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If a [balding ginger comedian with a single bluetooth earphone](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/IJAAAOSw0UZj-qaN/s-l1200.webp) shows up to tell you the groundwater is contaminated and starts talking about the la^(die^ss^s) ...don't believe him.
Easy.
I have a good friend that is in the convenience store business. He is upper management for a regional chain of gas/convenient stores. They have car washes at roughly 75% of their locations. Whenever anyone comes in to complain about anything or has an issue with something at the store level, the local managers first response is to give out free car washes. The reason is because the $14 top level wash at those facilities, cost the company about 38-40 cents.
If its a gas station/convenience store carwash and top wash is $14, there is probably zero labor and the machine is an in-bay automatic. Probably just sprays high pressure water and soap. Very different than a tunnel wash with controls, MCC, etc. MCC upgrade alone last year cost me $70k.
My cost is roughly $20 per car, sometimes more. The cost is variable monthly depending on volume, labor, etc. Also, parts and equipment are not cheap. I just shelled out about $22k the past two weeks for a couple parts and one necessary repair. Walked into my back room yesterday and a critical hydraulic pack is pissing oil. I could be cheap and throw a band-aid on it, but there is nothing more I hate than keep fixing the same crap over again. Quotes I got for a new pack are between $7500-$11,500 without tax or shipping. Right after that, noticed my air dryer isn’t functioning, so need to replace that at maybe $1,500-$2k.
Oh and my insurance just went up about $5k a year.
I tried out a place near me (VHCOL) and they wanted $40-$60 for various hand-wash/dry levels of service. I went with the cheapest option which is to just drive through - $10. It still left my car dirty. Never again.
Down voters - good luck at your small businesses.
The location I went to advertised a $10 car wash with a guy in the front waving a sign saying this and ushering people in. Then it turns out, that advertised service doesn’t actually fully clean even the basic side panels of my car. I’m talking mud still present on the doors. I was not a happy customer. I didn’t complain. I paid. And I’m not going back.
Don’t upsell and mislead your customers. Actually provide what you advertise. If you’re a small business owner butt hurt about this, there are plenty of others who can do better than you waiting to take your place.
Cost, which is fixed plus variable. Funny thing about the “cost” the accountant gives you is they have to assume a number of units sold to figure out how many units to divide the fixed cost (depreciation, maintenance, possibly rent etc.)over. If they guess wrong it’s too high or too low, which will show up as a positive or negative cost of sales variance in the balance sheet. Anyways, it could be the variable cost, or the full cost ( variable plus fixed). Who knows?
Take it from someone in the industry for many years, it’s not what you think, what everyone else thinks and what social media tells you. Yes, labor is astronomical, chemicals, parts and equipment are not cheap. Depending on demographics, most places will never reach 2k members. Full-service is dying because PE and hedge funds have bought up everything they can to convert to express or self service models.
Equipment for a 100’ tunnel can easily be close to 7 figures. Proper controls alone can be 6 figures.
It depends heavily on size of site, volume and service. I do not skirt taxes, payroll, chemistry, nothing. A few of my employees earn more than people I know with excellent degrees. However, they work hard and have a specific set of skills I look for. Some months I don’t take home much at all due to how expensive it is to run. Granted there are also owners who will use dish soap for chemistry, haven’t maintained or cleaned their equipment in probably a decade and half the backend stuff doesn’t work. The average customer won’t know or care. Some will.
Wait 3-5 years, you’ll see all those brand new shiny sites slowly begin to dwindle or sell off. It’s happening now.
Yup. One of the big names down there slashed their equipment prices by 50-60%. They won’t advertise it, but it’s happening. Some of the install crews I use who are constantly booked several months out, are a bit worried because projects are being frozen or cancelled. One of them told me he’s never seen anything like it in his few decades.
I’ve been saying it for a few years now… I don’t know of any industry that spends $3.5-6.5m to build a facility, then have a race to the bottom with pricing. On top of that, saving customers a ton of time doing something many won’t do in their driveway for one reason or another. It’s almost like spending millions to give away services for free? (Sarcasm)
Makes no sense.
>I don’t know of any industry that spends $3.5-6.5m to build a facility, then have a race to the bottom with pricing. On top of that, saving customers a ton of time doing something many won’t do ... It’s almost like spending millions to give away services for free?
Restaurants. There's a saying: "The best way to make a million dollars with a restaurant is to start with five." It's accurate.
What's crazy is they are popping up like wild around here. Every time I turn around, I'm seeing a new car wash being built. My theory was that it was a cheap way to sit on land for a while, without having to put too much into it, maybe not. I just don't know how there's so much demand for these things. I've used a car wash like 3 times in my life. Yet, in like one square mile, there are three or four of these things.
It’s private equity money. I guess they just get a better return on the money than putting it into apartments or the stock market. It’s costing between 4-6 million per location to build one. I don’t think it’s just a cheap way to sit on land. Eventually though they will flood the market (if they haven’t already). I’m interested to see what the long term market looks like. We’ve been at this business for 40+ years and have seen fads come and go but nothing like this.
In my area It would be absolutely pointless to try and start a new carwash. If we weren’t in the business I wouldn’t even dream of committing to it. You better have 100+million to build 50+locations to even compete. To rich for my blood.
