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Need some advice

M

mfbanks223

Member
Alright I need some advice from you guys. I have 4 self serve bays and a touch less automatic. 4 vacs that sit dead in front of the bays that I want to move asap. The automatic is 1 1/2 years old it is the D&S i5. I have in bay blowers in my self serve bays. I am looking to see what else I can add to make some more money. I had shampoo machines on my mind but wanted some feed back from you guys.
 
Need more info. Sometimes a coat of paint can be the best thing. Tri-foam in the ss bays, bill acceptors, dryer for the rollover? A lot of it depends on your demographics.
 
I have a fragramatics shampoo machine, but it only gets $100 for the whole summer. Have you thought about a really good vending Machine? A 50 selection unit should be able to bring in at least $1000 a month. Maybe some credit card or bill acceptance would help also.
 
mfbanks223 said:
Alright I need some advice from you guys. I have 4 self serve bays and a touch less automatic. 4 vacs that sit dead in front of the bays that I want to move asap. The automatic is 1 1/2 years old it is the D&S i5. I have in bay blowers in my self serve bays. I am looking to see what else I can add to make some more money. I had shampoo machines on my mind but wanted some feed back from you guys.
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If the vacs are dead in front of the bays hoqw will moving them help?

Have you tried sprucing them up with cleaning, new decals, maybe a dualer or two?
 
The vacs do very well where they are at but on busy days people block the bays for people wanting to wash there car. I did put a bill acceptor in a bay to test before doing all 4 and it seems ok. The vacs are in good shape I just replaced all decals every sign on my property and am going to paint in a few weeks. Overall the place looks good we blow the lot every day clean all the bays. One guys said in the post about advertising or marketing and I have never done anything like that since I bought the place 3 years ago. We have made a lot of upgrades, changed the acw unit adding credit cards also, new i5 automatic, in bay blowers, twice the vending. The place looks good. I really dont think the shampoo machines are a good investment and you guys have been a great help since i got into the biz so I am leaning on you guys for a lucrative investment ideas.
 
You could move the vacs to a covered area so the bays aren't blocked while someone is using them. We have the same problem, but with only three vacs in front of six bays it's not too severe. The idea was for customers to use the vacs while waiting for the bay to be empty, but most people will pull up behind the only empty bay to spend a half hour vacuuming and cleaning their interior.

The three vacs in front of the bays are fragrance/shampoo combos. They make a lot of money, pretty much pay for themselves over again once a year. I don't know if they'd do worse or better if they were not in front of the bays.
 
Exterior: Fresh coat of paint on the curbs, white and yellow are good colors to go with, white representing cleanliness and yellow being the color people most recognize. Good lighting is always a plus, seeing is how most car wash customers are women; just a plus. Maybe keeping your Car Wash sign light at night, letting people know your there.

Just a few suggestions...Hope it helps
 
There are folks on this forum with experience w/food carts and coffee drive-ups at the wash. Like anything, it's demographics, basic supply and demand, quality product/service, consistency and location.

You need a true entrepreneurial spirited go-getter with some passion to give it a try. I haven't found the right person for this. I am the right person but I've got other priorities.
 
In terms of marketing: the cheapest one worked the best and the most expensive one was just a waste. I tried advertising on the back of a bus, newspaper, commercial radio, flyers that ended in the bin, etc. What worked was: cheap sign or marked car at the side of the road, community radio that costs almost nothing, dog wash stickers at the beach and some flyers on the windscreen of dirty cars. So my personal advice to get a bit busier: keep it cheap. When the money is gone - it's gone!
 
It never made since to me to put the vacuums directly in front of the wash bays, yet I see it all the time. The first wash I purchased has this configuration and I just cringe when I see an empty bay blocked by someone vacuuming and another car waiting to get into the bay. In our business, we are selling time with the use of our equipment. From now on, all my vacuums are under seperate canapy. No one is pressured to hurry up and no one has to wait for someone to finish vacuuming before entering a wash bay.

Keep everything clean and in working order...don't get the reputation of always having something "out of order".
 
I built two washes with the vacs in front of the bays and one with them located anywhere but. I also bought a wash with vacs located elsewhere. I let my distributor talk me into the "In front of the bay" concept, back in my more "naive" years. His reasoning was that the customer wants to vac first and then wash. If they wash first they were more likely to leave without vacuuming since they had accomplished their task of washing the car. Well, after having vacs placed around the lot and seeing customers vac and detail at leisure, without being rushed or in the way, I'll never do it any other way. Vacs in front of the bays cost you money, don't listen to the "That's the way most everybody does it." reasoning, it just doesn't wash.
 
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