Petit 360i long bay

[Rapidoil]

Greetings everyone,
I am in the process of putting together a Petit long bay IBA car wash. My plan is as follows:
One 72' long bay building with 10' wide mechanical room. So the building will be @72' long x 27' wide. Petit 360i with Dencar pay station. 4 JE Adam's round vacs with arch LED booms. I'm looking to mimic the petit washes in Ohio like United auto wash. I plan to have a wash club with limited washes(15/month). I'm thinking $10/20, 15/30, 20/40 for single/membership pricing.

My plan for the 72'x10' mechanical
Room is to put all the petit stuff on one end and run/store products for my mobile oil change business on the other with access via a large garage door.

The vacuums will be free. My location is a good one, I'd call it a "B" location with my neighbors being major grocery stores. I've got car counts of 18000 and decent demographics. I look forward to this process. It's not gonna be cheap to build in the current economic environment and I'll be taking out an SBA loan for 70% of the project. Please feel free to give feedback and shoot holes in my plan. Just be nice. I'm looking forward to all the great knowledge and advice that's on this board.

I've attached a preliminary site plan. I'll getting rid of the vacuum islands on the site plan and putting vacuums against wall.

 

[Rapidoil]

Architecturally I'll be mimicking the square box style of this amazing looking wash Adam put together. I'll go with a flat roof and no big windows, probably a few windows up higher to let light through.

 

[SuperShine]

I’d say get your own design first of all. Adam’s design posted over on the Facebook Petit site without the windows and its curved roofline will look like a shipping container IMO.

Why windows up high? Are you configuring your Petit with the four LED bar package? If so any windows you have will seriously nullify the impact from the light bars if they’re part of the main tunnel.
there’s a reason why United hasn’t included them on the last three builds they’ve done.

72ft is overkill also IMO especially when you don’t have enough stacking space. 55-60 ft is sufficient to separate the drying vehicle and maximize throughput. Is there anyway to design for two auto bays? Crucial if you’re expecting big traffic.

Stacking space looks to be insufficient. Has the city approved this? You’ll have cars backed onto the road.

Free vacs for club members only I’d say with only four drops. Your members will riot if your four free vacs are always taken up, especially by non washers. Can you incorporate more drops? For smaller sites, sometimes forgoing vacs altogether and using the gained space for good site traffic flow and stacking is the way to go.

Just some advice. Looks to be a good location!
I’d order your Dencar now if I were you. Lead time with them is loooong.
Ask me how I know

 

[Rapidoil]

@SuperShine
Thanks for your feedback. That’s good stuff. This is only a preliminary site plan so I was putting this out for feedback which you are providing and I do appreciate. I’m wondering if a better setup would be to have one exit and entrance such as the picture I drew on and attached? Good to know about the Dencar ordering and windows. In terms of length I was just using United and petit auto wash as a guide so 72’ isn’t set in stone. I do want to keep the people moving thus the long bay. I’m heading over to Ohio to visit family and see United and Tom petits long bay so I’m sure I’ll glean some good info from them.
How’s this traffic stacking look? Thanks

 

[soonermajic]

Are you thinking of puttin in a Tire Shine unit, w/ that long of a bay?

 

[SuperShine]

@SuperShine
Thanks for your feedback. That’s good stuff. This is only a preliminary site plan so I was putting this out for feedback which you are providing and I do appreciate. I’m wondering if a better setup would be to have one exit and entrance such as the picture I drew on and attached? Good to know about the Dencar ordering and windows. In terms of length I was just using United and petit auto wash as a guide so 72’ isn’t set in stone. I do want to keep the people moving thus the long bay. I’m heading over to Ohio to visit family and see United and Tom petits long bay so I’m sure I’ll glean some good info from them.
How’s this traffic stacking look? Thanks

Looks better in the revision for sure.
I’d go with boom vacs located at the front of the vac bays, up on the curb a few feet back for protection. You should be able to fit at least seven vac bays that way and have a more modern look vs the old vac islands that eat up space. Prewire at the very least at the time of construction if you don’t want to install all of them.
Be sure to speak with James at Petit

Cheers

View attachment 7720

 

[Rapidoil]

Are you thinking of puttin in a Tire Shine unit, w/ that long of a bay?

Hello
Thanks for your response. At this time I am not. I am considering a floor mat machine outside near the vacuums though. Have you had success with the tire shine machine ?

