car washing techniques?

bsamuel77

New Member
I've read a lot on advice on what equipment to use on washing car fleet, but does anyone have advice on HOW to wash car fleets?

I plan on using a low pressure rinse and then drying with a Water Sprite chamois. What have you found to be the most effective method of rinsing down and the wiping off the cars?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
O

OrangeCrest

Guest
Not my area, but from reading other post I would assume the DI tanks are the way to go.

Hand drying will take way to long...
 

Dan S

New Member
buck a car maybe 2-0r 3

Not even worth my time to even think about washing cars.......

But for some folks it is very profitable!!

Fruit is right about the DI however!!
 

the_GUNN_man

New Member
No low pressure rinse on the cars. Use lots of pressure but keep a safe distance. The whole purpose of high pressure to rinse cars is it helps it blow off the soap faster. When getting into the car business it is all about speed and volume. You have no time to sit there and rinse a car for 5 minutes. I am a 2 man show and we do about 1 car every 2 to 2.5 minutes. The includes spraying on soap, one man takes a mitt on a stick and does the hood, windshields, roof,and trunk, the other has wool mitts and wipes the cars down, then we use a high pressure soft water rinse to rinse off the car and then follow up with a DI rinse. We still have to towel dry them in the end. Still too many spots for out customers liking. When we towel dry the cars they are mostly dry already, we just have a damp towel with DI water and get any spots on the windows, mostly from the soap drying on tinted windows. Of course we do multiple cars at a time. We will soap several cars at one time, along with rinsing and so on. We get a minimum of $2.50 a car and the most is $4.00. There is no way I would do what I do for $1 a car. I use two machines on this. I have two 275 gallon tanks I use to wash cars. I fill one with soft water(I have a on board water softener) and the other I fill with DI water(I carry a DI tank on board also so I can get all my water on demand).I use about 4.5 gallons of soft water for the soap and rinse and about 1.5 gallons of DI water for the final rinse. RO water is cheaper but it is not on demand which means you will need a storage tank at your shop and pump it out of there when you run out. My DI water costs me about 5 cents a gallon. I pay $75 per exchange and get about 1500 gallons through it before it goes bad. How fast your tank goes bad is determined by how bad your water is in your area. Don't even think about sending well water through a DI tank. It would go bad very fast and it would be about 15 cents a gallon, if not more. The TDS reading of our city water here is about 160 to 180ppm. The higher the ppm the less gallons you will get from your tank. I keep a TDS meter on board so I know when my water goes bad. Any more info needed just ask. Other people have different methods but this is what works for us. One thing I have learned, the cars NEVER came clean when I didn't physically touch the cars to remove dirt/dust. You won't get rich off cars but you will stay in shape and it is consistant money. All my lots pay within 2 or 3 weeks and they have them done about every 2 weeks if if it doesn't rain. Don't do road cars for any less them $5.00 per car. Road cars are employee cars, loaners, guests, etc. Too much crap on road cars.
 

bsamuel77

New Member
Good info

Thank for the good info! I figured we'd actually have to touch every car.

The pressure washers in my area just used to drive through the lots spraying down the cars AND they were charging about a 1.50 a car. There were constant problems with their reliability and results. So after they got fired, I thought I should make an attempt to try and break into that market.

Does anyone out there use just soft water and a chamois?

What are the "key areas" that we should pay special attention to on the car?
 

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