Time to bite the bullet

[robtl]

At one wash there are 3 water wizards, 2 of them are one year older than the third, the two older ones are starting to wear out after many ,many washes, they have drive wheels wearing,drive motors and gears singing loudly, all the hoses are worn and bursting, electrical parts going often.
We do about 95% maintenance in house, The question is, ???
With the economy like it is do you buy new and upgrade, keep fixing-up old machines, or maybe lease new equip.
Business is still good but what about the economy, should we let it be the deciding factor?

 

[Tom Thumb]

If you are happy with the performance of the WW I would spend my money on rebuilding them, I don't know of another touchfree that will perform any better than a WW in good shape.
Most parts are interchangeable and they are not that hard to rebuild.
Just my opinion.

 

[dclark3344]

In my many years of maintenance experience at Goodyear Tire Factory we would on a regular basis take equipment down to do a total overhaul. Some of that equipment was over 50 years old and runs 354 days a year 24 hours a day as hard and fast as possible. My WWI is 6 years old I have just about completed replacing all the hoses, Drive rollers and (upgraded SS bearings), proxes and wiring, nozzles, drive motors and gear boxes, and the boom hinge bearings. I had already upgraded my main wires with TPC quality wire. I have repaced all the hydrominders, some gauges, check valves, and chemical hoses with foot valves, and procon pumps. Sure was a lot cheaper than buying a new unit and has eliminate a lot of unexpected down time. I also have the Winter Wizard and have impoved the operation by taking foam pipe insulation, Spliting it in half and then liquid nail it to the copper pipe on the rail. This keep the heat next to the rail instead of going out to the atmosphere.

 

[Greg Pack]

I also have the Winter Wizard and have impoved the operation by taking foam pipe insulation, Spliting it in half and then liquid nail it to the copper pipe on the rail. This keep the heat next to the rail instead of going out to the atmosphere.

Great idea, Mr. Clark!



Rob, I have had 4-first generation wizards, then 2- 2.0s. As cantankerous as the 1.0s could be at times, the 2.0s can be even more difficult. The presoak is much faster but misses the backs of the car on windy days. The tri-foam show is a big step backwards. For an operator like yourself that knows chemistry and tweaks the wash the 2.0 doesn't really put out a better wash than the first generation wizards. It's maybe 1 minute faster, but (aside from wheel brushes) the quality is identical.

I know a guy that has close to 250K cars on his first gen wizard and it's still going strong. He is a very aggresive PM guy- More than he needs to be. For example- he replaces pumps seals annually "whether they need it or not" Downtime for him is minimal.

I think for about 10K you could do a pretty significant overhaul on the gantry and increase reliability significantly. You could get another three years or so and that would give you breathing room to how the economy improves. Maybe even try an upgrade the presoak system to a larger pump to improve coverage and speed the presoak passes up.

In my opinion, the real question is "do your customers need to see a new auto?" If you have good business and happy customers now, the new washes will probably not pencil out.

 

[Waxman]

Another idea:

Along with a mechanical freshening up, you could add decals to the gantry to spruce it up. I was thinking of doing this next year.

 

[robtl]

Hey guys,
I knew I could get lots of good advice here, it has me thinking in a different mode, all I could see is $ $ $ going out.
Now I should start getting together a sum of parts for a spring overhaul of the gantry and feed hoses
Thanks all

 

[robtl]

Oh yes on the rail heat being covered with foam, we looped the pipe around the end and ran it back up the other side also so both sides are heated, this really helped.