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Friction vs Touch Free - Rural Area

jjtimmer

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Hi,

New to the industry and evaluating a first time project for a car wash. Partner and I are looking at a rural area. Town is ~2500, and 5 mile radius of ~13,000. Traffic count of a 5250. (just providing those items as context).

We would want to do an in-bay automatic but are trying to determine if a friction machine or a touch free machine makes more sense. Our potential strategy is to emphasize wash quality to draw in customers, as our other few competitors have lower quality touch free machines. This would seem to point to a friction setup making more sense.

But we're trying to evaluate whether it would provide enough of an uptick in terms of perceived quality for the extra cost. Not to mention higher potential for damage claims and higher maintenance costs, etc.

Just wondering if anyone has had any luck with doing an in-bay auto with friction in a rural area such as ours. One concern I have is that we wouldn't have enough traffic to justify charging a premium for a higher quality wash. But if it works elsewhere, it might be worth considering further. Thanks.
 

$!cmad3k

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Why not a combo unit if you have the budget. The autec ev1 and istobal flex 5 are the two we install.
 

Waxman

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how many automatic car washes does a town of 5000 really need? Low quality touch free car washes can be adjusted to clean very well. That could be a problem with the chemicals. Maybe they don't have a water softener. Maybe their maintenance is not good and all nozzles are not working properly.

I'm not sure I would invest $1 million to compete against that many other washers in a town that small…
 

Greg Pack

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I won't get into your market size and project suitability but I would listen to some of the previous posters and step carefully. With existing operations touchless I'd opt for a friction unit. You'll get a consistently cleaner car and a good modern friction unit is pretty safe. The amp sensing ability of the brushes on my unit (Istobal)recognizes hazards pretty well and backs the brushes off, or cancels the brush pass altogether if too much restriction is sensed. Damage claims with a good unit should be minimal, and the savings in chemical will offset any claims by a wide margin. At one location I've washed close to 27K cars and my total paid damage claims have been one side view mirror and a rear wiper arm. This is a a upper income suburb though so most of the cars are newer.
 
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