IBA Gallons Per Car

[Dirt]

I never really paid much attention to this before. The water and sewer bills seemed reasonable, so I just paid them. That was with my first Ryko Softgloss for 18 years. I've had my Maxx 5 for just about a year now, and the usage seemed to be about the same.
Business has picked up the last couple of months, which I'm happy about, so I expected the bills to be higher. But I don't know, the latest water company bill said I used 97,000 gallons. So now, I'm conducting some surveillance on this situation. Recording meter readings every day. Dividing it by number of cars washed. Call the water company to see the exact day it was read...

Do any of you guys know how much your machines use ?

There are a lot of factors involved in tracking this, especially having 2 bays of self service. Friction or touchless, wash packages, size of car, Customer speed habits of going over undercar rinse, etc. I'm not sure, but I would think a touchfree would use more than a friction.

When I watch the meter with only the automatic running, and the bays empty, this is what I see.

Smallest wash package: Wash and rinse only - 50 to 55 gallons.
Largest : Undercar, HP wheel blast and rinse, 4 wax passes ( colorwave, rinse, rainshield, clearcoat ) - 95 to 110 gallons.

I know it is what it is. The machine does a great job of application and rinsing, so I'm not going to change nozzle sizes. Although I did put smaller tips in the undercar.

Does this amount of usage sound reasonable for a friction machine ?

 

[washnshine]

I never really paid much attention to this before. The water and sewer bills seemed reasonable, so I just paid them. That was with my first Ryko Softgloss for 18 years. I've had my Maxx 5 for just about a year now, and the usage seemed to be about the same.
Business has picked up the last couple of months, which I'm happy about, so I expected the bills to be higher. But I don't know, the latest water company bill said I used 97,000 gallons. So now, I'm conducting some surveillance on this situation. Recording meter readings every day. Dividing it by number of cars washed. Call the water company to see the exact day it was read...

Do any of you guys know how much your machines use ?

There are a lot of factors involved in tracking this, especially having 2 bays of self service. Friction or touchless, wash packages, size of car, Customer speed habits of going over undercar rinse, etc. I'm not sure, but I would think a touchfree would use more than a friction.

When I watch the meter with only the automatic running, and the bays empty, this is what I see.

Smallest wash package: Wash and rinse only - 50 to 55 gallons.
Largest : Undercar, HP wheel blast and rinse, 4 wax passes ( colorwave, rinse, rainshield, clearcoat ) - 95 to 110 gallons.

I know it is what it is. The machine does a great job of application and rinsing, so I'm not going to change nozzle sizes. Although I did put smaller tips in the undercar.

Does this amount of usage sound reasonable for a friction machine ?

I have a tunnel, not and IBA, but that does sound a bit high for friction. Again, I don’t have that machine.

 

[MGSMN]

Does this amount of usage sound reasonable for a friction machine ?

We went through the same situation about a year ago. If I recall, those numbers look close to what I found also. Like you said there are so many variables involved so I averaged what the meter reading was over one week and then one month and divided by number of cars washed. This accounted for all the water used on site (softener, R/O, cleaning the bays, bathroom, ect). On a slow rainy day I also took a meter reading then washed my car to get a usage number for each wash package. I also measured how much spot free water was being applied. I will see if I still have those numbers somewhere. The water usage on our Ryko Radius (Hi Impact) touch free machines were only slightly higher then the Softgloss friction machines.

 

[MGSMN]

Dirt, I came across the numbers for our SoftGloss and Radius HT High Impact. The Softgloss on the top wash used 148 gallons on my my vehicle, the Radius used 158 gallons. This was a reading straight from the meter before/after. 119 gallons per car was the average after washing 397 cars in the two auto bays. The three self serve bays were in use at this time but I didn't track how many people used them in that time period so the average is a bit lower then the 119 gallons per car for the auto bays.

 

[jubalr]

Dirt, I came across the numbers for our SoftGloss and Radius HT High Impact. The Softgloss on the top wash used 148 gallons on my my vehicle, the Radius used 158 gallons. This was a reading straight from the meter before/after. 119 gallons per car was the average after washing 397 cars in the two auto bays. The three self serve bays were in use at this time but I didn't track how many people used them in that time period so the average is a bit lower then the 119 gallons per car for the auto bays.

Wow, I hope the average is a LOT lower. I have been tracking mine for 2 years now. Every month I track all utilities and get my average per car. I have 2 IBAs at my location, a soft touch and a touchless. Water use is total water including RO & soft water regen, prep barrel and bay wash downs.
Every month the usage per car is very consistent and averages 65-69gal per car. Total of all utilities averages $1.22 per car.

 

[soapy]

First thing I would do is check your meter for accuracy. Take a 55 gallon drum and fill it with water while watching your meter. I once had a brand new city water meter that read 3X the actual water usage. No way a friction should be using the amount of water you mention.

 

[Dirt]

Thanks Soapy. I'm going to do the water meter test.
MGSMN, why do you think your softgloss uses that much more water than mine ? The 2 machines have to be nearly identical. Soapy, didn't I see sonewhere that you have a Ryko also ?

 

[soapy]

My Rykos are touchless.

 

[OurTown]

Dirt, I came across the numbers for our SoftGloss and Radius HT High Impact. The Softgloss on the top wash used 148 gallons on my my vehicle, the Radius used 158 gallons. This was a reading straight from the meter before/after. 119 gallons per car was the average after washing 397 cars in the two auto bays. The three self serve bays were in use at this time but I didn't track how many people used them in that time period so the average is a bit lower then the 119 gallons per car for the auto bays.

That sounds crazy high.

 

[Greg Pack]

I'm toying with membership and was about to figure my costs. water/sewer here is around 2.5 cents per gallon.

Does the softgloss pull from a water tank big enough to do one wash? If so, measure the dimensions and the depth of the water. Turn the water valve off and wash a car and measure the inches of drop and convert to gallons used. I think one cubic foot will hold 7.48 gallons. You can use that number to determine the amount of high pressure water used.


Another wildcard is RO reject- is it reused or sent down the drain?