Touchless automatics

[Peter]

Hello,

I have short question about best touchless automatic car wash equipment in US. Can any one give me advise which producer I should choose to have no problems. I know that there is no "no problem" systems but maybe short rank of producers in US. It will help me to make right decision. Thanks in advance.

 

[termn8tr]

Any machine you buy, you will have issues. some more than others. With that said, you might want to check out Autec. If their touchless is built like their friction unit, ( the most reliable machine in the industry) you can't go wrong.
Why touchless? Good Luck

 

[waterway]

I leave in South Florida and have had Autec's, Futura's and two Coleman Wash Wizards and now have 9 PDQ's and absolutely love them. While I will admit that when they do go down they do need someone with now how to diagnose the problem (most of the time) they do in my experience (17 years) have been by far the best automatic I have owned. The new G-5 I bought seem to have about 20% of the down time of my 4000's. But I will freely admit a lot of my satisfaction has to do with O'harragan Consultants who are the distributors in Florida. Ed O'hannrihan is top notch in the industry in my opinion. Expensive at times but honest and solve the problems properly in a timely manor.

 

[Red Baron]

Most people will justify their purchase as being a wise one - that's just human nature. Me too. I built my car wash with a D&S 5000 touchfree system - washed about 90,000 cars with it, then replaced it with 2 D&S i5000s recently....not because the other unit was worn out, but because it was time to upgrade/expand.

 

[Waxman]

Do some research into the company's history in the carwash business and financial strength so you can be somewhat sure they may be around at least as long as your machine(10 years?).

There have been some companies that have gone out of business, leaving some operators adrift w/out tech support and spare parts; 2 key elements for $ucce$$ with any IBA carwash.

 

[pitzerwm]

No one has mentioned the absolute value of the distr. IMO, without a good distr. whatever the equipment, you will be up a creek. After, you are an old fart like the wise people here, can you get along without the distr.

 

[Greg Pack]

Do some research into the company's history in the carwash business and financial strength so you can be somewhat sure they may be around at least as long as your machine(10 years?).

There have been some companies that have gone out of business, leaving some operators adrift w/out tech support and spare parts; 2 key elements for $ucce$$ with any IBA carwash.

I've been told by a friend that knows a guy, who knows a guy that overheard rumors of other SS/IBA companies in trouble. This may just be rumor, but with the economy and industry shifting away from SS the financial health of a mfg is a serious question to be asked.

 

[Peter]

Hi,
Can somebody tell something about Ryko Radius HP machine ? How it works ? Any problems ?

REG

 

[captain cw]

The Ryko Radius HP machine is like their regular radius, except with a cat pump like everybody else uses. If water costs are not to high, I would go with the Radius with the high impact pump. It comes with a five year warranty and is pretty much bullet proof. Mine in ten years old and no problems. That being said, it still boils down to the service company. You need to know that you can get service seven days a week. I do all my business on the weekends. I would die if I lost a busy Saturday because their was nobody to call.

 

[mac]

One other thing to consider is you doing the maintenance. If you have to call a service company for the majority of your calls, you will quickly become an unhappy camper. Ask about them showing you how to fix it. Make sure you get complete manuals. Ask about replacement parts. Ryko, like many others, uses proprietary parts as much as possible. That means a lot of times paying two to four times the price for a part that Graingers sells. Make sure they can explain the programming to you so that you understand it. Ask about replacement parts under warranty. For instance, who pays for the shipping? How about if it needs to be sent NDA? Ask them what parts they stock and which parts come from the manufacturer.

 

[Gabriel]

There should be a Rating system for Touch and Touchless automatics. Also for Self Serve Equipment. The only real problem to this approach would be the quality of Distributors. Quality of parts, propriatory parts, cost, down time, cost for equivalent rapairs, and life expectancy could definitely be measured. It would be very educational to work on an evluation system. Kind of like a Consumer guide for Car Wash Operators.

