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washing cars
- Thread starter allenb
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See-It-Clean
New Member
Use the search function on the top of the page, I too have thought about doing car lots but have been discouraged by others because of the hassle and perfection that is needed. Not to metion if you scratch a car with one of the hoses or wands. Being that your in such a hurry "needing it yesterday" the answer to you questions are in the search function, I remember reading the threads last week!
Good luck with you Bid!!!
Phil
Good luck with you Bid!!!
Phil
5 Star Johnny
New Member
My advice is to RUN!!! Now that I got that outta' my system........ The ultimate set up would be an RO system, but is very costly and hard to justify for what you're going to get paid per car. In cooler weather (MI) you might be tempted to use hot water. However, the quick change in surface temperature on the metal and glass only helps to calcify the hard water, leaving deep water spots that are extremely difficult to remove.
We use to do between 2,500 & 3,000 cars weekly for dealers. If I remember correctly, we used roughly 6 - 7 gals. of water per car. Keep this in mind if you're going to use a portable tank. We ALWAYS used the dealerships outside water source, so this wasn't a big issue. The drawback to this is that you end up using 200' - 300' of supply hose to the machine, and another 200'+ of pressure hose. That's really hard on the machines. Not to mention that your supply hose gets run over a lot, or parked on, interrupting your water flow. Plus, using the dealership's water, you're at the mercy of the supply's water hardness.
Our crews consisted of 3 guys. One sprayer & two chamois dryers. Our average was 50 - 55 cars per hour, doing exceptional work. You can do more per hour if you're sloppier. We started at daybreak 5 - 6 a.m. Firstly to avoid the heat on the cars and heatstroke. Also to avoid a lot of customer traffic while spraying. Most dealerships are going to want you to do this work on Thursday or Friday so the cars are "standing tall" for the weekend traffic. This means you have a small window of opportunity. If there's any rain in the forecast, we litterally were calling our crews at 11 p.m. to tell them wether we were working the next day or not. Don't be surprised when the GM of the dealership calls you at 9 p.m. to say "it looks like rain, forget the wash this week!" Somehow these guys believe rain cleans cars as good as pressure washing.
Used cars: The sprayer has to be very careful about loose paint, pin striping, loose moulding, etc. I've watched them peel off pin stripes in a second, or remove a giant sheet of poorly touched up paint areas. And yes, dragging the hoses over the fenders will scratch the hell out of them. If you're gonna' do this, invest in non-marking hose for the section at the gun.
The long & short - Yes, you can make money if you do it right, but there are a lot of variables. I didn't even get into employee problems. The average price around here was $1.35 per car. We paid our crews by the car, not the hour.
Good Luck with all that!
We use to do between 2,500 & 3,000 cars weekly for dealers. If I remember correctly, we used roughly 6 - 7 gals. of water per car. Keep this in mind if you're going to use a portable tank. We ALWAYS used the dealerships outside water source, so this wasn't a big issue. The drawback to this is that you end up using 200' - 300' of supply hose to the machine, and another 200'+ of pressure hose. That's really hard on the machines. Not to mention that your supply hose gets run over a lot, or parked on, interrupting your water flow. Plus, using the dealership's water, you're at the mercy of the supply's water hardness.
Our crews consisted of 3 guys. One sprayer & two chamois dryers. Our average was 50 - 55 cars per hour, doing exceptional work. You can do more per hour if you're sloppier. We started at daybreak 5 - 6 a.m. Firstly to avoid the heat on the cars and heatstroke. Also to avoid a lot of customer traffic while spraying. Most dealerships are going to want you to do this work on Thursday or Friday so the cars are "standing tall" for the weekend traffic. This means you have a small window of opportunity. If there's any rain in the forecast, we litterally were calling our crews at 11 p.m. to tell them wether we were working the next day or not. Don't be surprised when the GM of the dealership calls you at 9 p.m. to say "it looks like rain, forget the wash this week!" Somehow these guys believe rain cleans cars as good as pressure washing.
Used cars: The sprayer has to be very careful about loose paint, pin striping, loose moulding, etc. I've watched them peel off pin stripes in a second, or remove a giant sheet of poorly touched up paint areas. And yes, dragging the hoses over the fenders will scratch the hell out of them. If you're gonna' do this, invest in non-marking hose for the section at the gun.
The long & short - Yes, you can make money if you do it right, but there are a lot of variables. I didn't even get into employee problems. The average price around here was $1.35 per car. We paid our crews by the car, not the hour.
Good Luck with all that!
Larry L.
PWN TEAM - Moderator Emeritus
John that was every good info,I wanted to say run but decided to set back and see if anything has chanced.
Now looking back can you see were you may change a few things and make a little money doing car dealerships?Are do you think this type trade will always be a gamble to risk tagging after?
Now looking back can you see were you may change a few things and make a little money doing car dealerships?Are do you think this type trade will always be a gamble to risk tagging after?
5 Star Johnny
New Member
Larry, sounds like you had some experience with car washing? Sure, there are definitely some things I would have improved to make more profit if we had chosen to stay in that area. Probably a large cube van unit with tandem machines and 1000+ gal tandem tanks. We considered placing soft water systems in tandem, but still didn't think it would be cost effective. An RO system would be ideal, but a huge initial investment and, again, perhaps not cost effective.
