Opening a waterless car wash

aw2009

Hi everyone first time poster here!

As the title suggests I am opening a car wash in two good locations in two shopping centres in South Dublin. Rent is very reasonable. I have designated spaces in each centre. But here is my predicatment:

Shopping centre 1: No problems. its a surface level carpark and as stated I have four designated spaces and the option for my staff to roam around to other spaces if neccessary.

Shopping Centre 2: (non food i.e retail park) I will be located in the basement car park ( the surface car park is owned by a different company as is 80% of the basement car park) i will have 5 designated spaces and the option to roam around only a very small portion of the car park.

My question is this: Do you think that people will be too lazy too come to the designated spaces in the Shopping Centre #2? Shopping centre 1 wont be a problem as there is only a surface car park.

The whole concept is that they leave their car and come back and it is washed. I am lucky in that the surrounding areas are heavily populated and there are no petrol stations or car washes in the locality.

Before anyone asks yes I know what I am letting myself in for as I have previously run my own business. I have also done research for my business and feel that It is an excellent opportunity considering the state of the economy.

Bandara

Hi there,

I've been in this business for a good few years I'd have huge concerns the viability of the business at the moment.

Carwash sales have dropped hugely since "de recession", I'm seeing about 35% drop in the washes I'm selling (and that is consistant in both locations I have, each one is ideally located beside very very busy roads), bearing in mind that I have a long very well established business with repeat carwash customers and a good reputation in this area, I'd be very concerned for a new startup trying to get established. I offer Auto Brush washes €4.50-€12, fully attended jetwash €8 and also have unattended jetwashes for €6. And buy the top €12 wash and we'll give you a free tea or coffee.

People are just buying the €65 portable jet wash in Lidl and doing it themselves/getting the kids to do it.

To try to stimulate things I'm currently giving away to customers a choice of cleaning products which normally retail at €3, free with the purchase of any car wash, which start from €4.50 upwards. So you spend €4.50 and you get a free €3 product.

The commerical traffic on the road is down about 60% from my Derv based sales figures, these are the guys who regulary get their cars/vans washed as 1.) its on expenses and 2.) they need them to look clean for meetings etc.

I have been told by several reps etc that they are no longer allowed to wash their cars randomly, they can only do it when they have a important meeting etc.

I looked very strongly into opening a wash station at an excellent site in Deansgrange last summer, after looking into the costs, wages etc it was very difficult to see where the profit to justify the effort the business takes will come from, employee theft is rife and very simple to do due to the nature of the business, even if you timecode the washes it can be gotten around by the staff leaving you with no way of keeping track of any difference in what your selling and whats actually going into the till. Any suppliers you talk to will tell you all about their super duper Codex Units and how they record everything, its bullsh*t, they are a doddle to manipulate. Stocktaking is close to impossible and has to be a huge fear in this type of business.

Theft and vandalism is also a huge problem in this area, you will definitely need to fit snap on lances etc but still the main unit can get trashed pretty easily, and at up to 12k a pop it gets messy very quickly, only last week I was talking to a retailer in the midlands who got his unit rammed for fun by a car in the middle of the night, and he had cameras all over the place.

Finally your in the worse part of the year for carwashing, if you are definitely going to open try to hang off until September, the business is dead for the next 4 months.

Sorry I'm so negative, but its a bloody competitive and over saturated business, which is going to get much worse as all the redundancy money guys think they can just buy a jetwash and make money

If you need any figures on costs or have any queries about anything regarding it please ask and I'll try answer them as best I can.

Good luck with it.

HT.

aidan.connolly

Sorry, but I have to ask the question. I thought the O/P used the title as a way of getting people to read it.....it worked. Anyway, my question. What is a Waterless Car Wash ?

stepbar

Just a curious question Hammertime re Theft etc on the Carwashes - the last time I got my car washed, I had to go into the shop first and purchase a "code" to do same. Does the IT system in place not record how many times a code has been issued linked to the type of carwash requested (i.e you have a seperate set of codes for each type of car wash or the like)? Surely it would be easy to find out whose stealing if you have a good POS system which logs the staff member working at any one time?

