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Hello, my name is Marshall Lane and I’m new to this whole world. I purchased a 6 bay SS car wash after it had been closed for almost 2 years. “Previous owner had some tax issues” So I got tired of seeing this carwash for sell and decided what the heck. How hard could it be right? So first thing was first I needed power and electricity. Got them turned on. Since it had been closed for so long people had robbed every gun, brush and vacuum hose from the place. I wanted to see if the hard equipment operated first. So I cycled all of the coin acceptors in the bays and I got water on all settings and soap from the foamy hoses great!! Cycled all vacuums. I have 4 of those and 3 of the 4 worked perfectly. The last one my breaker would stay tripped diagnosed to be one of the motors was shorted. Replaced the motor and flipped the breaker and vacuum stayed running without quarter pulses. Switched around some parts from another working vacuum and I think I have it narrowed down to a bad timer. Part on order. Powered up my change machine and opened it up and found almost all the internal moving parts to be missing but found them scattered around my pump room. Installed everything and got an error code of ck L something I can’t remember what it said. But upon my excellent search skills of google found that the LED holder was weak. I ordered 3 just to have a couple extra and kept getting the wrong part in. Finally called Kleen Rite and spoke to someone and found their inventory was incorrect they would get me the right part out right away. 10 days later change machine is up and running. I did get an error code of check stacker before I got everything working and found something to be going on with the foam in the bill stacker. I still really don’t know how that all goes together but I have it working and accepting bills and giving correct change. So all my hoses, guns,wands,foamy brushes with handles,vacuum hoses just arrived and are in need of being installed. Sumps were filled to the top but I rented an excavator and cleaned them out. The metal grating over the sumps were trashed and so I ordered the composite ones from Kleen Rite and cut them down and they are installed. The last two things I really need to tackle now are my fragramatics machine is in rough shape and I didn’t get a key to be able to open it up and no idea how to tell which key to order and I want to install CC readers in the bays been looking at the crypto pay.
 

Car_Wash_Guy

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Can those fiberglass grates support a vehicles weight? Especially at that span?

ETA:

Looks like you have a nice project/hobby/job there. Good luck.
 
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If a vehicle parked all the way to one side it may only get about a foot onto the grating and there is 4 inches of support under the grating on the edges.

It’s definitely kept me busy I think another month or two and I will be up and running.
 

washnshine

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Congratulations and good luck, Marshall! Sounds like you’ve done all the right things to get the place going again!
 

Rfreeman

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Congrats Marshall my introduction to car washing was very similar in that I purchased a 6 bay + 1 iba that had been foreclosed for 2.5-3 years. The wash itself was only about 10 years old so the structure was great the equipment was in good shape but only 1 SS bay worked on the lot everything else was trashed by the homeless. Took some elbow grease and parts but got everything up and running and business slowly followed....the best part of it is that I got hands on training how everything worked which sounds like your doing and that will go a long way in helping you run a successful car wash! Keep us updated and good luck.
 
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Congrats Marshall my introduction to car washing was very similar in that I purchased a 6 bay + 1 iba that had been foreclosed for 2.5-3 years. The wash itself was only about 10 years old so the structure was great the equipment was in good shape but only 1 SS bay worked on the lot everything else was trashed by the homeless. Took some elbow grease and parts but got everything up and running and business slowly followed....the best part of it is that I got hands on training how everything worked which sounds like your doing and that will go a long way in helping you run a successful car wash! Keep us updated and good luck.
Thanks I’m learning new things every day. Things I never thought I would ever need to know. I will definitely keep y’all updated.
 
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