I decided on a lark (and after a few glasses of some NZ Sauv Blanc) to offer up my services for any and all questions you Dopers may have regarding the carwash industry.
In my few years of experience in this area as an owner/manager, I have come up against many myths regarding automatic carwashes, many of which are ingrained in people from the way carwashes *used to be * rather than the way they are now.
Also, anyone in the business, let’s swap some stories!
How did the Top Gear team set a carwash on fire?
I have no idea how automatic carwashes work. If I take my car to one today, do I get to sit in it while it goes through the wash?
Is it true that the pre-wash is critical to the process? I was told that if you choose a wash cycle that doesn’t include it, you’re wasting your money.
Not sure. Most carwashes are brick and concrete structures, and most of the chemicals and soaps used are either high or low Ph, and not generally flammable.
It depends. The carwash I run is called an express exterior, which, as the name suggest, means it is fast and does the outside only.
In these types of carwashes you remain in your vehicle with the transmission in neutral. The car is loaded onto a conveyorized track that has a large chain running underneath it that has rollers every three feet. Of course you put the vehicle into neutral yourself after the car is loaded past a certain point by a person.
When you tell the terminal to “send” the car, the machine calls for rollers and the car is slowly pushed through.
Computers and photocells control the timing of the wash devices pretty precisely.
The car is measured, the distance between the wheels is measured, and since the software knows how long the tunnel is and where each device is located in relation to the enter switch, it corresponds that information in conjunction with the length of the car in order to give on/off commands to equipment, which saves chemical costs and energy. Not to mention the accuracy of the wash you receive.
In other types of washes, such as a full serve, you typically leave your vehicle in the control of attendants and assume control after you’ve paid/tipped for your services. Full serves, as the name implies, also clean interiors as well as exteriors of cars. There are also flex-serve washes where the customer can choose if they want full serve or not, or just take a quick ride through the tunnel to get the outside clean.
The more services you receive and the more labor spent on your car, the more you pay.
Edit: There are also unmanned express exteriors like you find at gas stations, and touchless automatics where the car actually doesn’t move but the machine will move back and forth over the car as it cleans. Touchless carwashes are practically worthless, imo. You really need friction to properly clean your car. Touchless washes generally use much harsher chemical ratios to compensate for a lack of friction.
Well, the answer is maybe. Generally speaking most places use a combination of High Ph soap first, followed by low Ph. Alkaline soaps have a “lifting” action on dirt (supposedly), thereby allowing for either friction (cloth), low Ph soap, and/or high pressure water to more easily wick the dirt off the surface of the vehicle.
We recently changed our high Ph presoak arch to almost straight city water and I have observed exactly zero difference in the result.
The key is friction (cloth), using strong acid to clean wheels, and prepping a car properly (which means that a very muddy/bird poop or bug covered car must be pressure washed by a person in certain areas before turning it over to the machine to achieve a desirable result).
And if by “prewash” you mean “presoak”, my above answer stands, but if by “prewash” you mean a human attendant spraying off areas of your vehicle that an imperfect machine cannot clean or dry as easily, then the answer is yes.
It sounds like you’re talking about an unattended automatic in bay wash, though.
Do you empathize with this song?
Without even looking, shall I assume it’s “working at the carwash”?
It used to be my ringtone…
Actually, Jim Croces’ “Working at the Carwash Blues,” as sung by The Muppets 
OK, OK, I clicky linky, I found amusement. Nothing can top the Muppets “Ma Nah Ma Nah” song, though. Truly transcendent stuff that was.
See kids, Sesame Street WAS dangerously influential!
Wow, thanks for the answer. Another question-
I’m pretty lax when it comes to car washing, and my car is getting pretty dirty now. With water restrictions here in Sydney, it’s given me an excuse to continue to avoid washing my car. How much water is used during an express exterior carwash?
Oh, and how much should I expect to pay for a really good exterior clean?
What would an average monthly water bill for a carwash be? An electricity bill? How often does the machinery break down or need to be maintained/updated/etc.?
It really depends on the water usage issue. Some carwashes use a lot more fresh water than others depending on a variety of factors, water tap fees, the cost of fresh water, whether they have a water reclaim system, etc.
Just our final Reverse Osmosis rinse alone is about 9/gal per car. We however use a water reclamation system that operates very much like a biological filter in an aquarium.
Every carwash has a trench (or pit, as it’s lovingly referred to as it’s so much fun to work on something in there) where the water rushes into beneath the vehicle. This water (at least at our wash) runs through a collection pipe and is flowed into our series of underground tanks that are built into the concrete lot.
The first tank is the collection tank, where much of the heavy sediment settles to the bottom and there’s a spillover “window” into the next tank, where the water is aerated (to reduce the smell) and pumped into a hydrocyclone system by these huge grinder pumps. The hydrocyclones then use centrifugal force to "spin off’ and seperate the heavier water from the lighter water. The heavier water with more solids in it is rejected back into the collection tank, the lighter water is sent to a bioreactor, where special living enzymes that are bred to feed specifically on carwash residues, remove most of the soaps, waxes (but not dyes, as in colored soaps) from the water.