 

[SuperShine]

@SuperShine
Thanks for your feedback. That’s good stuff. This is only a preliminary site plan so I was putting this out for feedback which you are providing and I do appreciate. I’m wondering if a better setup would be to have one exit and entrance such as the picture I drew on and attached? Good to know about the Dencar ordering and windows. In terms of length I was just using United and petit auto wash as a guide so 72’ isn’t set in stone. I do want to keep the people moving thus the long bay. I’m heading over to Ohio to visit family and see United and Tom petits long bay so I’m sure I’ll glean some good info from them.
How’s this traffic stacking look? Thanks

Looks better in the revision for sure.
I’d go with boom vacs located at the front of the vac bays, up on the curb a few feet back for protection. You should be able to fit at least seven vac bays that way and have a more modern look vs the old vac islands that eat up space. Prewire at the very least at the time of construction if you don’t want to install all of them.

Be sure to speak with James at Petit. He’s super knowledgeable.

Cheers!

James Marshall Operations Manager│ Petit Auto Wash Equipment 2833 Eastern Rd. Norton, OH 44203O: Email: jmarshall@petitautowash.com

 

[Rapidoil]

I’ve been doing a lot of research on here and it looks like a lot of single IBA have failed or aren’t suggested as a viable build. I’m starting to second guess my idea. Additionally interest rates are 9.75% variable on SBA 7a. I would go into this leveraged with @17% down on a 1.5 million dollar project. I’m starting to think the better move may be to not build. Even if I did build I think it would be more prudent to do a double IBA or at least pre plan for one. My proforma is based on 45000 cars which seems nuts. Originally I was figuring 25000, but the banker came up with a higher number,45000, which I am really skeptical of. I do have car counts of 18388 100 ft from the location and I am centrally located near major grocery store.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

My proforma is based on 45000 cars which seems nuts. Originally I was figuring 25000, but the banker came up with a higher number,45000, which I am really skeptical of.


45,000 seems nuts to me as well. When I'm betting the farm I like to be conservative, not best case scenario. What is your breakeven?

I'm not saying 45,000 cars through one Petit is impossible, but that would make it one helluva busy site. The issue with having one bay is you have no redundancy, when it goes down you're out of business until you fix whatever. The 360i's are nice simple machines but they're like every other machine in the sense that hoses can burst, wires can come loose, brand new components can be bad out of the box and paystations will have issues. I'm not surmising, I've had all of those issues and they all happened when we were busy.

That United car wash in the Petit videos, which is owned by the Dencar owners, washes a lot of cars. I could be wrong but I believe they said they washed 60,000 cars there. You can look at it two ways...you're building half of what they have so you might wash 30,000 cars or they have twice what you're building which means they would wash 90,000 cars. Just different perspective and something to think about. If you're breakeven is something thats not so pie in the sky, then I'd say go for it! When you figure conservatively and then blow away those figures its very rewarding.

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

45,000 seems nuts to me as well. When I'm betting the farm I like to be conservative, not best case scenario. What is your breakeven?

I'm not saying 45,000 cars through one Petit is impossible, but that would make it one helluva busy site. The issue with having one bay is you have no redundancy, when it goes down you're out of business until you fix whatever. The 360i's are nice simple machines but they're like every other machine in the sense that hoses can burst, wires can come loose, brand new components can be bad out of the box and paystations will have issues. I'm not surmising, I've had all of those issues and they all happened when we were busy.

That United car wash in the Petit videos, which is owned by the Dencar owners, washes a lot of cars. I could be wrong but I believe they said they washed 60,000 cars there. You can look at it two ways...you're building half of what they have so you might wash 30,000 cars or they have twice what you're building which means they would wash 90,000 cars. Just different perspective and something to think about. If you're breakeven is something thats not so pie in the sky, then I'd say go for it! When you figure conservatively and then blow away those figures its very rewarding.

Granted my wash times are longer due to challenges in the soils out west, but a single bay I'm going to have to agree, You'd have to be killing it day in/ day out 10+ hours a day. I don't think that'll be happening on a B site but OP knows his AO best.

My dual Petits on a corner of 2 x 19K CPD roads will do about 45K cars this year. Established site. 3 miles from competition.

The Dual site that United has is killing it. It also isn't even on the main road. It's amazing the numbers he's doing.

OP - I'd base your assumptions off the low number just to be conservative and leave yourself a safety margin. Also, the ramp up to the 25K goal could take some time. Do you have enough liquidity to carry the place for 12+ months until you hit those numbers?

 

[OurTown]

Do you have any solid cost numbers yet? $1.5MM seems low to me all in based on the numbers I have been getting around here for a slightly different concept. On another note the new brands of tunnels coming in Ohio are building in places that have not much better than half that location. On the other side of town Ultimate Shine just paid $1,000,000 for 1.6 acres on a 13,000 ADT road but the access will be on a 7,000 ADT road. It is land locked so they need permission for their customers to drive across the neighboring property. It is on the edge of town with farm land to the side and not a high population density location at all. The plan I saw at the planning board meeting had three pay stations and 24 vacs so we are not talking a small wash. Probably $5MM.

