Help evaluating potential purchase.

[MEP001]

Use good quality chemicals that work well and have a good show. Being cheap here will really hurt you.

Check everything frequently. Rinse the bays and test the vacs with coins every day if you can.

If someone loses money, be extra generous when you help them. Just don't give cash refunds without question or you'll become a target.

Keep it clean.

 

[Joswhaha]

Use good quality chemicals that work well and have a good show. Being cheap here will really hurt you.

Check everything frequently. Rinse the bays and test the vacs with coins every day if you can.

If someone loses money, be extra generous when you help them. Just don't give cash refunds without question or you'll become a target.

Keep it clean.

Thank you, is there a particular brand that is recommended for chemicals? They are currently using ZEP I think

 

[MEP001]

Zep is very good, a little expensive, the salesman can set his price so you may not know if you're getting a good price or not.

Kleen-Rite sells Simoniz, which is great if you market it on your signage. IMO it's the best bang for the buck. Kleen-Rite will ship a pallet of soap (36 boxes and/or pails) for free, and they have two free shipping offers a year for orders over $750.

Kleen-Rite's ultra-concentrates are a joke. The foam brush foams okay but it stains everything, the tire cleaner is a super foamy, bright green nothing, their orange bay soap is foaming agent, orange color and fragrance (No cleaning surfactants at all) and their "Purple Passion" presoak beads up on dirty paint. You'll have nothing but bucket washers if you use the stuff.

 

[Joswhaha]

I really appreciate the advice. I am excited to get this place turned around and profitable. I am a little concerned about spending money on items that just don’t make sense to spend money on but surely with the forums help I can make well informed decisions. So far, I am going to order new meter doors with dixmor7 timers, coin acceptors, and crypto pay for about $15k, replace all signage and the main sign probably $2500, repair the in bay lighting $1000, repair vending machine $1500.

At what point do I go all in and have a new paystation and Razor installed? The current IBA is a water wizard 1.0 but still works but not great and has a reputation of not working great.

 

[Toms PTcarwash]

I am not at all familiar with the water wizard. But if it actually works well and doesn't clean well it may just be that the proper chemicals are not being used.
Also, be sure you have clean softened water. Even the best wash will not perform well with bad water.

 

[MEP001]

Water Wizards are on the high side of routine maintenance and cost of parts, but it cleans well and is overall pretty reliable when taken care of properly.

 

[Tom Thumb]

I really appreciate the advice. I am excited to get this place turned around and profitable. I am a little concerned about spending money on items that just don’t make sense to spend money on but surely with the forums help I can make well informed decisions. So far, I am going to order new meter doors with dixmor7 timers, coin acceptors, and crypto pay for about $15k, replace all signage and the main sign probably $2500, repair the in bay lighting $1000, repair vending machine $1500.

At what point do I go all in and have a new paystation and Razor installed? The current IBA is a water wizard 1.0 but still works but not great and has a reputation of not working great.

Water Wiard are good machines, must use good chemicals.

 

[Greg_T]

Update on this Car Wash! It looks like I am going to be the proud owner of this wash by the end of 2021. I am ready to get started fixing this place up but want to make wise decisions. Any opinions on the following?

1. Make sure all bays function on every setting. Make sure all vacuums are functional
2. Clean property including bay walls
3. Replace signage
2. Add credit card readers to each bay and vacuums?
3. Add lighting
5. Repair or replace vending machine

We basically did all of what you listed above when we bought our wash about 2.5 years ago. We have seen roughly 30% increase in revenue over that time. Good luck with your new venture.

 

[mac]

Even tax returns can be deceiving. More than one owner used his car wash income to launder money from illegal activities.

 

[Rocketman]

So...

what would be considered fair, average, or high vehicle washes on for a single IBA (IQ 2.0 touchless)? 20K vehicles per year? 15K, 30k? I like the counter feature that can be viewed remotely and gives you a breakdown of how many of what priced washes have run through the IBA per day, week, month, year, etc.

And related to this question, what is a fair multiplier for SS bays vs an IBA? Would it be fair to say that 4 or 5 SS bays are bringing in about as much as an IBA brings in on a single day? I guess I am trying to establish some baselines while understanding that there are other contributing factors such as location, pricing, competition, etc.