Fair enough, I know that perhaps other systems that uses a coin token to operate would be fairly dodgy but I would have thought the code system would be fairly steal proof?

Bandara

stepbar wrote: »

Just a curious question Hammertime re Theft etc on the Carwashes - the last time I got my car washed, I had to go into the shop first and purchase a "code" to do same. Does the IT system in place not record how many times a code has been issued linked to the type of carwash requested (i.e you have a seperate set of codes for each type of car wash or the like)? Surely it would be easy to find out whose stealing if you have a good POS system which logs the staff member working at any one time?

Fair enough, I know that perhaps other systems that uses a coin token to operate would be fairly dodgy but I would have thought the code system would be fairly steal proof?

Hi step,

theres a couple of different reasons its easy to get around,

a lot of the Codexs (the little box that prints off the tickets) are completely uncompatible with any sort of till system so your relying on the till operator to enter the sale into the till via a PLU, so there's an opportunity there for staff to forget/not bother typing in the plu. Yes you can check how many were printed but you'll have no idea when they were printed so therefore won't know who printed it.

then you have the misprints, faulty prints (codexes are very unreliable) etc which skew the figures greatly.

also the main issue (in relation to the OPs setup) is going to be the timed attended washes, basically your customer buys a ticket that gives him say 10 mins (which is about how long it takes a normal person to wash their car), they then hand this to the car washer who can do it in about 6 mins if he moves fast, the operator has 4 mins left to play with and can start on the next car in the queue using the spare four mins and thus every wash he does gives him 4 mins free, so every 2 washes he can run someone through without have to register the sale and pocket the money and there is absolultely no way of knowing it was done. You can't reduce the time giving as if you do normal people can't cope with the limited time given.

Finally there is the case of customers buying washes and then seeing the queue and coming back another day to do the wash, again this throws your figures out greatly as it looks like you sold more than you got paid for and vice versa.

lol, I won't even go into the area of test tickets being run off and them giving a special code that last for 5 washes....

....or the fact that by opening the front panel of the jetwash and turning the small key beside the pump a half turn you get a free 5 minute go on the wash thats recorded nowhere.

Its a bloody nightmare to try to police.

:rolleyes:

DubTony

I'm going to drag this one way off topic. Apologies to the OP.

Car washes brings me back to an idea I had when I was 17. Still in school and hungry as all hell. Here's how it came about. It was around this time that a lot of forecourts were moving to jetwashes and in many cases dumping the brushwash or just not installing one. (This is about 14,000 years ago lads )

I'd noticed that many of these were unattended and, being a lazy bollix, I never used them. (The truth was that I couldn't clean the bloody car with them - always left huge brush marks - still do! :mad:)

Simple idea. Brand every car wash to show that a single company operated them all. Rent the space and equipment from the the forecourt operator, hire the staff, give them snazzy overalls and offer a loyalty scheme where the 11th wash was free irrespective of where you got the wash, and what was the last bit? OH yeah ... make millions. My simple idea soon got knocked into touch. I spoke to 2 forecourt operators ( yep, just 2) who verbally kicked the sh!t out of my idea. One of them told me to f*ck off and get out and the other one asked me what a kid like me knew about business. Way to knock the crap out of a young fellahs ambition.

Anyway, I gave up on it when I discovered that nobody wanted to wash cars for a living. This was 1983. About 20 years BI*.

Feel free to steal my idea. But be prepared for a slap from fellahs like Hammertime. :D

*Before Immigration :eek:

DUBLINHITMAN

is this a noh20 franchise or your own business .,
the waterless wash in my eyes is crap .
what products will you be using on a car . any pics before and after like ??
whats the method in waterless car cleaning from start to finsh how long would it take .

anyway best of luck buddy ..

aw2009

aidan.connolly wrote: »

Sorry, but I have to ask the question. I thought the O/P used the title as a way of getting people to read it.....it worked. Anyway, my question. What is a Waterless Car Wash ?

