Red Baron
Active member
Hmmmmm. My wash has been closed for 2 days due to a big snow (for this area), and I haven't slept this good since...since I opened in 2005, I guess. 
Car Wash Closed - Sleeping Better???
- Thread starter Red Baron
- Start date
Greg Pack
Wash Weenie
I'm a chronic worrier and I too enjoy time when what's going on at the carwash is not in the back of my mind.
I close my SS bays on certain holidays. This year the rain started about 1 pm Christmas Eve. I shut the bays down and left the autos open. It's really nice to not have to worry about things.
A local operator closes one of his washes down at around 6-7 pm every evening. He claims the customers have adjusted to it and the numbers have not gone down. He does have the market to himself. At his other washes he closes the SS bays down at night during hunting season. I'm sure he loses some business, but he pays cleanup labor and doesn't think he's losing anything. Regardless of the bottom line,he'd rather not deal with the mess.
I close my SS bays on certain holidays. This year the rain started about 1 pm Christmas Eve. I shut the bays down and left the autos open. It's really nice to not have to worry about things.
A local operator closes one of his washes down at around 6-7 pm every evening. He claims the customers have adjusted to it and the numbers have not gone down. He does have the market to himself. At his other washes he closes the SS bays down at night during hunting season. I'm sure he loses some business, but he pays cleanup labor and doesn't think he's losing anything. Regardless of the bottom line,he'd rather not deal with the mess.
Red Baron
Active member
It got down to 9 degrees Friday night. I opened up Saturday when it got above freezing and in about 2 hours I had 2 SS customers, both of them made a mess. I shut right back down. That math doesn't work for me. And when the streets are still very slushy, a customer isn't there to acheive a clean car.
I'm here to provide a service but a little consideration would be nice.
I drove by a Lubbock car wash that evidently remained open Sarurday and 2/3 of his bays were trashed with mud and excessive ice that will be impossible to clean up until it warms up.
Ya know, I just get tired of expecting people to respect my property and the next customer who will use the bay. I think it's a societal problem - the me generation.
Waxman
Super Moderator
I.B. Washincars
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Of course that is a matter of opinion and everyone can run their business to suit themselves. Me, I never close. I'll take what the "sissy"
operators leave on the table for me. Seriously though, I don't want a customer to come in to wash their car and find the place closed when it's always been a 24/7 business. If that happens to the same customer more than once he is going to have the impression that "Wiz Wash" car wash is always closed and find someplace else to wash from then on. I know very few things get under my skin more than seeing one of those "Be back at whatever time" paper clocks when the place is supposed to be open. I don't wait for them, I just go someplace else.
Red Baron
Active member
I always wonder what it is the customer hopes to accomplish by washing his car then driving home on streets wet with the same salt he's trying to wash off. The conclusion I reached is that the ratio of car washers-to-mess makers swings wildly out of my favor when the streets are still wet.
MEP001
Well-known member
I've been tempted to do something drastic after a long period of rain for these same reasons, but I can't think of anything that would work. I'll spend two days shoveling mud and pressure-washing the entire lot over and over for a few people who spend a couple bucks to knock off mud. The worst was when someone shut down the last two clean bays AND the auto with one muddy truck, spent less than $10 to do it. I'm thinking about putting up signs stating that a $200 fee is required for "recreational mudders," since that's where most of the mud comes from.
Waxman
Super Moderator
I can see the point of '24/7' in some markets. For me it's about economics. It doesn't make sense to be open all night and heat the floor slab when it's 0F degrees and I'll take in $5. Am I really alienating customers who expect a 24/7 operation 365 days/year?
Bottom line is I am in business to turn a profit and during Winter months in New England, there are plenty of hours in the day for customers to wash in the daylight when tepms permit washing w/out icing the car all up.
Bottom line is I am in business to turn a profit and during Winter months in New England, there are plenty of hours in the day for customers to wash in the daylight when tepms permit washing w/out icing the car all up.
Red Baron
Active member
MEP, I really wish car wash owners would adopt that attitude more. I think that in a lot of ways car wash owners are still stuck in the 70s where anything goes at the car wash. When a mudder rips into me about my policies he'll likely hear:
* You're paying to use my equipment, not for me to be your maid service.
* I can't be here all the time to clean up big messes, and it's unfair to our many elderly customers to force them to trek through 3" of mud. Would you want your grandpa having to do that?
* When you track mud all over the parking lot it gets splashed onto the sides of the customers existing the automatic bay, which is unfair to them...and to me when they ask me for a refund.
I have felt guilty for being shut down the last 2 days, but some of that guilt was lessened when Saturday morning I drove by a car wash in Lubbock which stayed open after our 6" of snow, 3' drifts, and 9 degree temps. His place was freeking trashed! He had bays virtually clogged with 1' clumps of muddy ice that was frozen solid to the bay floor and will take hours to clean up, if it's possible at all to clean up without a warm up. In all liklihood some of his bays will be unusable longer than mine were by being closed for 2 days, because it isn't going to get warm enough to melt all that ice here for maybe a week.
Red Baron
Active member
My theory is that the kind of customers I "alienate" by not being open when the roads are slushy and it's 25 degrees, are the kind I want to go elswwhere anyway.
I've always thought that I'd gladly give up 5% of my revenue to have those 5% of my customers who create 95% of the messes/stresses go away.
Red Baron
Active member
Of course that is a matter of opinion and everyone can run their business to suit themselves. Me, I never close. I'll take what the "sissy"
I have an advantage in that I'm the only option in this town, pretty much. I have the only SS bays, and the only other IBA is a C-store friction wash that is closed anytime the temps get below 40. If I'm closed, he's been closed longer.
I've also noted that I'm much more likely to blow hoses and have other mechanical issues when it's very cold out.
It just dawned on me...those pesky mobile wash guys are nowhere to be seen when it's 30 degrees outside.
Greg Pack
Wash Weenie
I' live less than one mile from my only wash so it's not a big deal to me to alter my operating hours. As far as inconvenience for the customers, this is a bedroom community and even the McDonalds closes at 10pm. I have found of pattern of real messes during hunting season about two hours after dark on Sunday nights. So about 8 pm on Sundays if it's been real wet I'll shut down. As I was doing that the other night a guy drove up with what I think were four wheelers on a trailer. I'm not sure they were four wheelers because all I saw were just two giant blobs of mud. I sent him to Pat's wash.
Red Baron
Active member
Just this morning I checked the video to see who could have left muddy foot tracks to the changers and bays although I was closed last night. Yup, it was a pickup full of hunters with a trailer and 4-wheelers on behind. I guess the orange cones weren't clue enough that I was closed, they also had to untape the "Sorry, We're Closed Due To Weather/Maintenance" signs covering the coin slots...I guess just to see if the pumps would work even though we wanted to be closed. If they were muddy enough to leave a mess just from walking, you know they were going to trash the place
I have no respect for people like that who have no consideration for another guy's property. He can go take his dollar fifty elsewhere.
Jeff_L
Well-known member
Red Baron
Active member
I'm guilty of messing with the terminally stupid now and then. I saw a guy using the very slight fan pattern of the weep system to wash his whole car. I turned my camera monitor so I could watch him, then closed the ball valve to the weep system. He looked at the wand to see why the water stopped, shook it, then headed across the bay to put in back in the holder. Just before he got there, I turned the ball valve back on. Just as he got back to the other side of his car with the wand, I shut it off again. I did this several times...frankly I don't remember who gave up first, him or me.
