Rural Area Car Wash Profit/Loss Comps

[wrightwash]

Hello All,

My wife and I just recently purchased a car wash that had been in her family for quite some time. Unfortunately the previous owner passed away a few years ago and the wash has set vacant since, leading into some needed remodeling. We're about a month and a half into the remodel and I'm trying to calculate how much we should continue to invest before seeing profit potential. There's not much P & L data on this wash, most of that knowledge left with the previous owner. I gathered what I could initially to see general operating expenses. Is anyone running a wash with similar traffic counts that would be willing to share their P & L information with me?

5 Bay SS Car Wash (4 Covered Bays, 1 Open Bay)
2 Vacuums

Nearest competition:
5 Bay SS with 1 IBA (2.5 Miles Away)
4 Bay SS with 1 IBA (2 Miles Away, on the same Highway as our wash)

Traffic Count:

2 Miles West of Wash, Same HWY
AADT
2019: 6670
2018: 7429
2017: 7136

1 Mile East of Wash
AADT:
2019: 4558
2018: 4200
2017: 4443

General Expenses (Highest Monthly Rate @ Time of Operation 3 Years Ago)
Electrical: $190/month
Water: $110/month
Natural Gas: $130/month

 

[coinless]

Hi! We've acquired and remodeled and/or rebranded about 4 car washes in our local market, all in the last 2 years.

The last one we did was a wash that was really run down, but we found creative ways to keep the remodel cheap and really sharpen up the wash. We've seen a significant amount of business growth since (granted, it hasn't been long). We focused on cleaning up the general cleanliness of the site, chemical treatment on the walls, fresh paint, resurfaced the pavement, clear paint for traffic flow, replaced the old vacs, and a few other things. And we did a rebrand. We had one customer say, "You guys built this wash really fast!" I can share pictures if you'd like.

Do you mind me asking what you're doing for your remodels?

 

[getnbusy]

coinless, I see you listed alot of property repairs and some vacs. What did you do to make the carwash equipment perform better or clean the car better for the customer ? This is a real question, not sarcasm. Thanks