 

[Jimmy Buffett]

The price and availability of parts is also a very important consideration. If you can only get a part from 1 place they can (and will) charge you what they want.

 

[pitzerwm]

Let me think about this idea. Maybe with the poll feature here we could put something together that would have meaningful info.

 

[JustClean]

Let me think about this idea. Maybe with the poll feature here we could put something together that would have meaningful info.

That is a great idea! Like a survey with ratings. But there needs to be some serious questions to get the full picture of break-downs, distance to the distributor, average yearly maintenance/repair costs, days machine was down, distributor rating, and so on. But in the end this would benefit everyone on this board and would keep the manufacturers on their toes. Maybe we should all do some brain storming to get the questions right...

 

[Gabriel]

If we as operators want this to work, it can and will work. Knowledge is pure gold. In our industry most oprators are simply being SOLD. Equipment with propietary parts, poor quality parts, outrageous mark ups, unrealistic down time problems, and over exaggerated up front cost as compared to other equipment that is actually made out of better parts, material, is user friendly, easy to work on, and are a reliable work horses can be differentated. This industry is large and strong and our business should not be equivalent to the old used car purchase treatment. Every component of Automatics are manufactured by both reliable and unreliable companies, supplied to the Manufacturers and assembled. There is no question that engineering differs between manufacturers, but the quality of every valve, switch, frame, wheel, bearing, solenoid, pump, motor, or any other component used to manufacture our equipment can be quantified. It should be, we should know what we are buying, and we should be able to rely on the Manufacturer. My experience has been that at the sales level they fill you with hype, show you a pretty machine, take your money, make you promises and disappear. Distributors are a different story altogether. There are great, even terrific Distributors, and there are not so good Distributors. If we are spending our hard earned money, doing the actual work, and relying on these people we need to identify the good from the bad. We are hardlly treated as a valuable industry, but without us there would be no industry. Now ask youself this--Who really has the power!!!!!!!! Just go to you local friendly Book Store, pick up a copy of Road & Track annual Car or Truck rating issue. That 5 star system of Recommended, good, average, worse (Can not recommend) sheet really puts your mind to work. We definitely need to develop our own
evaluation system.

 

[bighead]

Or even better: Do some sort of evaluation for distributors....

Over and over again when someone asks which is the best automatic to buy the consensus answer is "find a good distributor near you, then buy whatever they are selling"

If we could come up with some way to rank/review distributors by region I think it would be incredibly helpful for newbies and experienced car wash owners alike. It might even speed up the process of running certain crooks out of business.

 

[Reds]

I think it is a great idea and certainly worth investigating. How would you screen out distributors or manufacturers from inputing bogus info that would skew the ratings? Ditto whiners who don't like a particular machine or distributor? A lot of people become experts when you ask their opinion. Since there's 2 sides to every story would you allow mfg./dist. to respond or have input? What about something along the lines of Ebay's feedback feature where the seller can respond, and buyers can look thru all the feedback from other buyers. And there is a rating for buyers and sellers. I'm just trying to look at it from all angles.

 

[bighead]

Well, you could use a format like www.yelp.com, and allow distr./manu. to post as well.

You could also do something where there needs to be a minimum number of posts before any of them are visible. That way one guy just can't slam another guy and be the only one on there. If you see two glowing reviews, and one guy who obviously has an ax to grind, you are more likely to dismiss him.

 

[pitzerwm]

Keep throwing out ideas. in the polling that is available here, I would make it so it showed who commented, and I would try to make it so it was relevant. I will also only do it if I can produce correct info.

 

[Rfl6543]

Hello,

I have short question about best touchless automatic car wash equipment in US. Can any one give me advise which producer I should choose to have no problems. I know that there is no "no problem" systems but maybe short rank of producers in US. It will help me to make right decision. Thanks in advance.

If you are conidering Pdq you must also consider the Wash World Machine.... Autec is very reliable and will last for years too.... We have both machines and like them both very much...... Your distributor is really the key. IMO if you do the work yourself Autec is the simplest to fix and take care of.....