How to open a self-service car wash: is it a budget option?

AVTO-CLEAN

For the investor

Profitable business

At present, when the income of the majority of the population is declining and uncertainty about tomorrow’s economic well-being is growing, and investors are facing increased risks of financial losses, the self-service car wash business is the optimal investment instrument.

Self-service car wash is a relatively new type of business for Russia, which came to our country in 2011. Over the past few years, this business has proven its right to exist and harsh climatic conditions are not an obstacle to its development. An obvious fact in support of the above is the monthly avalanche-like increase in the number of self-service car washes in various regions of Russia.

The recently formed market niche is actively starting to be filled. According to experts, the market will actively grow over the next three to four years.

Advantages over other types of car washes

Self-service car wash, being an automated complex, allows you to do without personnel (washers and managers), which in turn significantly reduces the number of worries and problems associated with their maintenance and completely eliminates issues related to the quality of car washing.

In terms of the cost of the services provided, the time spent by the client and the convenience of using the service, no other type of car wash (manual, automatic) can compete with self-service car washes!

Washing a car at a car wash

A car wash is considered the most convenient way to remove dirt from the car body and windows. It can be contact or non-contact, but the result in any case must meet your expectations. Choosing the right car wash is not difficult. Here are a few nuances that you should pay attention to so as not to be disappointed in the quality of the service provided to you:

Boxes must be equipped with good lighting. It is important that car wash workers can clearly see which parts of the car to pay more attention to.
Don't go after cheap prices. Remember, a good car cleaning service cannot be cheap. After all, high-quality car washes use the best cosmetics and reliable equipment. Such cleaning services use two-phase washing, which is carried out according to European standards. It is extremely easy to compare costs and quality. Visiting the car wash is a maximum of four times a month. If the procedure is carried out efficiently, and the weather is dry outside, even less. Therefore, it is better to pay more but get excellent results. In addition, inexpensive car washes rarely employ experienced employees. There are no high-quality auto chemicals there either. This is a direct threat to the integrity of the car's paintwork.
Pay attention to compliance with the work technique. Knowing the basics of washing will help you control the quality of its performance. So, for example, non-contact should be applied to the body from the bottom up, and for manual manipulations only coarse sponges can be used, while circular movements are unacceptable, they must be straight. During contactless washing, wheels are washed manually, since it is rare that a worker will be able to clean them without mechanical impact.

If you are used to comfort, also pay attention to the presence of a cafe, Wi-Fi zone or a place to wait while your car is put in order. Not all car washes provide such a service.

How to wash a car at a self-service car wash

A self-service car wash is a way to get your car in order and spend less money. The cost of work directly depends on the number of modes. The procedure is performed in an equipped box without the participation of washing workers. All manipulations with the car are performed by the owner.

Most of these car washes use contactless equipment. But if the car owner wishes, manual techniques can be used.

Self-service car washes can accommodate up to six cars at once. The rooms where they are located are divided into separate boxes or delimited by partitions. The functions that are equipped with this type of sink vary depending on the availability of equipment. There are common modes that are considered standard. We are talking about pre-wash, main wash, rinsing and waxing. The final stage is drying and polishing. Interior cleaning is not provided at all self-service car washes. But where it exists, a special vacuum cleaner is provided.

To avoid disappointment after visiting a contactless car wash, be sure to read the instructions. It is available at every self-service point. Let's consider its points in detail:

Pre-washing takes no more than a minute. Do not forget that its task is not to wash away dirt, but to soften it. The car should be watered evenly from top to bottom.
The main wash is completed within a few minutes. The gun should be held straight so that the impact of the jet is uniform. You need to start with the front and back of the car, then wash the sides. The remaining parts of the machine should be washed from dirt and stains last.
Rinsing the car will take no more than a minute. This is not the final stage of washing. It is necessary in order to eliminate the remains of foam and chemicals.
Uniform waxing also takes no more than one to two minutes. You can exclude this mode from the check, and the payment will be reduced. But in this case, you will not be able to protect your car from dust and dirt. Apply wax evenly to the body, starting from bottom to top.
Drying involves covering the machine with demineralized water. Thanks to this liquid, the car dries faster. After complete drying, the car shines like new. By the way, this layer is applied from bottom to top to prevent streaks.

