Coin op car washes, any real experience?
 

I've been trying to figure out the second part of my life.
Seems like a great cash biz. Im right off a busy highway.

I worked with a guy who has two in the Pittsburg area. Going for a third. Says he is going to retire early. “One quarter at a time”.

This is what I have heard.. I looked into this several years ago. I hear coin op laundry is a pretty good cas biz also

My former neighbor owned one. It was all cash. He said the IRS and the local tax revenuers all watch him close. He had one tax agent claim he must be skimming because his water usage shows he must be getting more customers. He asked the guy the follow him to the car wash. It was a typical morning, several bays were full of mud and gunk from the 4 wheeler types washing their trucks. He spent 30 minutes hosing down one bay, and then getting into the grease and mud trap to muck it out. Then spent 30 minutes hosing down the driveways and other bays. The tax man said well I guess you do use a lot of water just keeping the place nice.

My neighbor admitted he can get enough cash to by a few 12 packs of beer, but the profit margin it not that great. He also owned a laundry-mat. He made lots more money there but it was in a fairly small town, and his nephew that lived just a block away took care of maintenance for him.

I helped a friend operate one for a while. He made great money but the buy in was very high. This was in the 80s. It is amazing, the things people suck up in the vacuum and how many drive off without their floor mats and other stuff.

They've seemed to fallen out of favor around here. People don't want to get out of their cars anymore, so there's a lot more using the automated ones. Doesn't help that the local convenience store has added automated ones to a lot of their gas stations, pay for the wash when you buy your gas, save a dollar, it's only about a dollar more than 15 minutes in the self serve one.

Add to that crack heads busting open the change machines, and morons leaving the doors open in the winter and the bays freezing up, and I'm not sure what sort of profit you'll make.

Last winter one of the local washes caught someone on video (a competitor?) pouring water or something nastier into the change machines.

Self storage units if you have the space. Outdoor boat/rv storage is a good option.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544209411.jpg

Something like this? :D

This. They seem to be everywhere, and they are all full. Astonishing so many people will pay so much to store crap than can be bought new for the cost of two months rent.

That is another good idea, but I am only working with a couple of acres here .

Storage is the way to go. No . An old friend bought a laundry place after college and all they did was repair those machines because people abuse them. At the end of the day, they made pretty good money, enough to live off it.

A shirt-tail relative has a pile of storage properties. Says outdoor boat/RV is 90% of the problems, for 10% of the profit.

I came this close to opening up a car wash a few years ago. The numbers are fantastic, the labor required is minimal (not zero).
My banker said they would finance that in a heartbeat.

Every car wash in this area is busy. Sure is room for another. That idea is rattling around in my head again.

The local quarter place changed their pay plan. Went from two dollars to five dollars per cycle but you get more minutes.

I can usually scrounge up eight quarters but twenty is tough on top of the sticker price to spray.

I can see the change dispensing machines being more important to keep functional at that steep a cost to spray.

Side note. Owner of a coin place in anchorage barked at me for bucket washing my car in the way back. Pointed to the sign which I never noticed. I always wondered if that rule was for not hindering throughput of cars or for something related to different types of soap going down the drain.

Why bother with the quarter car wash when you can get a hand car wash, vacuum and windows and mats cleaned for less than $10. There are so many hand car washes in Chicago, it's not worth the quarter wash. If you hit a Tuesday morning early bird special (7 am) - it's $7. Hand car wash places are very competitive in the city. Of course they offer upgrade services as well.

Closest one is 25 minutes away. I have zero desire to deal with staffing employees, and unhappy customers ..

I though self storage was pretty much saturated at this point. I know sombody whos father has a few car washes and he has indicated that they do pretty well, but that it is much more work than you would think.

I cant imagine coin operated laundry mat makes much sense these days when you can get a washer and dryer for a few hundred bucks.

I did use a place in Nova Scotia that was pretty cool. It was simple and appeared to be a lower cost build as there was not an accommodation for driving through the stalls (requiring less of a footprint).