Sorry for not responding to questions. But I have been very busy trying to get this going. Yes I know its hard to beleive to You only use 100ml of a special solution which is sprayed on to the car and cleaned and polished using two microfibre cloths. I was sceptical but was amazed when I tried it. It leaves an amazing shine and no watermarks.

aw2009

DUBLINHITMAN wrote: »

is this a noh20 franchise or your own business .,
the waterless wash in my eyes is crap .
what products will you be using on a car . any pics before and after like ??
whats the method in waterless car cleaning from start to finsh how long would it take .

anyway best of luck buddy ..

Hi,

Trust me its not crap! I will post up before and after Photos In the next couple of days and I think you will be amazed! Its not a franchise. I have found an excellent product supplier In the UK.

Cheers.

madmik

i also find it hard to believe 100ml of anything will clean a car covered in thick grime

a before and after photo is good but a youtube video would really help us envisage the process

aidan.connolly

Thanks aw2009, I had never heard of it before. Would be interested in seeing the before and after photo's. Is this something that you can buy in a motor factors ?

Good luck with it

Little Miss Cutie

OP, my dad has been in this business for 25 yrs +, I have seen the dirt of cars being cleaned. Car comes in you think it is a black car but actually it is red etc, how can such a small amount of liquid clean the whole car including wheels, skirts etc. Surely the cloths must need constant rinsing?

DubTony

I've seen these things on TV. It's basically a bottle of spray used to clean off light dirt and polish the car at the same time. Don't expect to get a half inch of bog off the car with this stuff, unless you're prepared to scrub and spray and scrub ..... and that'll scratch the car.
Heavy dirt needs to be removed first. The best thing to use to do that, ironically, is water. If you're a once-a-weeker, this isn't bad, but in this climate and with mucky country roads, it's definitely a city only gig, and even at that, I'd say, a lot of hard work.

Axwell

Here is a similar/same product thats available in Oz, the one here or in the UK is the same im sure with possibly a diff name. With these products they remove dirt and shine up your car like its just been poished but you cant apply it to the area around the tires or the tires themselves etc, so its just the bodywork. In which case your car isnt getting a total clean, I cant see you using this on the wheel arches etc and removing the hardcore dirt on there. So really the product is only going to work well on a car that isnt caked in dirt and just needs a bit of a once over and polish.

http://www.watersavings.com.au/magic-glaze.html

aw2009

Firstly yes there are two fresh cloths used for every car (they can be washed in a normal washing machine after use)

I have tested the product on extremely filthy cars and It works.

It does not leave any horrible watermarks like standard car washes.

I use a seperate product for dressing/washing the tyres.

I understand people are sceptical. But the amount of water being saved is unreal. I will try my best to put together some sort of youtube video and will try to find a very dirty car to use it on.

thanks.

Axwell

So its the same as the product I listed above? Also the amount of water being saved, I assume you mean the fact there is no water used - it is waterless is it not? Or when doing the tires etc do you need water?

aw2009

Axwell wrote: »

So its the same as the product I listed above? Also the amount of water being saved, I assume you mean the fact there is no water used - it is waterless is it not? Or when doing the tires etc do you need water?

Hi ,

Its not the same product(although similar) and to be honest I couldn't comment on whether it is as good as the product I will be using as I havent tried that one!. Yes it is entirely waterless. The wheels/alloys will be cleaned with a seperate product which is specifically for wheels.


thanks,

green123

how can you clean cars like these with your 100ml spray ?





sounds more like a shine or polish you are offering to people who already have fairly clean cars ?

