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Friction or Touchless? What do customers want?

Mac,
maybe you need to get off the tequila, lol being in this business for 22 yrs with a full service conveyor wash, 2 multi bay locations with friction and touchless side by side, i can assure you that with the right chemical a mitter cleans extremely well and i don't care what kind of system you have not all bugs and bird **** will come off in any automatic unless you scrub them off by hand!!!
 
“When I have 7 cars they have 1. When I have 10 they have 2.”

Maybe it’s that your wash is slower than the other wash so long waiting line forms.

When waiting line for in-bay is 7 long, you are not washing all the cars you can.

You can’t make up tomorrow for what doesn’t get done today. Ask a conveyor operator.

“You tell me what customers want:”

I don’t think they would prefer waiting in line for a half hour for a 10 year old touch-less (so good the company went out of business) to an express conveyor or express in-bay nearby.

I believe most of your customers (including wand users) would drive across the street.

That's a real world observation in many markets.

Reportedly, $0.74 of every dollar spent on commercial car washing is at a conveyor site whereas $0.07 is spent on wands, $0.10 is spent on touch-less in-bay, and $0.09 is spent on friction in-bay.

“The customers have spoken.”
 
To the original question, I think it depends on if you are a voyeur or a hands on kind of person.
 
not every market can support a conveyor car wash. i don't see the r.o.i. in a small town.

my town is 9k population. competitor's is 11k.

competitor is same wash time as me.

they had been closed for a decade then re-opened with a new friction unit.

i know friction is great because i use it every day ( by hand ) to wash cars for detailing. not knocking it at all. just relating a story about how a little touch free is out selling the nearest automatic competitor 6-8 to 1.

i think that says more good things about touch-free and my admittedly old in bay than it says bad things about them.

If and when I refurb my IBA it will be with a Washworld Razor. Then look out!
 
Waxman said:
not every market can support a conveyor car wash. i don't see the r.o.i. in a small town.

my town is 9k population. competitor's is 11k.

competitor is same wash time as me.

they had been closed for a decade then re-opened with a new friction unit.

i know friction is great because i use it every day ( by hand ) to wash cars for detailing. not knocking it at all. just relating a story about how a little touch free is out selling the nearest automatic competitor 6-8 to 1.

i think that says more good things about touch-free and my admittedly old in bay than it says bad things about them.

If and when I refurb my IBA it will be with a Washworld Razor. Then look out!
Click to expand...

You get em Waxman!

I know when I have to do maintenance or my softgloss is down a good majority of my customers will drive away even though I have touch free available they just love that system to no end, so when I decide to pull thy trigger on a new friction system I have my eyes set on a overhead unit either D&S or Washworld Profile the days of having a gantry system on the ground are done for me for so many reasons that I will get carpal tunnel writing about it.
 
I have been touch less for 16 years. Just added a friction unit a few weeks ago and there has been a significant uptake in the friction unit. I am not sure if it is because it is new or how well it cleans. Will be tracking the usage as pollen season begins.
 
I am running eight water wizard 1.0 and like them a lot. One of my ww1.0 will hit 250,000 washes sometime this year and still going strong. Go Touchfree.
 
Sorry terminator, I just go by what I see in the field. There are five Tuffy auto service places by me, and at one time all had the Autec machines. All were removed within two years. They simply didn't clean well.
 
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