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Tire shine

Manny Chemical guys have been working on this ofr years. NO of it works well. The issue is the tire shine products have silicone bases to them and will coat the hoses in the boom and cause problems with SFR and other products. I did use a separate drop hose years ago with foam tire shine from Armoral. work well but is no exspensive to dispense like normal products.
 
Wouldn't it make more sense to do something like this at a detail/vac island instead of in the bay? I am in the process of building a windshield washer fluid dispenser and I think you could do the same thing with the tire shine. I would think that doing this might increase in bay detailing which could tie up a bay upwards of 20 minutes.
 
Just for fun I rigged up the shampooer pump to one of the fragrances on the gun and put Armor-All to the pump. I got very even coverage and was able to do all four of my tires with about half a 4-oz. bottle. I also wrote a program for a PLC that can control based on the length of time the trigger is pulled so customers would get for example one minute of spray, and five minutes to use it, with a one-minute alert before it runs out.

Armor-All is currently $22.75/gallon from Kleen-Rite, so if you vend 4 oz. at $2 each from a spray vendor, your cost would be 40? less than vending a 4 oz. bottle at the same price. Cost would halve if you could order a 55 gal. drum.
 
Sounds like that could be a pretty lucrative profit center. After I get done with the windshield wiper fluid center, I might have to give this a try.
 
There are at least two machines on the market for SS tire shine. They may be pricing compared with DIY machines but they do have a professional look and the R&D is done already.

David
 
IMO, leave the tire shine out by the vacs. It'll create a too-slippery floor in your ss wand bays!
 
Bubbles,

I too believe the tire shiner to be too messy :(

But, I also have been looking at a SS windshield washer fluid station. They have some around here that have a ball valve and you fill your own gallon container for $2. But, I'd like to have one on a coin box and a solenoid, with a hose to fill the car's reservoir directly (or to a container). What's your plan?
 
I believe there was a tire shine option on combo vacs a while back. If it worked then it probably still would be an option. I am not sure where the best place is but most of the people I see applying tire shine on their own are doing it in the bay. I also wonder what affect having tire shine in the bays would have on sales in the vending machine.
 
if your need is to do it on an existing vac / Combo vac. I have a PLC program written to allow converison of a fragramatics Vac/Fragrance machine to add a third function. We used it for a Diskin Systems blower but could be easily adapted for the Armorall as MEP did

Zack
 
Blendco has both an in-bay tire shine system and a stand-alone system for mounting in the vac area. It has proven to be easy to use for the customer with good margins for the owner.
 
BigLeo: I am doing the same thing with the windshield washer fluid that I did with the air machine. It is basically the same design just pumping fluid instead of air. I had a friend fab me up a SS box that can handle 3-5 gallon containers so that I can dispense different types of washer fluid depending on the season. Once I get it done, I will post some pics.
 
For several years I had a AA spray vendor which I nbelieve was made by Magic Mist, the same company that makes the air freshener machines. (I still have it but it is no longer in service)

It used the same air compressor / venturi principle as the air freshener machines with an elec pushbutton on the gun connected to the solenoid in the machine.

It worked OK, the timer was a pain as was the cabinet locking system. The trigger switch was also a pain. Biggest drawback was that there seemed to be a lot of product on the ground, which made a mess causing it to be slippery and creating a sticky wet dirt over time that customers stepped in a dragged into their car. It was due to the drawbacks that I stopped using it. Maybe I can post a photo.
 
I can see build-up as a problem. We have a large covered vacuum area, and it gets pretty nasty from customers' use of tire dressing. At some point I want to try and thoroughly clean one area and seal it to see if it will resist the dressing soaking in, but it will still need to be cleaned frequently. I'm sure that if you do have a dedicated station for Armor-All or similar silicone-based dressing that you should expect to clean it every day.
 
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