Single bay stand alone automatics

[lighthousecarwash]

I've been toying with the idea of expanding my locations and I'm intrigued by the thought of just having a single bay automatic on a busy corner with no self serve bays. I would like to have a cookie cutter design that I could implement at various locations. My guess is that it would be similar to what c-stores do. Does anyone have this setup and has it been good business or just so-so? My thought is to be on every side of town without a huge investment in multiple bays at each location. Thoughts?

Thanks
Lighthouse

 

[chaz]

I've not done this. I have seen at some point, double autos. Never seen a single

 

[APW]

I'm building one now as we speak. It is one IBA and a shelter beside it with three vacuums. I should be open in a month.

 

[rph9168]

I know an operator that did pretty well with a few of these in Florida. He built most of them in shopping centers so I think they were not officially free standing since they were within a shopping area.

 

[washnshine]

That is an interesting concept - not just the single bay idea, but to be located on every side of town with a uniform building package.

You'd probably want to check out some of those pre-fab buildings and integrated equipment and building set ups. Autec and some other companies have what they call and "in bay express" - it takes a lot of the functions off of the machine to increase throughput. Not only are the dryers drive through, but the sealer wax, rinse and spot free arches are drive through, as well as some functions at the beginning of the wash like presoak, tire cleaner and triple foam. The rollover unit basically only performs the cleaning while the car is stationary, and the customer drives through the rest of the chemical, rinse and drying process.

 

[robert roman]

The best free-standing, single in-bay location I’m aware of generates sales of around $200,000.

However, a 1,000 or 1,200 SF building looks pretty small when nothing else is standing around or beside it.

So, don’t go cheap or people won’t use it.

Next,

“My thought is to be on every side of town without a huge investment in multiple bays at each location.”

This is a different location problem than solving for one site.

What makes for a good single in-bay site? Typically, a small, irregularly shaped piece of land that is not suitable for most other retail purposes.

Without competing land use, such property has very low intrinsic value making it good candidate to buy or lease.

If the site has sufficient market potential, location decisions are needed for store size, layout and implemented services.

If the goal and objective is to develop a network of stores (every side of town), the first level of decision making involves investment model and network expansion - how many stores to build, in what period time and where.

If the zone of influence is viewed as a box with four sides the problem becomes could the market support four more stores, one on each side or quadrant.

If so, is single in-bay best business model to accomplish this?

And so forth.

One of the sites the mentioned guy in Florida has is shaped like a piece of pizza (V). I’ve been told this wash does pretty good.

I also know a single in-bay site in county north of me, that doesn’t wash many cars.

Principal difference is market. The county north of me is known as $3.00 carwash market.

People don’t have a lot of money, lots of car washes for sale.

Hope this helps.

 

[lighthousecarwash]

Almaprowash, did you find a homerun location or something with lots of rooftops around it? I don't think this has to be in a huge commercial high visibility area but I really don't know.

Lighthouse

 

[APW]

Robert actually described it to a T. I bought a irregular shaped piece of land between two red lights. It's on a four Lane highway across from a Burger King and my property joins driveways with a Verizon. The lot is .36 and in a triangular shape that really was no good for any thing else. I bought the lot for $45,000 and the traffic count is a little over 15,000 cpd. This new site is the same layout as my other location. My other location has a 4 bay SS with a stand alone IBA and vacuum shelter right beside it that we built when we bought the SS. This new site is a mirror image of the other one we built. Only difference is we really dolled it up with tunnel fixtures, canopies, and LED lit menu signs. I'll post pics as soon as I am finshed.