Flex wands and flex holders?

The wash that I've just finished renovating came with rigid lances and wall mount gun holders (mounted 45 degrees pointing toward the meter box).

In the first year that I owned this wash I replaced maybe 3 guns. All of them were situations where somebody snagged a spoiler, ladder, headache rack, etc. and snapped the lance off the gun when they drove off.

In the past six weeks I've replaced 5 guns, all broken off as described above. I've watched all of them on camera and it's not a boom issue. These dumbasses just aren't paying attention. The boom swings back to the wall and the hose stays draped over something on their car.

Also, my wash doesn't really have a "way in" and "way out" of the bays. I've got entrances coming from both sides of the lot with vacs on both sides of the bays. People are constantly pulling in to the bays from both directions, so remounting the holders to face the drive-out side won't really solve anything.

I know since Covid that I've inherited a lot of new customers from the tunnels that are looking to save money. Maybe that's where all these gun break off's are coming from because they don't know how to use a SS wash? Who knows? But I'm getting sick of buying and replacing guns and I'm looking into options.

I don't have any experience with flex wands but can see how they may possibly (sometimes) slide out of the holders without snapping, or am I wrong about that that?

The flex gun holders seem like a good idea, but I'm a little leary of anything "spring loaded" mounted at vandal/idiot height.

Any feedback? Appreciate your input.

Some of the spring holders are junk - the spring relaxes and the holder sags at 45 degrees from the wall. D&S makes really good ones, just make sure there's a rubber bumper around the top so it doesn't beat the wall up. I have no trouble with rigid wands and holders, but I have them pointed away from the meter box. The boom is tilted so with no weight it swings to the wall with the holder but toward the opposite corner, and the weight of the hose is enough to pull the boom to 90 degrees from the wall. The booms need to swivel easily.

Klean I have a similar problem and they were breaking the discharge fitting in the gun. My holders are in the middle of the wall pointing away from the meter box. My guys take the boom down each month to make sure it's greased and the boom swivels easily for the customer and when the gun is put up the boom swings back to the wall. All this and still they still break them. I tried flex wands and it seemed to help some but now I added breakaway fittings so it breaks there vs. the discharge fitting.....what do you do?

FWIW I use standard 18" wands but I keep a few 20" so if the discharge fitting gets broken I screw the 20" wand straight into the gun. It saves me about $5 over replacing the discharge fitting and it ends up a little bit stronger.

D & S flex gun holder with flex gun. Very few problems since I changed over at least 20+ years ago.

MEP001 said:

Some of the spring holders are junk - the spring relaxes and the holder sags at 45 degrees from the wall. D&S makes really good ones, just make sure there's a rubber bumper around the top so it doesn't beat the wall up. I have no trouble with rigid wands and holders, but I have them pointed away from the meter box. The boom is tilted so with no weight it swings to the wall with the holder but toward the opposite corner, and the weight of the hose is enough to pull the boom to 90 degrees from the wall. The booms need to swivel easily.

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Who sells the D&S flex wand holders, doesn't look like you can order from them direct?

The only D&S distributor I know of is way out east toward Bryan. I'd call D&S, maybe they can recommend someone closer.

Call them direct and see if they’ll sell them to you.

I only use the spring wand holders. This time of year with all the travelers I see more snagged guns etc but the spring wand holders eliminate about 90% of the problems.