This is a job for younger guys. An awful lot of bend, stretching and reaching for us old bones!! Especially when you're doing 600 - 900 cars daily with 2 crews. And, again, the majority of them are Thursday - Sat. morning, so lots of units crammed in a few days. Obviously, the younger guys bring their own set of problems for an employer. If 1 guy on the crew doesn't show up and you don't have a replacement, none of the crew can work. 2 guys can not do the job. The sprayer has to move too slow so he doesn't get too far ahead of the chamois dryer, etc.
The bigger part of the problem is the dealerships themselves. They want their cars clean for show, but don't appreciate the amount of motion it takes to get an entire lot done in a single day. We had a couple of these guys that would call us off if it was suppose to sprinkle the next day. Then a few who were use to paying $1 per car and couldn't see the value. Again, money can be made doing it. For us, it was too little profit and gobbled up a whole lot of payroll and labor pool. For someone starting out in the business that's looking for good cash flow and doesn't have high overhead yet, it's OK.
This is a job for younger guys. An awful lot of bend, stretching and reaching for us old bones!! Especially when you're doing 600 - 900 cars daily with 2 crews. And, again, the majority of them are Thursday - Sat. morning, so lots of units crammed in a few days. Obviously, the younger guys bring their own set of problems for an employer. If 1 guy on the crew doesn't show up and you don't have a replacement, none of the crew can work. 2 guys can not do the job. The sprayer has to move too slow so he doesn't get too far ahead of the chamois dryer, etc.
The bigger part of the problem is the dealerships themselves. They want their cars clean for show, but don't appreciate the amount of motion it takes to get an entire lot done in a single day. We had a couple of these guys that would call us off if it was suppose to sprinkle the next day. Then a few who were use to paying $1 per car and couldn't see the value. Again, money can be made doing it. For us, it was too little profit and gobbled up a whole lot of payroll and labor pool. For someone starting out in the business that's looking for good cash flow and doesn't have high overhead yet, it's OK.
Larry L.
PWN TEAM - Moderator Emeritus
Yes,only one tho and it was enough for me to realize it wasn't the love I was looking for.There were no boards to go to find out what I was getting into and how much to charge.And to the life of me I cann't see anyone making any money charging under two dallars a car like some do.I charged four dallors at the time and it still wasn't enough money per hour to go though the hasle of car dealerships.Trying to keep employees on standby not knowing whether from week to week if a payday was coming or not isn't worth it to me.I think carlots are made for the blow and go joes that knows a dallor is a dallor.
5 Star Johnny
New Member
Larry - WOW...$4 per unit! That may have changed my mind about sticking with it. At 50 - 55 units per hour, we could have made enough money to justify the pain. But I also agree with the reality that you don't know if you're washing one day to the next. Doesn't matter how much you get per car if you don't wash em'!
kel - My opinion is that hot water is not necessary to wash CARS on a dealership lot. Remember, for the most part they just sit in one spot gathering dust, unless they're test driven. So, your not dealing with heavy dirt or grime, just washing off settled dust and ariborne dirt. In your case with trucks where there's attached road films, grease, etc., hot should help you tremendously, coupled with the proper cleaning agents. I would still caution you, however, that when the temperatures dip, the sudden change in temp. on cold metal & glass may cause calcification problems on the surfaces. Depends how hard the water is. You can even break the glass if you're not careful. Still, with doing 3 trucks at a time, you can probably control the rinse, etc. so spotting isn't such an issue.
kel - My opinion is that hot water is not necessary to wash CARS on a dealership lot. Remember, for the most part they just sit in one spot gathering dust, unless they're test driven. So, your not dealing with heavy dirt or grime, just washing off settled dust and ariborne dirt. In your case with trucks where there's attached road films, grease, etc., hot should help you tremendously, coupled with the proper cleaning agents. I would still caution you, however, that when the temperatures dip, the sudden change in temp. on cold metal & glass may cause calcification problems on the surfaces. Depends how hard the water is. You can even break the glass if you're not careful. Still, with doing 3 trucks at a time, you can probably control the rinse, etc. so spotting isn't such an issue.
drivewaysonly
New Member
For clarification: RO units work to reduce up to around 95% of the minerals that spot. But lets assume your water is very hard like many areas are. Range" 450 to 500 tds (total dissolved solids) thats what spots. So, if you remove 95% of 450..you will still have around 23 tds and anything over 8 or 9 tds will spot. If your area has hard water, you will need a DI unit for the final clean-up.
RO units add serious life to any DI set-up by reducing the need to regenerate the resin or replace the resin. It is this cost...reneg or replace...that adds up fast. since the RO unit reduces the amount of tds upstream from the DI unit, obviously RO units allow for longer DI life span.
To assume that simply RO will stop sooptting is faulty. also, soft water still spots. Only the spots are salt rather than calcium or iron or what-have-you.
Hope this helps and also hope I don't sound like a know it all. i just work alot with spot free rinsing for my type of cleaning and did tons of research.
RO units add serious life to any DI set-up by reducing the need to regenerate the resin or replace the resin. It is this cost...reneg or replace...that adds up fast. since the RO unit reduces the amount of tds upstream from the DI unit, obviously RO units allow for longer DI life span.
To assume that simply RO will stop sooptting is faulty. also, soft water still spots. Only the spots are salt rather than calcium or iron or what-have-you.
Hope this helps and also hope I don't sound like a know it all. i just work alot with spot free rinsing for my type of cleaning and did tons of research.