Competition

Nowadays, quite a lot of self-service car washes have appeared and more are constantly appearing. As a rule, any of the self-service car washes put into operation is a successful business. While self-service car washes are isolated facilities in cities, they are in demand, no matter what form they are, because in terms of the cost of services and ease of maintenance they have no equal. But investor interest in this type of business is growing every month, so in the very near future the competition among self-service car washes will be quite strong. This is already happening in St. Petersburg, where the number of self-service car washes is steadily approaching one hundred. Investors who will open the following facilities will take into account the shortcomings of already built car washes in order to lure car owners to themselves. Therefore, it would be right to try to take into account all the nuances as much as possible and immediately do it “as it should be” (especially since self-service car washes are objects, after the launch of which, it is quite difficult to redo anything).

How does a self-service car wash work?

The client arrives at the post, gets out of the car and makes payment at the machine. Payment is made in bills, coins, tokens and cards (this is determined by the investor), which can be purchased immediately. After this, the client selects a program and begins washing his car. The client chooses the washing time and programs independently. In most cases, washing a car takes 6-12 minutes. The pressure of the jet from the gun and the dimensions of the post are designed in such a way that it is difficult to accidentally splash yourself with the jet or get dirty with splashes. And this type of washing does not require special clothing or special shoes. At the end of the washing process, the client leaves the post to a specially designated area nearby, where he can wipe the car dry and/or vacuum it. The next client immediately arrives at the post. With such an organization, one post can handle up to 140 cars per day. But for the calculation, you should still take more average statistics: a 6-post car wash is 200-600 cars washed per day. A lot depends on the location of the car wash.

What is Self-Service or Self-Service Car Wash?

Do-it-yourself or self-service car wash are the same concepts that denote a way to wash a car yourself, using modern equipment and over a certain period of time. It looks like assembling furniture from Ikea.

How to use a self-service car wash, and what you need to wash your car well at a self-service car wash

the air temperature is not lower than 15 degrees below zero (according to statistics, the annual average temperature in the Moscow region fell below 15 degrees for only 20 days in 2014)
find and come to a car wash
buy tokens or put bills or coins into a bill-receiver (as a rule, the average bill for a self-service car wash is about 150 rubles, which is enough for 6-8 minutes of washing)

After payment, depending on the manufacturer, you will need to click on the program buttons, for example:

water with shampoo
water with foam
wax
polish
rinsing with osmotic water (specially purified water that does not leave streaks)

Should I wipe my car or not? The answer to this question depends on the quality of the water used. So, if the water is purified using demineralization (reverse osmosis), it is cleaner than a baby’s tear and will not leave any streaks or stains. In this case, it is not recommended to wipe the car, since this will remove the wax and protective coating.

New products for stationary self-service car washes at the moment are:

guns with foam generation, for supplying more aggressive foam, for better washing quality. This solution is good when your car is very dirty. Most manufacturers in Europe and the USA care about the environment and make neutral chemicals in the form of powdered foam that are not harmful to the environment. This requires more frequent visits to the car wash, adhering to the principle of “keeping the car clean.” Researchers from laboratories of leading manufacturers claim that this is more effective for the environment than washing your car once a year. By the way: it’s ideal to wash a car and you won’t be able to compete with manual washing and physical contact. The force behind the physical impact, that is, friction, for those who are not with a rag.

the devices themselves, made with the latest technology, when you don’t need to get out of the car, and washing is carried out contactlessly. Our company is the official dealer of the leading American manufacturer of such equipment, and soon we will show the first sample.

Staff

A self-service car wash is an automated system, and in European countries, as a rule, there are no personnel on site. An employee or owner only appears at the car wash periodically. However, in Russian realities, the constant presence of an operator is still desirable. His responsibilities include cleaning posts from debris and dirt left behind by clients, adding detergents, general “supervision” of the facility, plus consulting clients who are unable to figure it out on their own.

Since the self-service car wash only sells time, monitoring the ratio of the sold “product” to revenue is extremely simple. No theft!

How to wash your car cheaply and save money

If you decide to wash your car, then you have at least four options, not counting, of course, washing it yourself at the dacha with a bucket or hose. New trends are self-service washing, dry washing, nano-washing and contact portal and tunnel washing. As for cleaning the car yourself, in the city we do not recommend performing this operation in the designated areas. In Russian megacities this practice is prohibited, and fines can reach 3,000 rubles.

Wash it yourself

One of the fastest and most affordable options is to go to a self-service car wash. There are more and more of these in large cities today. Many of our readers have probably already experienced themselves as car washers. For those who do not know what it is, we will describe the scheme in general terms.