The cool thing was it had two bays for trailers/RV's. Not monstro-sized but taller, wider and deeper than car units. It also had a turnaround placed on the plot for easily navigating the back up of trailers into the larger bays. A simple vacuum unit with room to navigate around was near the entry.

This diagram gives a rough sketch of the layout. Not to scale as more breathing room for vehicles in the lot but I am thinking two acres would be plenty.

Just talking.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544212729.jpg

I can just see the driver's in my neighborhood knocking down all those walls in the diagram.

Wife told me that U-Haul has made an offer on all the old Sears store properties in mall locations. Going to turn them into self-storage places. You're already at the mall for something, might as well go visit your stuff too.

U-Haul did that to the local K-Mart here. Rent the trucks and storage all in one place.

A friend of mine just sold his after 20 years.
Too many lawsuits. Slip and falls are all the rage these days.

Well Fred, I have a dozen years developing from scratch, operating, and ultimately selling a 120’ conveyorized flex service car wash. That was far and above the roughest 10 years of my life. I know way more than I should about the industry and a bit about self service biz model. PM me and I will share what I can. All I can say is be careful for what you wish for.

There is an angle I had not thought about before. Thanks . Pa winter and a car wash, I would be constantly de icing the place , You would need really good insurance, and constant up keep in the bad weather .

Constant maintenance constantly...it is NOT an absentee owner business - even the self serve model.

20 years or so ago when I was still into sailing I knew a guy with a real nice 42' Beneteau named "Lots of Quarters"... he said his car washes generated a lot of quarters and they paid for the boat. That was still in the days of washing your car yourself with the wands. All the washes around here now are automated conveyor types and require a lot of capital to build or buy I suspect. As others have posted, I think times have changed.

I pay 19.95 a month for unlimited washes at a nearby car wash. Drive up, it reads your tag, a guy guides you into the conveyor tracks, hand washes the windshield, grill and bumpers and off you go then to the covered stalls with serious vacuums and microfiber cloths for drying... that is hard to beat as handwashing a F-150 crew cab is a real pain as you need ladders.

Yup, she mentioned K-Mart locations too.

The car washes in our city are required to use recycled water. Not sure how they get rid of the waste.
I wash my cars on my front lawn. Not allowed to have any water enter the street, so, I water my grass instead.

$20 a month? The guys here charge $80 for unlimited monthly.

I know of three places that are Laundromats/Coin Op Car washes..... great idea I think, while you're waiting for the laundry, go wash the car.. One of the places also has a Bar/Restaurant owned by the same family.... That one must be a huge headache.. operating three businesses...

Also these are located in fairly rural areas in northern NY

I wonder what the environmental exposure/risk would be. Seems like oil/gas contaminated water could be a problem, once the enviornmentanazis think about it.

I've never owned one, but I knew a guy named 't6dpilot' who used to constantly ***** about owning them and couldn't wait to get out of the game :D

family had them- They had full time managers living at a couple of their stores ( selfservice) due to maintenance, theft and management required.

Cannot tell you how many coin boxes and outside vending machines were attacked around bar closing time on friday and sat. Twice someone tried to steal the ATM machines.

The younger customers just loved breaking off the wands and taking them after they were done. Sold all the stores after complaints that music was to loud from folks washing their cars, neighboring business complained that it was 24 x7 and they got tired of the theft - even the managers stole money.

When I was in college many decades ago a roommate's family owned some car washes. He had what apparently was a master key to the quarter boxes. He would open a box and flip a lever inside and get free time on the wash wands. He never stole any money from the boxes, just the occasional free washes.

Only time I use a bay and self wash, there's nasty chit I don't want near the house.

There is a place in my area that has a convenience store flanked by a laundromat on one side and a car wash on the other. Carwash is two DIY washes and a single automatic. The place is always busy. Synergy, each feeds the other emptying the customers pockets. I bet the place is on less than half an acre. Mind you it is in the low rent district part of town.

If you have a few acres still room to do the storage gig.

I knew that guy too. He was a grouchy sumb!tch! I call those 10 years, "the lost years."

