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Adding a Ceramic

C

Car Wash Man

Active member
Hello everyone, I'm currently looking at adding a ceramic to our carwash. Looking for everyone opinion between two products we are debating by JBS. Here are the links for both of them. Also would you recommend adding the ceramic as an upcharge that a customer can add to each package? Or have it solely on our top wash? Any help would be greatly appreciated as we have never had any type of ceramic in our wash before.

Ceramic Finish Clear Coat - 5 Gallon | JBS Industries | 10-CC-5

Using a unique formulation, JBS' Ceramic Finish Clear Coat imparts durability and shine into any car's finish!
www.kleen-ritecorp.com www.kleen-ritecorp.com

 
We use the JBS Ceramic Clearcoat and Sealant. They are OK, but you need to watch them as we find that they sometimes gel in the container (and all our chemicals are on a wood platform away from the concrete floor). We will probably move toward the Chemquest Ceramics in the future.
 
washnshine said:
I’ve had great luck with Simoniz and Quest ceramics. Neither one uses mineral seal oil.
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I saw that simoniz has a ceramic sealant on kleenrite. Saw it was 225 for 5 gal. I just don't want to have to high of an upcharge for the product for the customer, as our area is very price conscious. Our wash prices are currently, $7,$10,$12
 
Roz said:
We use the JBS Ceramic Clearcoat and Sealant. They are OK, but you need to watch them as we find that they sometimes gel in the container (and all our chemicals are on a wood platform away from the concrete floor). We will probably move toward the Chemquest Ceramics in the future.
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How fast are you using your ceramics? We live in the snowbelt so our one bay wash is usually pushing an average of 100 cars through a day during winter time.
 
At the beginning of the year I put most of my top wash features into the middle wash and then raised the middle wash price to what I was charging for the top wash. For my top wash I added ceramic and focused on that benefit and charged a nice premium. Sales this year seems good, but weather was favorable too. Also look at your Express competitors. In my market they've jacked up their top and middle prices too so even though I had a large price increase, they increased more.
 
We recently took out one of our two Kondors and replaced one this year, and will do the other next year with a laser Wash 360 at one of my locations. We kept our same previous 3 packages but added a 4th package with ceramic and a 3rd pass of Presoak on the new machine and people love it. Our top Wash at $18 accounts for about 48% of sales on just that machine and 29% of sales over all. With our current auto cashiers we do not have the option of upgrades but it doesn’t seem like people care or they just automatically choose the top Wash. I should mention we use all Lustra products, and seem to have had positive results.
 
IMO it's all about marketing. You may already have experienced this. Put Armor all next to some other protectant in a Vender and see what sells faster no matter if it is "Better" than Armor All. Now, when it comes to premium protectants and Coatings what has more consumer awareness, Rain X, Simonize, JBS etc.
 
Earl Weiss said:
IMO it's all about marketing. You may already have experienced this. Put Armor all next to some other protectant in a Vender and see what sells faster no matter if it is "Better" than Armor All. Now, when it comes to premium protectants and Coatings what has more consumer awareness, Rain X, Simonize, JBS etc.
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That is true. I think there is also the performance factor. Once customers get a quality finishing treatment - like ceramic or graphene, and they see and feel the difference, they will become repeat customers for that product/package. Of course you have to get them to buy it for the first time and that is where your marketing comes in to play. The old school triple foams and sealer waxes just didn’t make as big a difference in the appearance and feel of the finishes, and probably were not as attractive to purchase as frequently.
 
Kk131795 said:
We recently took out one of our two Kondors and replaced one this year, and will do the other next year with a laser Wash 360 at one of my locations. We kept our same previous 3 packages but added a 4th package with ceramic and a 3rd pass of Presoak on the new machine and people love it. Our top Wash at $18 accounts for about 48% of sales on just that machine and 29% of sales over all. With our current auto cashiers we do not have the option of upgrades but it doesn’t seem like people care or they just automatically choose the top Wash. I should mention we use all Lustra products, and seem to have had positive results.
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Curious as to why you took out one of your Kondor's? We have enjoyed ours since putting it in except the wear items that need to be replaced ever so often.
 
Car Wash Man said:
Curious as to why you took out one of your Kondor's? We have enjoyed ours since putting it in except the wear items that need to be replaced ever so often.
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They were running fine just old and outdated if you wanna say it. At two of my other sites are the 360’s and recently picked up two more sites and they had the Kondors. It was more a peace of mind kind of thing so all of the machines across my 4 sites will be the same for parts purposes. As well as the Kondors didn't have 3x foam or anything fancy, they were bare bones and wanted more customer appeal.
 
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