The self-service car wash is so called because there are literally no washers. You drive your car into the bay yourself, buy tokens from the cashier or from the machine, or, more often, send coins or bills to the car wash machine. You can then select different washing modes. Typically, a menu of five options is offered: pre-wash, main wash, rinse, wax, dry.

It's clear that the more you save on options, the dirtier your car will end up being. On the Internet you can come across advice from experienced people who manage to wash their car quite well, spending only 50-100 rubles on it. The secret lies in wiping the car around the perimeter with a sponge immediately after pre-washing (applying foam). However, car wash owners and car owners queuing up behind you may be unenthusiastic about such interventions. After all, whatever one may say, you are stealing their time.

If the goal is not to save as much as possible, then expect to get a more or less clean car in about 6 minutes of washing. The average cost of services is approximately 70 rubles for two minutes (water 1 minute - 20 rubles + foam 1 minute 50 rubles). Let's increase the time of using water five times (20 rubles x 5 minutes = 100 rubles) and limit ourselves to two soapings (50 rubles x 2 minutes = 100 rubles). As you can see, you can wash your car fairly well according to Moscow price lists for only 200 rubles if you wish. This is approximately half what they ask for at traditional “mid-range” car washes on the outskirts of Moscow.

Unfortunately, this type of sink also has its disadvantages. The main thing is that no matter how hard you try, there is a chance of getting dirty and wet. One careless movement, and splashes of water from the washing gun, and even more so - foam - will end up on your clothes and shoes. This is especially unpleasant in winter, when water instantly turns into an ice crust in the cold.

In winter, we also recommend spending money on coating the body with wax (more precisely, with an aqueous wax-based composition) - this option will protect the body and rims from chemical reagents, which municipal services have been generously watering roads with in recent years.

There is another useful option - the so-called final wash (on average - 30 rubles per minute). We are talking about washing the car with special demineralized water (osmosis), which contains substances that promote rapid drying of the body surface. Choose this option, and you will not need to rub the body dry with a rag or sponge. In addition, after applying osmotic water, there will be no white streaks left on the body after drying.

Here are a few more secrets for those who decide to master the secrets of self-washing.

You should wash the car from top to bottom, actively changing the direction of the jet and not bringing the gun close to the body.

At almost all such car washes, you can pause the flow of water or foam (there is a pause button) in order to wipe the car during a stop or go from the other side of the car to continue the procedure.

After applying the foam, pause for at least a couple of minutes. This will allow the detergent to come into better contact with the dirt.

At many self-service car washes, the concentration of the cleaning solution is low (this is the main deception). If you want to improve the result, add the car shampoo you brought with you.

However, what they won’t tell you at self-service car washes is that the pressure in the washing guns here is much lower than at classic car washes. This is done in order to minimize splashes and simplify the washing procedure. Partly due to this lack of pressure, dirt is less easily collected at self-service car washes.

Our final conclusion: self-service car washes are the choice for those whose cars are not very dirty. In any other case, it is better not to come here.

Wash without water

Photo: depositphotos.com

A type of self-wash is the so-called “dry wash” - a procedure for cleaning a car without water, in which special auto chemicals are used. The principle of its operation is based on intermolecular attraction between nanomolecules of the detergent and dirt particles. Such products came to Russia from America, but Russian enterprises are already producing analogues. When the composition is applied to the body, it quickly penetrates under contaminated areas, enveloping and separating contaminants. After this, all you have to do is wipe the body with a special microfiber. Do not use ordinary rags and napkins to avoid micro-scratches!

In Moscow and other Russian cities, there are a large number of companies offering mobile groups that will dry wash your car. The on-site cost will be approximately 500 rubles (Standard wash) and 800 rubles (Complex wash, which in addition to standard body cleaning also includes cleaning the glass from the inside, cleaning the trunk and interior with a vacuum cleaner, etc.).

The advantages of “dry washing” include the absence of stains on the body and the ability to clean up the car even in winter, without fear of icing. The disadvantages are also obvious. “Dry washing” does not allow cleaning the underbody and wheel arches. And the most unpleasant thing is that you are not insured against micro-scratches on the body, especially if your car is in a very dirty condition before the “dry” wash. If you wish, you can also purchase dry cleaning products and perform dry cleaning yourself. The price range for powder products ranges from 100 to 1000 rubles.

