage and use it in a prudent manner. I had a pretty tough lady as a boss once and she constantly reminded me that the pennies make the dollars and we can't get complacent in thinking that $100,000 is peanuts in comparison the overall budgets of $1,000,0000.