Axwell

aw2009 wrote: »

Hi ,

Its not the same product(although similar) and to be honest I couldn't comment on whether it is as good as the product I will be using as I havent tried that one!. Yes it is entirely waterless. The wheels/alloys will be cleaned with a seperate product which is specifically for wheels.

thanks,

It might not be the same in name but its the same process as what you described in its application, two cloths and 100ml of the solution so for all intents and purposes its the same product. The question is will it remove caked on dirt like the images above or is it just to remove surface dirt and polish a car up more so than a full clean. Will be interesting to see a video or before and after shots.

madmik

youre gonna have forearams like popeye if you intend to clean cars with 100ml of liquid and two cloths

i doubt you or anyone else wouuld be able to do it all day every day,especially on filthy cars

(which a lot of your customers will have ) and hows it going to look if you have to tell someone their car is too dirty for your car wash

Bandara

aw2009 wrote: »

It does not leave any horrible watermarks like standard car washes.

Watermarks are not left through any fault of the carwash, it occus when the unit is not loaded with a drying agent or has no water softener attached.

suey71

You know what, I'd say this works, but as previous posters have said it would tear the arms off you. Maybe you'll get used to it the way plasterers do or window cleaners do.
Your going to have to employ someone to clean these cars and maybe they wont want to wreck their arms cleaning dirty cars by hand.
You'd probably make more money being a distributor of the cleaning product.

just my thoughts anyways.
I think this will work but for how long?

Good luck.

madmik

i have used t-cut and other polishes that have to be rubbed into a cars finish and its bloody hard work after the first couple of cars

your hands,wrists,forearms and fingers will be aching

even if you personally have the stamina/fitness/dedication to push through it

is your staff gonna do it for €8.65 ? are they gonna be able to do it consistantly @ -5 minutes per car ?

also thick dirt and road and road grime contains small pebbles which will scratch the cars surface paintwork

i think it would be better to use a hi-pressure hose although this defeats the concept of a waterless car wash

personally i dont think the majority of people in ireland give a toss about saving water but i could be wrong

DUBLINHITMAN

wheres your before and after pick as you promised
op

waterless

aw2009 wrote: »

Hi everyone first time poster here!

As the title suggests I am opening a car wash in two good locations in two shopping centres in South Dublin. Rent is very reasonable. I have designated spaces in each centre. But here is my predicatment:

Shopping centre 1: No problems. its a surface level carpark and as stated I have four designated spaces and the option for my staff to roam around to other spaces if neccessary.

Shopping Centre 2: (non food i.e retail park) I will be located in the basement car park ( the surface car park is owned by a different company as is 80% of the basement car park) i will have 5 designated spaces and the option to roam around only a very small portion of the car park.

My question is this: Do you think that people will be too lazy too come to the designated spaces in the Shopping Centre #2? Shopping centre 1 wont be a problem as there is only a surface car park.

The whole concept is that they leave their car and come back and it is washed. I am lucky in that the surrounding areas are heavily populated and there are no petrol stations or car washes in the locality.

Before anyone asks yes I know what I am letting myself in for as I have previously run my own business. I have also done research for my business and feel that It is an excellent opportunity considering the state of the economy.

Hi,

I have been running a waterless car cleaning company for two years now, hopefully this will help. Shopping centre 2 you are going to struggle with, we were in a carpark in the centre of Dublin and just because our location was a bit out that carwash failed, and just to give you an idea we were on level 1 as opposed to ground level but we were slightly hidden and it killed that particular operation.

Numbers have definitely dropped since the downturn but business is still viable as long as you have done your research and you have excellent staff and products. Signage will make a big difference if your 2nd location is off the beaten track.

There are alot of other valeters and "motor trades people" who do nothing better other than tell you waterless products are useless and will damage customers cars. Most of them have never used waterless products and try very hard to convince others that the conventional way of cleaning a car with a bucket and sponge will do a much better job, quite the contrary as infact with a bucket and sponge will certainly scratch a vehicles paint and surface lacquer. However there are some waterless products that should not be on the market and are useless but its very easy to test these and differentiate the good from the bad.

We cleaned over 3500 cars last year and had all kinds of dirt and never once did we damage or scratch a car - nor did we have any complaints about scratching, we never had to turn away a vehicle because it was too dirty. If a car is caked in heavy mud its still possible to do but will use more product, more cloths and most importantly will take more time but we would get very few of these cars in, probably only 3%.

