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Soooo! You want to be in the car wash business?

Micah Savell

Micah Savell

***** member since 2001
Thought I would share some of my experience as I have discovered there are Six Phases you will go through.


1. Enthusiasm


2. Disillusionment


3. Panic


4. Search for the guilty


5. Punishment of the innocent


6. Praise and honor for the non-participants


Come on in, the waters fine! :rolleyes:
 
Micah Savell said:
Thought I would share some of my experience as I have discovered there are Six Phases you will go through.


1. Enthusiasm


2. Disillusionment


3. Panic


4. Search for the guilty


5. Punishment of the innocent


6. Praise and honor for the non-participants


Come on in, the waters fine! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...



let me try to explain?

1) wow a wash! great idea fun fun

2) Its going to be easy, and im going to be rich!

3) Oh my god, its not easy, im not rich, and what will happen

4) Whos fualt is this? Not mine. I did everything right!!!

5) My distributor is an a##! My advitisors arnt helping, my wife doesnt support me Ill get them!

6) ? dont get that one
 
here's a few points for you from my own experience:

1. No business is easy. Few are simple.
2. The way a business/industry looks from the outside can be very deceiving.
3. Distributors who are honest are hard to find.
4. Trust yourself and your instincts.
5. Work hard and smile at customers.
6. Serve others.
7. Be open to everything and attached to nothing.
8. If you fail, you merely produced a result. Failure is a judgement. Get over yourself, check that ego and move forward.
 
Wow, Micah took me back 25 years to nursing school with one post!

The phases of grief as written by Kubel-Ross (sp... sorry). I'll post a link and the phases:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model

The K?bler-Ross model describes, in five discrete stages, the process by which people deal with grief and tragedy. Terminally ill patients are said to experience these stages. The model was introduced by Elisabeth K?bler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. The stages have become well known, and are called the Five Stages of Grief.


The stages are:

Denial : The initial stage: "It can't be happening."

Anger : "Why ME? It's not fair?!" (either referring to God, oneself, or anybody perceived, rightly or wrongly, as "responsible")

Bargaining : "Just let me live to see my son graduate."

Depression : "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"

Acceptance : "It's going to be OK."


K?bler-Ross originally applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). This also includes the death of a loved one and divorce. K?bler-Ross also claimed these steps do not necessarily come in order, nor are they all experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two.
 
I guess my experience owning a car wash is different from a lot of the postings I read. I love it. I look forward to hanging out at the wash on the weekends and talking to the regulars. The car wash is actually a stress reliever for me. Yes, it requires work and I am not getting rich, but I have had much worse jobs than running a carwash. To be fair, my wash is not my primary means of income so I'm sure that would increase the stress level.

I also may feel differently about the wash in a week or so if this drought continues and the city shuts me down.
 
The car wash experience for me is and has been very interesting and educational and at times very stressful. A lot depends on what type of wash you have and run. I run two locations Iba/ss and help ocasionally at another. There are several competing locations within 1/2 mile. My demographics run red neck to yuppy. I have had my life threatened several times because the driver jockied with the dryer exit trying to extend his time, or because I told someone that they could not dump their bags of home trash in my dumpsters. On the other hand, I have met and continue enjoy the greetings from the regulars who return because they know that they are valued as good customers and friends. This is my sole income and I'm on call 24/7, 365 so I don't look forward to hanging at the washes. I estimate that 60 to 75% of all my labor cost goes to just servicing the self serve bays and I often think about how it would be to simply work an Iba or tunnel. no slight intended. I guess it is really wash specific but I know that the urban washes don't get nearly the mud, trash and hay that we do at the urban, rural locations.
 
Waxman, this was my feeble attempt to add a little humor in what many of us have gone through.

1. Enthusiasm
Man alive, what a Gold mine! Like taking candy away from a baby. Build it and they will come. Boy, this is going to be easy and I am going to get rich. I’ll just go by a couple times a week and collect the quarters and sweep the place up a little.

2. Disillusionment
Where did this mess come from? Who’s going to clean up this mess? I thought all I had to do was come by and pick up the quarters?) Why is all this stuff breaking. " This is a first we've never had this problem before". The parts will be here in two maybe three days.

3. Panic
Usually happens during the first month where you encounter a lot of rain, like 15 to 30 days. Or when you beging to feel like the repairman is living with you. You see more of him than you do your family. Business is dean and we have notes, insurance, taxes, labor, chemicals, electricity, water, sewer and a whole lot of stuff I forgot are all Where's the money?

4. Search for the guilty
When they were selling me all this equipment they told me what a good location this was and how much money I was going to make. NOBODY mentioned there anything about bad weather or equipment failures. All they told me about was just coming by, picking up the quarters and every now and them sweeping up. Where is that no good “Ol boy” who assured me this was a terrific site and my equipment would just keep running, running, and running?