These enzymes are pretty prolific in the way they reproduce, so then that water is pumped over into what’s called a plate seperator. The plate seperator is where the bugs (enzymes) go to die. There’s a huge plastic biomass set of plates in there that the bugs cling to, and then they die as they are deprived of their food supply. The dead bugs are pumped off the bottom out to the city sewer as they are biodegradable, and the finished product is what we call “clean” reclaimed water.
Reclaim water can only be used in certain applications, none of which includes rinsing, as the reclaim water has a very high TDS (total dissolved solids) count and will spot a car horribly.
I am not exactly sure how much water we use per car, but it’s somewhere in the 50 gallon per range, with about half that being reclaim water (which is again reclaimed, over and over, with the fresh water needed to add to the system to replace evaporation and drip off water).
We charge $8, $11 and $14 for our carwashes, but prices vary all over the place in proportion to volume. Many washes in the US north have very cheap washes as low as $3 or $4 dollars, but their chemical and labor costs are really low and they run at such a volume that they can afford to offer that price. I doubt they make any money at that point, the trick is selling upgraded washes where your profit margin is much higher and your increase in chemical costs is marginal.
You should pay whatever the market bears. You’re in AUS, so I have no idea what a decent carwash would charge. I would say no more than $10 US for a good wash and mechanical dry.
I meant to ask “Where does the water go?” in my last post, thanks for pre-empting me asking that.
I’ve seen the carwashes attatched to dingy petrol stations advertising prices between $5 and $8, and much nicer places with a going rate starting at $12-$15. That sounds about right, based on your info. Thanks again, I’ll probably end up finally getting my car washed!
Our water bills are in the $1500/month range at our one store, twice that at our other (different zoning, tap fees, rates).
Electric is pretty much a constant cost. The busier you are, the more the pumps and machines run, so the more electric you use, but you are obviously taking in more revenue, too. Our biggest electrical cost is probably our lot lights at night and heating/cooling the inside of the building.
Gas is another matter. We initially installed three giant 1,000,000 btu jet heaters into our drying bay, with the idea being that we “dry better because we dry hotter” and evaporate the remaining few droplets that the drying agent and blowers cannot remove from the car.
After getting a couple $10,000 gas bills, we tried running without the jet heat and the difference was so marginal in the result versus the cost that we don’t use them at all anymore, except on the very coldest days of winter.
The machines need constant maintenance, lubrication, belts changed, filters changed, etc. Hydraulic leaks are our biggest concern, as the water-based hydraulic oil is literally the lifeblood of all the machines, as they all use hydraulic motors for operation. There are also constant leaks to deal with in the equipment room.
My job has certainly challenged my mechanical skills. For a guy that used to sell fine wine for a living, becoming equal parts customer sales rep, manager, plumber, electrician and chemist has had a pretty steep learning curve. It’s stressfull, but the millioniare owner pays me pretty well to do my job. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either, and it’s certainly been a learning experience.
next question, Jeeves!
Do you do detailing? I have a question about interior detailing…
Most detailing operations are completely seperate from basic carwashes, although there are certainly carwashes where detailing is available, but it’s expensive.
Stand alone detailers that I’ve seen charge anywhere from $50 to $300 (and beyond) depending on the amount of “detail” you want done to your interior (q-tip the louvres on the vents, how dirty your car is inside etc).
I have a regular customer whom is a detailer. He runs their cars through our wash and then uses a carpet extractor on the interior and orbit buffs the clearcoat on the exterior, and more, depending on what you want to pay.
What is your question about interior detailing? I find that most people want that done when they are trying to sell their car to drive up the value, or when their interior is so bad they can’t stand to try to clean it themselves. Or the various dude with the awesome sports car that just HAS to have it professionally cleaned from time to time, even though most methods detailers use are readily available to you, less the cost of a true carpet extracting machine, which goes well beyond simple self vaccuming.
I got a gift certificate for an interior and exterior detailing, worth $250 (that’s how much the service costs). I asked for it for my birthday because I just quit smoking, and wanted to “re-invent” the interior of my car.
My question is about the little tiny disclaimer at the bottom of the gift certificate that says “additional charges may apply subject to vehicle condition.”
Other than being dusty, a bit crumby and smoky, my interior is hairy. Dog hairy. Nothing I can’t get up with an hour or so of careful vacuuming and wiping with a special glove…but still it takes time.
Is something like a mass of dog hair (only in the back seats of my SUV) going to cost me extra charges for the detailing? It’s golden retriever hair, which is actually easier to get up than shorter hair. Shorter hair sticks in fabric like pins.
Since I don’t have much detailing experience, I am not sure about that. If I were you, I would spend the couple bucks at a self-serve vacuum and get the majority of that hair up to avoid any extra charges. And maybe use a paper towel and windex to remove those dastardly nose-prints on the inside of your windows.
A $250 gift certificate to a detailing shop is a nice gift. For that dollar amount, the inside of your car should be especially clean and fragrant. And the outside should sparkle as well. Don’t be afraid to complain, that’s a lot of money spent that the carwash collected upfront, it matters not whom paid for it.