What is the dumbest business decision you made at your SS wash?

[Sequoia]

Hi all,

I'm just curious about what you think is the dumbest business decision you have made at your SS wash.

I'll start by volunteering the following:

1. Maybe I paid too much for my wash-- although that's arguable given land costs in California plus it's a very nice location near my vacation cabin. (paid 6x gross, but the property alone is worth at least 5x gross.)
2. For more than a year, I sorted all the tokens and quarters by hand and didn't have a bill counter to count the avalance of $1 bills. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
3. For the first two years, I didn't have any vending on the property. A little revenue from it is nice but knowing my customers can better clean their car is an even bigger issue.

So, what bonehead moves have you made?

 

[Gabriel]

I did not buy enough land to expand to a much larger wash. Wish I had 6 more bays.

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

not paying someone to do the routine cleanup once a day.

Now, if you're asking about the day to day stupid things, you don't have enough time for that conversation.

 

[frside1]

building 9th car wash too far away. to watch over daily. i thought i knew it all.

 

[frside1]

forgot to say i do have attendants every day at all washes, so i guess to watch over them.

 

[Kevin James]

The biggest mistake I ever made in the SS car wash business was to get into the car wash business in the first place. The SS car wash business is nothing more than a low profit janitorial business. It doesn?t take a lot of skill or knowledge to get into the SS car wash business. The happiest day for me will be the day the car wash is sold!!! My wash is for sale for what the county tax assessor says its worth, which is almost 11 times gross. We?ve had a few nibbles, most of those have been from people who want the property for other uses.

 

[robtl]

Had an outside bay for large trucks,,,,,,That was inclosed very quickly!

 

[Waxman]

Had no vending at first.

Built w/ metal interior walls and not frp.

Did not reclaim RO Reject. Wasteful!

 

[MEP001]

The SS car wash business is nothing more than a low profit janitorial business.

That's BS. A well-run SS in the right location can be very profitable. Most of your comments are that you prefer to spend as little time at the washes as possible, and that is your downfall.

 

[denduke]

NOT changing over to Tokens years ago. That move would have saved me a lot of grief and thousands of dollars in expenses.

 

[bigleo48]

I can't say that I have made a really bad decisions yet. I attribute that to this forum (you guys make all the mistakes and I learn from it

However, I wish I had built my IBA, when I did the SS side...that would have saved me some cash. But in the end it turned out nicely.

BigLeo

 

[Jimmy Buffett]

I'd like to have "do-overs" on a couple of things. I cut down a foot on my ss bay size to have more equipment room. That was a mistake. The whole ss was really a mistake. I wish I had put in 2 autos and no ss. Probably could have done it for the same money too.

 

[Waxman]

Hmmm. Many days my SS does more than the IBA. People in my area love SS.

 

[ted mcmeekin]

Waiting a year or two too long to implement price increases. Had we not increased price last year, we would be in negative cash flow now--let many 10 ' s of thousands of dollars pass us by. in those couple years.

Ted

 

[bigleo48]

Hmmm. Many days my SS does more than the IBA. People in my area love SS.

I can wash many more cars per hour in my 8 SS bays than a single IBA that is maxed out at 12 cars/hr.

BiGleo

 

[Louise]

My biggest mistake was not putting all 6 vacs in the front of the wash> If I had done that I could then have had only one changer and that would have been in the front of the wash along with vending. As it is now, largest changer and vending are in the back of the wash and can be vandalized easily.

2nd biggest mistake - painting bay walls instead of using FRP.

 

[MEP001]

Hmmm. Many days my SS does more than the IBA. People in my area love SS.

It seems to depend a lot on the clientele - a lot of my customers will hang out for hours after washing just wiping and dressing their car after they've washed it. A friend has told me that very few of his customers will do that, and his auto revenue is equal to five of his self-serve bays where ours is equal to three.

 

[Earl Weiss]

1. Thinking an SS I was buying would do 75% of reported industry average of $1500 / month / bay
2. Not knowing my first winter their was such thing as Anti freeze Foam Brush soap
3. Not knowing about KR soaps and cutting my solution cost by about 60% or more. (Thanks forum!)

 

[coincarwash.ca]

My brother turned off the weep to stop a customer from washing for free with weep water........ Rememberd at 3am in the morning....to late.......froze the whole wash. He will never do that again.

 

[raisetheprice]

biggest mistake

Taking what our distributor said to be truthful, honest & ethical when their lips were moving.

"Oh, my brother-in-law has a couple of these up near so and so...he just sits in the office reading the paper most of the time." I used to read the paper, I used to fish alot, I hunted more, & our family was a better all around unit ALL before having a Fing carwash. Just plug it in, everything is 'automatic'. Yeah, the only thing automatic was the wire transfer from our bank account to theirs when we pulled the trigger to buy to SOB.

They've done nothing but flood our area with more carwashes...when they say they'll protect your territory don't believe it for a second. They won't even proctect you across the street.