Starting a Car Wash

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.

Car Wash Coin Changers

Car wash coin changers are at every car wash. The big question is what coins will you vend?

One issue with changers is people using them to make change and thereby leaving your machines empty for customers and the added hassle of going to the bank to purchase quarters. It will be more of an issue for washes close to apartment complexes or laundromats. It’s not uncommon to have to buy $500 a week in quarters in locations with high-density apartment complexes. Two ways to deal with this include dollar coins, tokens or a token/quarter mix.

If you are looking at coin acceptors, be sure to purchase multi-coin coin acceptors for flexibility at your car wash down the road.

Most people regret going with quarter tokens as it takes a cheap token to keep the cost reasonable as tokens will walk away (figure 1-2%). By going with cheap tokens, inevitably tokens will be used that came from other places, resulting in lost revenues. High security, dollar valued tokens are the only way to go. Dollar coins are convenient for customers as they don’t have to drop a ton of quarters into the machine. The high security token, with a 100 mile protected radius, costs around $.19 each, thereby making $.81 each on the 1-2% yearly walk away. If you are going through a lot of coins and make the switch to tokens, expect the laundromat or their customers to complain.

By mixing in a few tokens with the quarters (tokens are valued at $.25) when someone comes to get change they either have to redeem the tokens at your wash or throw them away. Make sure to put a sign up stating that the changer dispenses a mix of tokens and quarters and the behavior should stop it.

Accepting Credit Cards At the Car Wash

Accepting credit cards at the car wash is a hot topic among car wash owners, but I recommend looking into having them seriously. Surveys have consistently shown that people who pay with plastic (credit or debit) tend to spend more per purchase than those who pay with cash. At most car washes, credit card customers generally spend 20-30% more than cash customers, which makes the CC fees easier to recoup. Generally speaking, anything you can do to make it easier for motorists to buy your services is usually a good decision. Adding credit card machines will cost roughly $1000 per car wash bay plus monthly and transaction fees.

Handling Car Wash Scratching Complaints

At some point while owning a car wash, operators will probably find themselves being accused of their equipment damaging the customer’s vehicle. Handling car wash scratching complaints is usually something the customer is at fault for, there is a right and a wrong way to handle it. Most of the time, a security system will prove what happened in the car wash bay, but there are occasions that it isn’t clear. Be sure to have adequate posted signage stating to “check brush before using” or something similar. Most courts will throw the case out. Experience has shown that you seldom if ever convince the customer that the brush didn’t do it. Simply explain why the brush couldn’t cause that type of damage and leave it at that. It’s not likely they will return and there is not much you can do about them telling others. Spend time on the things you can do something about. This is not one of them.

If at all possible, don’t go to the insurance company every time there is a complaint unless the insurance company insists upon it because of wording in the policy. It takes is about 2 claims in a few years span to trigger insurance rate increases (depending on the company of course).

Car Wash Employees

Unless you have to run your car wash at full volume or have nothing better to do than pick up trash at your wash then hiring employees is the only way to go if you ever expect to have a sustainable and profitable business. The most effective way to increase the income of a car wash is to buy another one. Some operators work themselves to the bone selling tokens, fleet accounts, spit shining the bays, etc. That extra twenty hours per week they spent to get a slight boost in revenue could have been used to buy another location. While this takes some management skills on the operators part, it will pay off more most as running a second self-serve car wash isn’t twice as hard. Plus life is too short spending hours a day picking up other peoples trash, unless there isn’t a better alternative but what do you need to consider when hiring car wash employees?

That being said, when you’re in the business of clean, your image is vitally important. What kind of image will a car wash portray if the garbage cans are spilling over and hoses are laying all over the ground? Low volume locations will not need as much attention as a high volume one does and there is no sense paying someone to clean up if there were no customers there to make a mess. Most washes however are good with a once a day pickup on the weekdays and twice on the weekend. It’s also good to have someone who is reliable if you decide to leave town for a couple of days.

Many owners find the best car wash employees by using retirees, who are looking to make a little extra spending money and like the flexibility of this type of work. If you can find someone to do the lawn that is a bonus too.

Don’t expect to find a perfect person. If you can get someone to show, not be drunk and do the job about 80 percent of the way that you would do it, consider that an excellent employee. Remember this is your baby and nobody is going to work at the speed and detail that you will, especially when making minimum wage.