Nanowash

Photo: Mikhail Beznosov/RIA Novosti

Another new trend in the field of car cleaning is contactless robotic washing (without human intervention). The car is cleaned here by “robot arms” with nozzles for spraying water under high pressure (150 atmospheres).

Accordingly, due to the lack of friction, there is no damage to the car's paintwork. Thanks to numerous high-pressure nozzles, the session time for such a wash ranges from three to seven minutes, in other words, such washes have a high throughput and, accordingly, small queues. However, this format not only saves time for the client. The human factor is also excluded (the washer can scratch or wash poorly) and, as a result, you get the most minimal impact on the paintwork.

The software in the selection terminal allows the client to assemble the required washing mode like a constructor. The most popular services: contactless washing, express washing, waxing, bottom washing, soft water coating, drying (dryers with powerful motors).

If you need to wash away dirt in hard-to-reach places (for example, sand and clay from the bottom and wheel arches - water supply is also provided from below the car), then this wash is for you. In turn, spot spraying of detergents will give a good result in terms of uniformity of the cleaned surface. But, of course, there are also disadvantages. It is not always possible to remove stubborn dirt (for example, oil stains and insect marks) during the washing process.

Prices for such a service are about a third lower than in standard car washes. Express - 250 rubles, standard with waxing - 400 rubles.

Large brushes

Photo: depositphotos.com

Contact washing of a car with brushes is a scheme that came to the Russian market from the USA. This type of washing is very popular there because of its efficiency and reasonable cost. It is believed that the growing popularity of such car washes is due to the fact that in America most cars are leased, and accordingly, customers are not too concerned about micro-scratches on the body.

Car washes with brushes can be of tunnel and portal types. In the first case, when entering the washing area, the car stands on a conveyor, which moves a stationary car under a series of arches equipped with photocells and washing equipment. In the second case, the car, placed on a special platform, remains motionless. During the session, it is processed by equipment (brushes and nozzles) moving along guide rails.

The advantages of tunnel and portal car washes with brushes come down to high speed of service (washing is carried out in about five minutes), high quality of washing (due to the constant concentration of shampoos and chemicals), as a rule, round-the-clock operation of the establishment and minimal influence of the human factor.

Customers of such car washes should, however, take into account that if the car has a body kit, additional mirrors, antennas, all this may come off during the washing process. These same elements prevent the most thorough washing of the body.

What about the aforementioned micro-scratches? You have a chance to get them if you come to the car wash with a heavily dirty car, and also if the brushes used in the car wash are worn out.

A visit to this type of car wash is ultimately justified by the price - from 200 to 600 rubles, depending on the options chosen (treating the car with hot foamed wax, washing the underbody, washing off bitumen from the thresholds of the car, additional cleaning of rims, etc.).

Equipment from various suppliers

There are quite a lot of offers on the market from various suppliers. Of course, every sandpiper praises its own swamp. It is important which components are used in the equipment of each system. There is a risk that an investor may receive a household pump under the name “pressure boosting system”. Or, for example, the manufacturer installs a pump whose service life is 2500 hours. If the car wash is well loaded, this resource will last for a year of work. With a standard (1 year) warranty, this means that after a year you will have to replace not only the pump, but also the entire assembly at your own expense. And this is very expensive. Therefore, it is important to consider not only the cost of the equipment, but also its components.

How to wash your car at a self-service car wash

In order not to spoil the appearance of the car, it is necessary to approach this procedure prepared, since the operating time of the machine is limited, it may turn out to be unnecessarily costly.

You must first remove all unnecessary items from the interior. When the water supply starts, there will be no time to think about bags and jackets. Everything will get wet and may completely lose its appearance.
The rugs are placed on the table or hung from a special device. It is better to do this in advance, since the amount of water is limited and there may not be enough for them.
The first layer of soap is poured onto the car and the mats and left to soak for ten minutes. Don't try to wash the entire car at once - it won't work. Dry dirt is very difficult to remove from paint. It would be better to wait for it to soften.
Next, wash the resulting emulsion with plenty of water.
Wipe all surfaces with synthetic suede. If this is not done, then the first gust of wind will cover the car with fresh dust.

The nozzle of the gun should be no closer than 15-20 centimeters from the rubber parts. Otherwise you risk losing them. A jet of water under a pressure of 180 atmospheres is able to cut off the sealing rubber from the door.