5. Punishment of the innocent
Because things are going bad, you holler at the wife, kick the dog and bang your head on the wall thinking, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this”?
 
6. Praise and honor for the non-participants
This is for all the people who hope you fail and/or tell you how good the site is if you are successful. Especially the buracrats who fought you tooth and toenail. You just let them know that if it wasn't for their help you just could not not make it.

I also should have added, that if you are successful, someone will want to build on top of you. They can't stand to see anyone with sooo much buiness. So you stay on top of your game and your wash. Keep you customers first, last and always. Let your complaints be....."Mister, I've been to alot of car washes but never one that put out this much soap". :)
 
Micah, I can totally agree with your take on the subject also. The good days are fine, the bad are horrible, and the rest are "just another day at the washes".
 
Etowah
About 10 years ago, when I began to investigate building a tunnel, I came upon a few wise installers/reps. One was a smart kid of the owners of SUPERIOR DRYERS who, at the time represented PECO here in Florida. His name was Brian _______. Something happened to him, I won't get into that, but through him I met the WALSTEADS. Ken told me once, as I was still looking at equipment "In the car wash business when time are good, they're real good, But when times are bad, it's horrible". This has always rang true.

Never, in all of my ventures and occupations have I EVER come across a busniss so hard to figure out! Staffing consistantly is a nightmare. Planning for budgets near impossible. And weather from year to year has varried projecting how one month should be compared to last year, or the year before.

While all business have certian idiocencratic aspect to them, car washes are unique. This makes it challanging to the most seasoned businessman. I don't know what the failure rate is of car washes, not as high as restruants, but this is one big reason that many fail. IMO.
 
Washmechanic said:
I guess it is really wash specific but I know that the urban washes don't get nearly the mud, trash and hay that we do at the urban, rural locations.
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This is so true - I've looked after a rural wash for someone while he was out of town for a week, and the level of mud and dirt in the bays was amazing. I'd start at one end cleaning them, and before I'd even get to the other end one of the bays I'd already cleaned was trashed again. The wash still has a 6-hour-a-day attendant who spends most of that time just cleaning bays, and since it's in a rural area they can't get away with a $2 or $3 startup.
 
MEP001 said:
This is so true - I've looked after a rural wash for someone while he was out of town for a week, and the level of mud and dirt in the bays was amazing. I'd start at one end cleaning them, and before I'd even get to the other end one of the bays I'd already cleaned was trashed again. The wash still has a 6-hour-a-day attendant who spends most of that time just cleaning bays, and since it's in a rural area they can't get away with a $2 or $3 startup.
Click to expand...

Two hours ago I drove by the typical rural West Texas town car wash in a town about 35 miles from me. All 3 bays were slammed with mud! I mean it was 6" deep in most areas. You'd need a tractor to clean it up. That is what customers have been conditioned to accept, by car wash owners who don't have enough pride and backbone to keep their wash clean.
 
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Quarters, I thought the quarters would be reused and I would just have to come by and pick up the bills. If I had known that a good time was carrying 50 lb bags of quarters I wouldn't have thought it was soooo easy.
 
Etowah
I can relate to these with my wash but the same can be said for raising cattle:

1. Enthusiasm: WOW!!! I can't believe everyone doesn't grow their own beef! Look at how happy that old farmer is, he always has a smile on his face. Looks like all I have to do is throw up some wire, let the grass grow and watch those calves turn themselves into steak and hamburger! :D

2. Disillusionment: What are my cows doing running through my yard? Where did all these flies come from? I've never seen an animal crap so much! :eek:

3. Panic: I have to get these cows bred so you want me to stick my arm in where and do what?! They should have been vaccinated when? I should have steered that bull buy cutting of his what? :o

4. Search for the guilty: The Cattle Forum, the vet, my friends who supported me and that farmer, the next time I see him I am going to wipe that happy little smile off his face! :mad:

5. Finally getting it: Car Washing, like cows can and will get you into trouble if you don't take your time and sort the facts from the hype. Any business that is well run looks EASY when you are on the outside looking in. That goes for car washes as well as cattle. Doing your homework, asking lots of questions BEFORE jumping in and have lots of help along the way will make car washing and raising cattle both fun and profitable.
 
My wash is in eastern North Carolina. I bought an existing wash that was in terrible shape. This is the third year I have owned the carwash and I have been slowly upgrading it since I bought it. I replaced all my vacs and built new vac islands earlier this year which was the last major upgrade I had planned.
 
I don't want to disillusion you, but there is far more work involved running a tunnel, more labor, and far more trash in urban areas due to population density. So much more garbage that we've been forced to lock our 24/7 (except when the truck comes to empty it) to prevent illegal dumping. Otherwise, my 6 cu. yd. dumpster would be filled every week - especially in the Spring, Summer and Fall with yard waste, to the point that we can't empty our trash containers by the vacs.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.
 
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