 

[Rapidoil]

@OurTown,@Car_Wash_Guy, @GoBuckeyes thanks for your responses guys.
I agree that 45000 through one petit is high. I had my proforma populated with real world debt service and other expenses and it does pencil out at 25000 cars.

@GoBuckeyes

• My break even is 17414 cars at 14 average ticket with soap costs of $1 per car
• The debt service on the loan is a lot, like $13363 a month without cogs or fixed costs

@Car_Wash_Guy

• i am out west as well. In Montana, not a ton of clay where I am mostly glacial till from the glaciation events that carved out the valleys where I live, that said it may take more than 2-3 min to properly wash a car.
• I agree about the lower conservative number being the best for my planning. I would have some liquidity but not much more than a year. I also have other income aside from the wash, an oil change business that will hopefully have some synergy with clients and drive business my way.
• I agree United is killing it and his location isn’t on a corner for the original or more popular of his washes

@OurTown​

• I have solidish numbers namely my GC has built other large car wash projects for the state and rental car companies and they are claiming those projects where $325 per sq/ft on average with soft and hard costs, see below.
• The total project number is 1.5 mil plus my land which is 250k but I own the land so in my mind it’s not factored in.
• I worry about PE tunnels as well.
• I’m watching all my local washes and the only real competition of sorts is a touchless tunnel that is pulling in 180 cars a day average. I’ve seen them have 108 cars on their property in less then 2 hours and their stacking situation is 4 cars max and they are backed out to a 45mph zone. I’ve seen a rear end collision while watching the wash. On most days they are busy so that’s motivating me.

​

 

[Waxman]

It seems way too risky. Debt service is too high. What are you going to do when you have a breakdown for a few days, have a nervous breakdown??

Hard Pass

 

[soonermajic]

So there's ALREADY a touchless tunnel doing 180cpd?
So do you think you are gonna get 100cpd, & if so, why?
Im not saying you won't, but if that other touchless is well ran & local...i bet he fights like hel to keep his business.
That was my rude introduction to this biz, 11 yrs ago. I underestimated the resolve of my competitor. He was like the Viet Cong.

 

[Rapidoil]

So there's ALREADY a touchless tunnel doing 180cpd?
So do you think you are gonna get 100cpd, & if so, why?
Im not saying you won't, but if that other touchless is well ran & local...i bet he fights like hel to keep his business.
That was my rude introduction to this biz, 11 yrs ago. I underestimated the resolve of my competitor. He was like the Viet Cong.

That's a fantastic question and I really appreciate your advice. Yes I intend to get business from them and here is why:

First,they are in a 45mph zone that is very hard to pull in and out of. It's 45mph two lane highway with center turn lane. If they have more than 4 cars in line to pay the cars are backed out to 45mph zone, thus my observations show people driving bye. Also I've seen one good accident from someone pulling into wash and stopping in 45mph zone and they got rear ended. Research shows this is a hot spots for accidents.

Second they have a touchless tunnel but hand dry and expect a tip.

Third, I personally know the person who build this wash and sold it to the current owners. He pointed out all the problems above I just elucidated as reasons he sold it but he did confirm he was doing 180 cars per day and up to 300 plus some days

Fourth, my location is next to the largest grocery store in town and in the 25mph zone with same 4 lane highway.

Fifth, I've watched them extensively and they are often so busy people just drive by. I watched them have 108 cars on the property in 1:45 min. Of those 108 cars 8 or more were counted becuse they slowed down and then left when they saw the line.

Please give me your thoughts on my line of thinking and how you overcame these challenges. They also have zero internet or social media presence

 

[Rapidoil]

I forgot to add that I own and operate a very successful mobile oil change business in this market so there will be overlap/synergy with my current oil change clients in terms of the two business.

 

[Rapidoil]

Competitor pay station, after 4 cars they are backed up to 45mph each way

 

[GoBuckeyes]

A) he should move his paystation, problem solved.

B) his quality will be better because they are wiping the dirt and film off when towel drying.

That doesn’t mean, however, you can’t and won’t be successful.

 

[Rapidoil]

@GoBuckeyes thanks for your reply. Part of me hopes he does fix that problem for his wash. Maybe he's on here ? Who knows.

I don't understand the wiping down part, at least one my oil change clients have had their car scratched after they dropped the rag, picked it up and kept using it on his new car. I'm sure this is rare but something to consider.

Side note I grew up in Michigan, go blue