Hope this helps a little.

Regards,

Waterless

Bellies

Hi Waterless,


Are you using the same product as "aquanought"??

I remember this product a few years ago on the UK version of Dragons Den. The ripped the idea apart. The two lads who have the idea in the UK seem to be doing quite well thou.

See the link attached: http://www.aquanought.co.uk/aquanought-bbc-dragons-den.php

waterless

Bellies wrote: »

Hi Waterless,


Are you using the same product as "aquanought"??

I remember this product a few years ago on the UK version of Dragons Den. The ripped the idea apart. The two lads who have the idea in the UK seem to be doing quite well thou.

See the link attached: http://www.aquanought.co.uk/aquanought-bbc-dragons-den.php

Hi,

Aquanought used to use the same product as us but now they are using a different product, its some time since i dealt with them. Our product is imported from the States and is the market leader, it leaves an unbelievable finish.

If you want a sample you can private message me and i will give you a sample.

Regards,

Waterless

Bellies

But I thought they were offering your product as a franchise opportunity?

I have seen something similar before but I have my doubts about this product removing heavy dirt, I know you say you'll use more cloths etc. But its alot of hard work for a simple job that a high power jet could remove, and if the customer is worried about water marks a good piece of mutton cloth will remove it, and the wax to finish it off is a serious competitor?

Is there Silicone in this product?

waterless

Bellies wrote: »

But I thought they were offering your product as a franchise opportunity?

I have seen something similar before but I have my doubts about this product removing heavy dirt, I know you say you'll use more cloths etc. But its alot of hard work for a simple job that a high power jet could remove, and if the customer is worried about water marks a good piece of mutton cloth will remove it, and the wax to finish it off is a serious competitor?

Is there Silicone in this product?

Hi,

I dont know what product AquaN use, we dont deal with them at all, our company is an Irish business. By the time you wash, dry and wax our product would have it finished in half the time without any scratching, power washers push the dirt around the surface of a car also and then when a sponge is applied it creates the swirling unless its an 10 stage two bucket snow foam system which takes hours! No silicone in any of our products.

Regards.

suey71

Hi waterless. I'm all for this product, but .

You say "we cleaned 3500 cars last year".

That means that there's more than one of you, plus 3500 cars??
even at 10euro per car, thats only 35,000. Thats not a lot of money considering the amount of work and materials involved, and as you said"we cleaned", that means that figure is at least divided by 2. ??
The Math's just does'nt add up.

waterless

suey71 wrote: »

Hi waterless. I'm all for this product, but .

You say "we cleaned 3500 cars last year".

That means that there's more than one of you, plus 3500 cars??
even at 10euro per car, thats only 35,000. Thats not a lot of money considering the amount of work and materials involved, and as you said"we cleaned", that means that figure is at least divided by 2. ??
The Math's just does'nt add up.

Hi,

Your right the math's don't add up! Our business is a detailing/valeting service. 3.5k cars is not a huge number but is more than sufficient for what we do, if i was running an express service for €10 then a business would have to aim for at least 3 or 4 times that amount of business, the site would have to have serious throughput to achieve this, having said that there are some sites that would suit this service.

Regards.

DUBLINHITMAN

still no before and after pics
good luck with your idea buddy it does work in the states because of water regulations and all that but over here the local council dont really inforce any regulations

waterless

Some pics... Shows what's easily possible with waterless products...

Regards.

Axwell

waterless wrote: »

Some pics... Shows what's easily possible with waterless products...

Regards.

What..you cleaned a rear wheel?

not great before and after pics in fairness

tomcollins97

Axwell wrote: »

What..you cleaned a rear wheel?

not great before and after pics in fairness

What is wrong with the pictures?

Bandara

Why are people beating up on this guy?

