Waht Happened to Bumpers, America's Car Wash?

[bigleo48]

About a year or so ago, I read an article in PC&D on Bumper's Car Wash "America?s car wash" located in Upstate NY, (Watertown). I remembered it because it looked really good and had an excellent location at the entrance of the Big Mall on a very busy street.

Yesterday, I drove by there to have a look and noticed it was closed. It is now for sale with an asking of $1,750,000 for a dual touch less (Oasis XPs) and a small coffee shop!

I can guess what happened. These guys build the best carwash they could, regardless of cost and in the end, find they have a broken business model (ie, can't generate the revenue to cover the expenses). Can you imagine how many cars you need to wash to pay that note, plus expenses and see a decent return? It's not possible!

 

[bigleo48]

While I'm on it, I also recently read an article about the most environmentally friendly car wash called EasyWash http://easywash.com/ located in Vancouver Canada. They even heated via Hydrogen! A business TV show ran an blurb on them and their story from a business standpoint, then had experts look at it. Same thing here...went way over budget and couldn't pay the bills, even though the carwash was very busy. Went bankrupt! The owners reopened and commented that "Now that we wrote off the debt, it can make money!" Geeze...you think!?!?

The thing here that caught my eye was their automatic petwash. I too looked into this when I expanded last year. But at $30K, plus install and 30 mins per dog at about $15 to $20 dog), I summized that you cannot make money at it. Take a self-serve petwash at $5k/tub and average wash time of 10 minutes for $7 and it's a no brainer.

Here's the article:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/fortunehunters/hunters/2008/01/geoff_baker_and_lauralee_norma.php#more

Anyway, I'm just astounded at what these people could be thinking!

BigLeo

 

[Kate Carr]

Hi BigLeo,

I'm from Watertown, NY, and it was my idea to profile Bumper's after my parents (who are still located there) told me about the site. While the carwash is beautiful, it had a horrible ingress/egress problem. They are located on the busiest strip in town, but customers can't get in or out easily of the site. It's bordering on the mall's parking lot, but there is no access from that lot.

They've expirimented quite a bit in the past two years. Trying coffee, then express detailing. Looks like nothing could prevent the inevitable, though. I'm moving back to Watertown next month, so I'll keep an eye out on the property. Are you located near there?

Cheers,
Kate

 

[pitzerwm]

Here is a good lesson, aside from spending too much, the ingress/egress problem was probably the bigger problem. I remember a Kentucky Fried Chicken on the busiest intersection in town going under, same issue, you could only get there from on direction. Spending that kind of money, you'd think someone would have thought about that, but obviously not. This could probably a great opportunity for the right guy, solve the ingress/egress issue and get a lower debt service. There you go Kate, you and Mr. Right)

 

[Greg Pack]

This is becoming a real issue facing development of new SS/IBA sites in the future. In many metro areas, the days of building a 400K carwash on a decent site are history. 5/1s here are 800K plus here and considered cheap by many.
The numbers are just harder to work than they used to be.

I got in this busiiness in the early 90's. I bet a third of the car washes built in this town in the late 80's were foreclosed on. It was much easier to make money when you could buy them for much less than they originally cost.

 

[bigleo48]

Kate,

I didn't drive into the parking lot, but did notice that you could only get in and out from the westbound lane. Nice wash, but not at $1750000...take away a zero and I'm in

Big Leo

 

[Uncle Sam]

Besides the high intial costs incurred by over-engineering and aesthetic design, one of big problems I have run into from my real estate days is CITY HALL! It is not only the "fees" for sewer, water, and "whatever the city needs at the time since they don't have any money" (blackmail), but the city planners and the traffic planners demand requirements that are just crazy and expensive. Trying to get ingress and egress driveways can be almost impossible with the traffic people. They are so concerned with traffic flow and safety that they squeeze a site down to one or two driveways for easy access. Getting access from the mall parking lot is stopped by the mall owners usually since they don't get a cut of the revenue. I hear many horror stories about planning a wash every year. Washes are just not appreciated by the city hall bureaucrats.

Uncle Sam

 

[Waxman]

Yeah, I agree! The town was all over me about my area lighting restrictions. Now there's a new bank across the street that throws tons of light into the neighbors' houses at night, but that's okay with the officials on the plan board!