Running a Car Wash

Car Wash Operations in Cold Weather

While most people in the beginning stages think about the car wash and making money in the summer time, you need to consider car wash operations in cold weather. In colder climates you will want to pay particular attention to freezing weather because of the potential for car wash equipment damage. An often used method is to run water lines through the wall into the heated bays. Temperature alarms on the mechanical room and IBA’s can alert when conditions warrant and backup portable heaters are used as a backup in case.

Another area of concern for freezing is the trough. The trough ideally should be heated and the most common way is to run a hose that ties into a wall mounted tank with a thermostat controlled recirculating pump on it. When the temperature drops near freezing this pump turns on, heats up the antifreeze solution in the tank and recirculates through the hose in the trough

If you experience a bay freeze up be sure to remove the hose in the bays from the boom, then begin a dethawing process. Otherwise while you are melting the ice in the bay it could start backing up towards the equipment room and break some fittings which usually involve a coupler, reducer, etc.

Car Wash Vending

Car wash vending machines may be a way to bring a little extra revenue at your car wash. I say may because machines in some locations are nothing but criminal magnets and become more hassle than they are worth. At one time one wash in a bad neighborhood had a Pepsi machines. It only took two weeks before it was broken into and damaged beyond repair. At another location, however there are days in the summer where the soda machine make more money than the car wash.

Two ways to go the vending machine route. Buy a machine yourself or have one of the companies deal with stocking.

Buying your own machine is a great option if you are going to maintain it, fill it and remove the money yourself. Used machines are very reasonable and they rarely fail. Electrical costs are only around $1 per day. Be sure to add some extra security locks to prevent or deter theft.

The second option is to have a distributor deal with the filling of the machine. While the cost is a little more, you wont have to deal with going to the store to buy product and restocking which is vital if you aren’t there to do it yourself all the time or have several locations to cover.

In addition to drinks, a another car was vending option is cleaning supplies. In the right locations, these can to be a better revenue generator than the snacks and drinks. While these aren’t as common, a few product ideas:

Towels–Paper (all sizes), cloth, terry, microfiber
Towel and sponge packs–Armorall, Wet Towel, Glass Cleaner, Black Jack, Just For Leather, Bug and Tar (the packs of 10 or more tend to sell much better than the single packs)
Fragrances–Leafs, Trees, Characters, Novelty (best scents have been black ice, new car, cherry and vanilla pride)
Bottle Pumps/Aerosols–Fragrance, Armorall, Glass Cleaner, Tire Foam
Most products made by Armor All including their sponge packs, pump sprays and tire foams.

From experience here are also some products that don’t tend to sell well

Single wipe products
Operator folded paper towels as they will often get stuck in the machine
Generic or unknown brands

More than likely you already have space to put in vending machines at your car wash. There’s typically a trial and error period to figure out what products people will buy, but in most cases the revenue these machines can make will help boost your bottom line.

Car Wash Grate Theft

When metal prices rise many business will have any unsecured metals stolen and the car wash is no exception. Car wash grate theft is an easy and popular target for thieves and not only do you have the issue of replacing the grate but you risk someone twisting an ankle or tripping and suing.

The trough and grate system is commonly used at washes and is an 8 inch trough that runs the entire width of the bay and connects from one bay to the next and all end up pouring into a mini pit in the equipment room before it runs to the separating pits.

One effective way to secure this setup include welding hinges so they just flipped over for cleaning. These were made in three length’s across the bay. Not a “quick” fix, but it works.

If your wash has been hit check with the local scrap metal yard for quick replacement pieces or your grates that have been sold to the yard. Also explain what’s going on and in many cases they can help to put a stop to this problem by giving you a call and reporting it to the police before they buy the this type of scrap.

Car Wash Coin Box Theft

Coin boxes at car washes are a popular target for thieves. Not only are they easy to spot, but thieves know where most of the money is going to be. How can you stop car wash coin box theft?

Several brands of coin boxes are vulnerable to the thief using a speaker or other large magnet which gets rubbed up and down on the faceplate by the coin mechanism. Each pass adds a quarter in credit magnet which tricks the coin box into sending a pulse like it accepted a coin. If you see scratches on the face of your coin boxes it means you are probably losing money.

A popular recommendation is to add a magnetic switch on the coin box and/or timer to turn it off if a magnet is near, but doesn’t reliability fix it. The only way to fix the problem is to change or upgrade the coin boxes.

Another problem you will face is that there are currently only a few combinations of keys for coin boxes especially for the vacuums. Apparently they are only 1-2 different types of keys that will fit most all service doors. The best solution is to leave no lock unprotected, even the ones on vacuum clean out doors, certainly all the ones on coin boxes, face plates, vendors. Either have a security device fabricated or use a high security lock from companies such as Medeco, Abus or Buffo.

Pinhole cameras provide security in coin changers and are pretty simple to install. Simply drill a hole in the steel (approximately an 18/32 drill bit for most cameras) which will hold the camera to help you identify thieves and stop car wash coin box theft.

Car Wash Employee Theft

While having employees allows you to grow a car wash business there is also a huge downside due to having a largely all cash business. Most owners just trust their people, get sloppy and make crooks out of usually honest people. This even includes hiring the proverbial “trusted family member”. If you have cash that an employee has access to then they can and will eventually steal. How should you handle and minimize car wash employee theft?

As a small car wash operation, it’s easy to be the only one to personally handle the cash, but this system will limit the ability to grow. No owner is immune to employee theft, regardless of systems in place. The best you can do is hire good people, take care of them properly and fairly, and put good accounting systems in place. But it will never be foolproof.

You’ll never find perfect help in any industry. If you can get someone to show up not drunk and do the job about 85% of the way that you would do it, you’ve done well. Nobody is going to do it as fast or as good as you since this is your investment and not theirs. In addition it is hard to keep people motivated while working at minimum wage.

The guys that are the best help are using retirees, usually people who grew up doing an honest day’s work and taught how to be respectful at a young age. The only “kid” we’ve tried actually came in, punched his time card and left again, only to come back and punch out. That was if he didn’t spend all day playing his Game Boy.

If employees can access the wiring, they can disconnect non-resettable counters without disabling the bay functions, which is easily done if you have a predictable schedule. They can tell customers that a particular coin acceptor is eating coins, and to pay them directly instead and they will manually turn the bay on just like they do when they are washing it down.

Cameras are a good first line of defense. You can use the camera for remote viewing anywhere you have an internet connection (including your cell phone). A small cam should be set at the rear of coin changers, outside vault and the equipment room. They are easily set up to turn on only when there is movement, saving time to review video.

Next you must keep an exact count of your money. This is where most business owners slip up on, not just car washes. It’s easy to be lax when a lot of money seems to be coming in, but you need to make sure it is all really reaching you. Make sure that at a minimum the bays have timers that accumulate a count for every coin deposited. At the end of each day/week add up the timers, empty all of the vaults and the numbers should be similar. For equipment that does not have digital timers make sure you are the only one with a key to the vault. If your wash doesn’t have systems in place you can also “salt” the changers. If you suspect missing bills, leave some in there where you make some inconspicuous marks and make sure they are there when you next empty them.

There are also computerized tracking systems available that allow an owner to precisely monitor cash flow. There are “off-the-shelf” systems for carwashes such as AccuTrac and GinSan’s DATAMate are designed to track pulse by pulse, coin by coin, dollar by dollar, minute by minute while allowing/tracking bay wash down time. Some other neat features include:

Receiving every pulse from every coin acceptor, counts it, and sends it back to the timer.
Wash down feature that forces the attendant to punch in their code and use a garage door opener to turn on the bay they wish to wash down. Only high pressure rinse, and the PLC limits the time and records who, when, and which bay.
Monitors the bill changer level.
Accounting for the bays and vacuums by day and month this year and last year and by batch. The batch resets when the money is collected. • All functions and reports remotely available via the internet without a PC on site.
When the last coin was deposited at each device which should prevent wire tampering.

Last be sure to let employees know that you are accounting for all of the money coming in and you will notice anything missing. Just letting them know you are watching can largely minimize car wash employee theft. Even conspicuously leaving a clipboard that accounted for all the money on a table in the equipment room lets employee see that every dollar and every quarter was being noticed. It only takes a couple of minutes a visit to write down the information necessary to account for everything.

Car Wash Security System

Anyone who would spend several hundreds of thousands of dollars on any investment, let alone a car wash business and not protect it with a very good quality car wash security system is asking for trouble. Why some car wash operators still do not have them is insane with how inexpensive systems are anymore. The reality is that you cannot afford to be without a security system looking over your investment 24/7. A system will typically pay for itself in less than a year from catching people damaging equipment, break-ins, fraud, etc. Stopping false damage claims is a huge benefit as many claims are quickly eliminated by using the video to show the customer screwed up. In fact one had the license plate number of the customer that drove into the wall. A quick call to a lawyer to pursue that customer with proof on a DVD showing a couple of camera angles will do the trick.

On a personal security note, cameras can be used to look around the lot before exiting with any cash.

It is even more beneficial when you have multiple locations as you can look in on what is happening any time of day. You can make better use of time with multiple locations by seeing which wash needs cleaning or maintenance without having to drive to each one. Over the years people have been caught stealing from soda machines change machines. The beauty of these systems is you can simply call the police department and catch the crooks in the act.

If cash is really that tight, black & white security cameras off ebay and a cheap DVR are a reasonable option which can be replaced later on. Then purchase housings and lenses which you could use when you upgrade to color.

You’ll find out eventually that such a cheap DVR can’t record the detail needed to recognize faces or read license plates.

Another affordable option (but one that takes a little computer aptitude) would be to build a PC-based DVR. You want to be able to monitor the system remotely and have it “alarm” if it detects motion in areas you determine. You can get capture cards for a PC pretty cheap, just make sure it can record at least 640 x 480. If you go this route spend a little more on a quality PC card and a great number plate camera. The rest can be cheap and easily replaced later. Its also a good idea to have a local company to buy install the number plate camera from and make them promise to get 98% of all number plates day and night before you pay them. Otherwise it could be a bit tricky and it could cost you more or you don’t get all number plates. In some areas, police response is slower than is acceptable but for $25 you get a year of look-ups (up to 250) from PublicData.com – they’ve had detailed listings of most numbers, but it’s limited to about a dozen states.