Waterless carwashes do work, I've seen them in operating, the only failing with them is that people don't trust the new technology.

tomcollins97

Have you opened yet Waterless? I will definatley give it a try

Hammertime

Hammertime wrote: »

Why are people beating up on this guy?

Waterless carwashes do work, I've seen them in operating, the only failing with them is that people don't trust the new technology.

Thank you for posting that. Everyone is giving this lad who has a very good idea a bad time.

aidan.connolly

Hi,

Looks good to me. Did you use the other method for cleaning the tyres and wheels ?

Regards

Aidan

Axwell

tomcollins97 wrote: »

What is wrong with the pictures?

It's not really a before and after shot, both images show the vehicle in the same state apart from the rear wheel being clean in one. From the product I posted earlier and what the OP (by the way the OP here isnt waterless its a different guy whos starting out) said you have to use a different product on the wheels. A better before and after shot would be the vehicle dirty and then the vehicle partially or full cleaned.

Im sure the product works, i linked to one earlier in the post. Im just suggesting that the pics provided didnt really show it properly.

madmik

if its so fast ,easy ,effective

take a filthy car and clean it while someone records a video

this will prove to the sceptics its easy and it works or not

suey71

aw2009. Give the most disbelieving poster a free carwash on condition that if it works He'll come on here and say that it works.

How much would you charge for a car wash btw. and how long would one take?

FearDark

What about under the wheel arches where you often get more than an inch of muck?

Hanley

Axwell wrote: »

It's not really a before and after shot, both images show the vehicle in the same state apart from the rear wheel being clean in one. From the product I posted earlier and what the OP (by the way the OP here isnt waterless its a different guy whos starting out) said you have to use a different product on the wheels. A better before and after shot would be the vehicle dirty and then the vehicle partially or full cleaned.

Im sure the product works, i linked to one earlier in the post. Im just suggesting that the pics provided didnt really show it properly.

In fairness, pictures will NEVER show the full story.

Like what's to stop him getting a muck covered car, washing half of it with a hose and sponge, and then saying "oh look what my waterless cleaner did".

FWIW, I'm not too au fait with the technology but I don't think I'd just dismiss it out of hand when several people have come on to say it works.

madmik

Hanley wrote: »

In fairness, pictures will NEVER show the full story.

Like what's to stop him getting a muck covered car, washing half of it with a hose and sponge, and then saying "oh look what my waterless cleaner did".

FWIW, I'm not too au fait with the technology but I don't think I'd just dismiss it out of hand when several people have come on to say it works.

a youtube vid withoiut any breaks in footage would be a useful tool in this debate

troy1

I am also opening up a waterless car valeting service in the near future. I have tried the product and am amazed at the results. Here is a video to show what happens. It is not mine but I can honestly say it says it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB472Ho0dG8&feature=PlayList&p=6471C1B593E497FC&index=5

Please look at this users other videos too.

green123

that video proves nothing.
if a car was just covered with light dust like that , then you would get the same result by just wiping it with any dry cloth .
how about using your magic potion to clean a dirty car like the one i posted earlier in this thread

tombull82

Guys I've seen this stuff in action , Yes it does clean a car's surface, Paint work, chrome bits and windows etc etc,
But remember it is just that. a surface cleaner/shiner.

Personally I want my cars inner wheel liners, shock's/spring, uncarraige and most importantly Brake calipers washed down and free of all the built up dust which gathers up and causes squeeky brakes, rusty bolts, cracked wishbone bushes etc etc.

Now thats me leaving out the country, if you leave in the city then you could probably get away with the waterless clean as you will most likely not get the muck etc building up on the undercarraige etc BUT you will probably be visiting the local mechanic more frequently to strip and clean down your squeeky brakes (and going by city prices thats not cheap either)

My 2 cents anyway;)

tombull82

green123 wrote: »

that video proves nothing.
if a car was just covered with light dust like that , then you would get the same result by just wiping it with any dry cloth .
how about using your magic potion to clean a dirty car like the one i posted earlier in this thread

That video proves that Youtube works as an advertiser...:D:rolleyes: