Improve Your Car Wash Business

I have been in the car wash business for over 35 years, having owned and operated a full service tunnel with 6 self serve bays and a separate self serve with 12 bays. Owning a car wash is not much different from owning a restaurant. If you want to make more money at your car wash then you first have to provide a good product and customer service. You must be consistent, polite with customers, keep the place clean (since we are in the business of "clean"). For example, no matter which McDonald's you go into - the food is...

Car Wash owners occasionally come up with questions regarding the foam brush systems. The most common question is adjusting the foam in self serve bays or in your tunnel foamer. Almost any foamer works in the same way. Foremost is being sure you have the right dilution of chemical to water. This depends on the chemical you are using, what the suggested manufacturer ratio is. A good starting point for self serve operations is 40:1 which means 40 parts water and 1 part chemical. However some chemicals such as our Film Buster used in tunnel foamers can be mixed at 120:1 and...

Body Shampoo is unbeatable in a tunnel wash application.  It is especially good in removing any road oils or other road elements very quickly. A fragrance can be added that customers find pleasant. The cleaning ability can be as high as 240:1 (purple tip).  It is normally applied wraps, mitters, rollovers and rocker panels brushes The cleaning ability of this product is unsurpassed..

A lot of car washes - especially self serve washes have a vacuum or two that are poor producers of revenue. It is not that the vacs are not functioning well, but that perhaps there are too many on the premises or these vacs are further away from the more accessible vacs. The best alternative for these vacs is to transform this vac into a "new revenue source". It only take an hour or two to change this vacuum to vend tire shine and air. You will be provided new decals, the vac will look refreshed and you now have the...

I started in business in 1985 as a full service operator with a full service tunnel operation, including six self serve bays. Later another site was purchased with twelve self serve bays. Chemicals in any car wash are mostly a matter of preference from the following point of view and in this order: Cleaning ability, safety and cost.Chemicals that clean well are at the top of the list as Cleaning is the lifeblood of any car wash. A lot of chemicals will produce suds, smell nice and will be colored. These inducements surely dazzle the customer and give him a...