Fred, I think the self serve wash market is on the decline. They were very strong in certain markets, Colorado being one, but it has been 10 or 12 years or so since I have looked at that data. IIRC, the average self serve model generated $1,500 of revenue per bay. Some operators installed in-bay automatic washes to increase their revenue. That is why you see some of those combos. Location is absolutely everything in the wash business. Daily car count and access is critical. Do a ton of research, subscribe to the car wash industry magazines, search out the annual self serve industry analysis, talk to operators (if they will share), and talk to more operators. If you are looking at a self serve for sale, I can guarantee you it is for sale for a reason - probably a poor performer.

At the time that I developed mine, flex service was a new concept to the Chicagoland market and I was fighting an uphill battle educating the traditional full service customer. The market has changed to an express exterior model with automated pay stations, free vacuums, and very few employees. I had planned on converting to that model, but I was out of reserves - mental, emotional, and financial. And I had the leading POS system integrator was going to fund the conversion for a share in incremental revenue growth. I was done at that stage. New operator redeveloped the site into that model and they seem to be doing pretty well.

Back to the SS model. Fred, if you are going to retire from the auto maintenance biz and do this in retirement, then I think it would be good for you. Being mechanical helps a ton and you have that box checked. You will need to live relatively close to the site and be available to respond to issues quickly. With a SS, it is helpful to have someone on site to answer questions and maybe help with minor issues during the day and that could be you or a paid employee. I do think that the SS model lends itself more to an absentee (relatively speaking) owner of all the car wash business models. Good luck and keep us posted.

Do a copious amount of research and then do more. Verify the operator's numbers carefully if buying an existing site. And make sure that site is a good location. Buy some 55 gallon drums for the quarters that will be stored in your garage.:D

I'm a bit of a self-serve car wash connoisseur and use them all the time. Keep in mind that I'm a guy who knows how to detail and has a regular hose and bucket home facility as well as hot and cold power washers, etc.

So it's not like I have no choice but to use them, I just like them that much. I washed my DD at one yesterday after back-to-back storms in L.A. left my car pretty filthy. They are just so convenient if they are good facilities and you know how to use them properly.

98% of people don't know how to use a SSCW properly and that is where the hatred and the profit comes in. People take WAAAY too long to wash their cars and/or run out of time on the coin box w soap still on the car, etc... There is an art to it.

Secondly, the reason that many people don't use them or hate them is because in much of the country, the SSCW business is seriously ghetto. Nasty facilities w/o up-to-date technology or payment systems, etc. I've used them everywhere while driving cross-country and they generally suck in the heartland. In Los Angeles, while there are some out of date, crappy ones, most are state-of-the-art and do extremely well. The ones w no capital investment showing are generally empty and probably don't make much. Strangely enough, I've never seen any evidence of vandalism or tagging at the ones I use, even though they are definitely in the congested, urban locations.

As far as the "cash business" aspect being discussed, if you mean unreported income, I cannot imagine how that would work. Could you simply trade the quarters in for paper $$ at a bank every day and stash the cash? Or are people thinking of spending thousands of dollars in quarters on purchases in the future? :confused:

The major breakthrough in the industry from my perspective is cc readers. I never use quarters anymore, just pull into a facility and use my debit card. The quarters were such a PIA. I spend more, (as does everyone else), and who gives a schit? What is $6 or $7 on my VISA to wash my car w that convenience? It's fast and I get it really clean. :)

The card readers have been a game-changer for the owners, the places are almost always busy and I know that the $$ per visit is WAY up. I've talked to owners in the midwest who don't have the modern card readers and they have dumb excuses of why they don't install them, too expensive, etc... They just don't get it. :(

Here is one from my most commonly used SSCW, on Santa Monica Blvd. and Cahuenga in Hollywood:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544290960.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544290960.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1544290960.jpg

Sorry about the sideways photos, not sure what happened there.

Hey Skyler, I have another load of soda to bring in...

Self storage for a while..... when all those baby boomers die off and all the millennials throw away their stuff the game's over.