Coin op car washes, any real experience?

[fastfredracing]

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.

[seafeye]

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”.

[fastfredracing]

Originally Posted by seafeye

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

[GH85Carrera]

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.

[JackDidley]

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.

[rockfan4]

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.

[Geoz1]

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

[UconnTim97]

Something like this?

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Geoz1

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

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.

[fastfredracing]

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

[look 171]

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.

[Dantilla]

Originally Posted by Geoz1

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

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.

[Bob Kontak]

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.

[jcommin]

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.

[fastfredracing]

Originally Posted by jcommin

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 ..

[aschen]

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.

[Bob Kontak]

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.

[Scott Douglas]

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.

[flipper35]

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

[911 Rod]

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