Quote:
Originally Posted by CAN 217
i guess i'm not that anal about my cars. i've never had a problem with any of the car washes i like (there are some that i have tried and will never go back). i tend to own cars for +10 years at a time and although i love the way my cars look, i care more about how they feel when i drive. besides, i like to wash my cars regularly. good detailors cost $100 a pop. to do that regularly is a waste of money.
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I am an owner operator of a large carwash including 8 Self-Serve Bays and 1 Touchless automatic. I also have a Z4MC
There many misconceptions about carwashes and detailing, so I'll try to tackle a few.
First, Touchless automatics. For a Touchless to work, you need a good machine that is setup properly and good chemicals (soaps, dry agents, hyper beadants). Big oil companies generally do a terrible job (IMO) as there is not one knowledgeable person who can set up, monitor and maintain the wash. So problems in quality are abundant and how they operate has many process problems. For example, Esso washes. The manager/franchisee has a $ allocation for maintaining the wash day to day (small repairs). Anything over $2K (I believe) Esso will pay...so there is no incentive to fix anything until it really breaks. They also contract chemical providers on a per/car charge. So say the contract is 15cents per car, Esso will only pay the chem provider 15 cents per car. It's very competitive and very hard for the chem companies to make money with these guys, so corners are cut and cleaning performance drops. Big Oil companies are also big on throughput, so pushing cars through fast is very important and that too cuts cleaning results.