Looking at buying local car wash

[TNCraig]

DO NOT BELIEVE THEM. They are completely full of crap. They are no more "car wash gurus" than I am Pope. Those "gurus" have convinced a lot of people to make business decisions that have caused them to lose everything. I know for a fact that several are leveraged up to their eyeballs(and beyond). Some that still have videos floating around are bankrupt. Here's a dose of reality: I get calls repeatedly from people who have listened to those "gurus", bought a wash, and quickly found out they didn't realize what they were getting into. I can assure you that any estimates you get you need to add at least 25% to so that you can cover all the unforeseen things that will come up.

As a manufacturer. I'm all about selling people new equipment. As several on this board can attest to I'm a filthy, rotten capitalist pig...............but I have to sleep at night. I'm not saying you absolutely won't make money with this site, but I am saying you really need to temper your expectations.

Yeah, most things are too good to be true lol. Mainly wanted to restore a local car wash for the community to go to, but it seems as though the owner has let it go for far too long. Building a new one a town over was an idea, but “go big or go home” doesn’t seem like a wise choice in the car wash line of business. Washworld gave me a somewhere reasonable quote for what I was thinking, but I’ll do more research and sit on all of this for awhile. Thanks for the advice

 

[Dan kamsickas]

Yeah, most things are too good to be true lol. Mainly wanted to restore a local car wash for the community to go to, but it seems as though the owner has let it go for far too long. Building a new one a town over was an idea, but “go big or go home” doesn’t seem like a wise choice in the car wash line of business. Washworld gave me a somewhere reasonable quote for what I was thinking, but I’ll do more research and sit on all of this for awhile. Thanks for the advice

What I would tell you is to spend a lot of time on this forum and, by all means, don't be afraid to ask questions. By and large, most on here want you to succeed. As a filthy, rotten capitalist I have a selfish goal of car wash operators being successful because broke ones don't have any money to spend with me. A couple of your responses rubbed people the wrong way, myself included, because we've either seen the mistakes others have made or have actually lived them. We may come off as a bunch of cynical, jaded, grumpy old farts but we've earned it.

 

[Randy]

Ok here’s my take on the car wash. $80K isn’t a lot of money. If you truly want to get into the car wash business buy it. This is what I would do. Clean to place up and I mean spit shine everything, new decals, new signs, new face plate on the ACW, new buttons on the ACW, Cryptopay Tap on the equipment, fresh paint, get rid of the ugly blue. What I wouldn’t do is replace the roof, there are a few loose panels, but for the most part it doesn’t look bad, it needs some love. I wouldn’t replace the pumping equipment, fix whatever isn’t working. I wouldn’t replace the concrete, slap some concrete patch on the big cracks and call it good for now. And then when you get all done with putting lip stick on the old pig raise the prices to a 2025 level. Then do other repairs as you get funds from the car wash, I would sink a ton of money into it unless it takes off, which it probably won’t.