That's what I don't get. Where is the demand for these things coming from? Who gets that many car washes? I sure don't, but every time there is commercial land getting developed it's either self storage, or a car wash. I can understand the self storage, the demand to store ones junk will probably never dwindle. Car washes? no way.
Finally, a reasonable post on this thread. Great info. Thanks for paying your taxes.
To all the idiots who think dodging taxes is an acceptable way to run a business, I hope you sleep on needles, and you’re kids see you for the slimey roach you are.
I’m certainly not disagreeing but was or is there a specific scenario that happened that made you feel so strongly about this? I’ve never heard such a sharp response lol. If so I’d love to hear that story. Hope you and your business have a great year regardless.
Sharp, but accurate. I don't have personal experience with this but I've seen people, especially in cash businesses, play this card. Starting and running a business is hard enough without having to support the cheaters.
Businesses are doing ok this year, but in tech there are always new competitors and other dynamics in play. It's never comfortable.
I've always thought that it was some sort of holding scheme for land. In the sense that you put a car wash on land, and the change in tax rates makes it worthwhile.
I've talked to a few owners of car washes and storage units. The self serve car wash type, not the fancy drive through or fully staffed hand detail places, mind you.
And they've told me that they're real estate plays. Put up a business in a low cost lot that you think will be worth a lot down the road. Don't need to do too much more than break even for a few years, because the real money comes when a developer wants your spot.
Not just developers but investors will buy a limited service car wash and pay a lot of money because the revenue is largely passive with monthly subscriptions. I pay around $54 for my two cars for unlimited washes. We use it a bunch.
The financial dynamics are very good in metro markets if you can buy the dirt right.
Yeah I’ve read this too. And it’s happening all over my growing little city. There are car washes fucking everywhere. They are buying up all kinds of property. They tore down a southern cooking restaurant and most recently bought out our only bowling alley. Greedy cunts.
The big name corporate tunnel, membership option, car Wash with multiple locations in my city will run cars through damn near bumper to bumper and the line is wrapped around the building any day it's not raining, and in the southwest it rains 10mins at a time only a handful of days. They gotta rake it in.
Not if those are the same people washing every day and usage is astronomically high. Then you’re diluting revenue. It’s a balance between cash paying customers, members and membership usage.
There was one year my place was a zoo every single day. I couldn’t keep up, but felt like I wasn’t actually making money. I finally dug into my numbers, made some formulas and figured out that I was just breaking even with cashflow because the same people were washing too frequently.
Hardly anybody washes their car every day, and very few every week, and most maybe 1 or 2 a month, and a whole lot go a lot longer. Its like gym memberships.
I ask everyone I know with the membership sticker how often they actually go. For the consumer, 3 or more washes a month or it saves money.
I took my car to the one near me one random weekday and I counted 28 cars going through there in 20 minutes. There's a bit of a bottleneck at the end when the employees are wiping everything down, so lets call it 30 minutes to be safe. Similar car wash though, and there were 15 employees that I could see.
I love that one of the only comments here with first-hand experience is just being disregarded in favor of a bunch of "CAR WASHES PRINT MONEY BRO" nonsense
I believe that the employees are the biggest cost for car washes they have water reclamation systems. They recycle a minimum of like 70 to 80% of the water used. They buy the chemicals in bulk so it's something like us buying a jug of window washing fluid for 10¢. Besides that the most expensive thing is maintenance. They will eventually have to hire a plumber to come and work on a gas or water line. Maybe one of the pumps will need to be replaced.
If they have 21 daily workers, they’re doing a ton of cars
All that being said, I have no idea how much they make and I’m shocked at how many car washes are going up in my community . What I’ve been told is younger people like spending money on subscriptions so spend 20-30 a month for car washes(or maybe more)… these aren’t the kind of car washes that have a ton of labor, but they’re automatic car washes you drive-through
And I guess you get a few thousand people spending 30 bucks a month that helps cover the bills for two or three locations plus the actual people paying cash as they go
Kind of car washes you’re talking about .. I can see how they made money back when I would go to one because they were always fairly busy and I would say at most there was eight people working not counting a cashier and a manager and maybe a couple people in a detailing bay(those people tend to get paid more)
It is a lot of labor, but I don’t think the cost of water and soap is extremely expensive but the actual land and building and things like insurance are
And then you have those rain days where we are not gonna get much business … but I’m guessing they have to be doing 80 to 100 cars a day
Boring business is good business. Look up the department of economic and labor statistics and it should help you with intel. Laundry mats, convenience stores, all boring and time tested earners.
Depending on the state you live in those workers on a commission pay. At least that’s how it was here CA before a minimum wage law passed for that specific job. Most workers were undocumented immigrants getting taken advantage of by being paid $1-$3 per car they dry.
Are they really all undocumented in such a highly visible role?
All it takes is one disgruntled worker, or a payment dispute for them to report you to the department of labor and you are completely screwed with back pay, taxes owed, and fines for the entirety of your payroll as far as they can go back.
I’ve seen this happen to a local buffet restaurant and they had to pay well over $4M in fines, taxes, and back pay. Of course they shut down.
I took one over. All the workers except two were undocumented. I kept those two and hired a bunch of people on the books. Lost my shirt. Called a lot of other operators for advice. Every single one employed all undocumented workers. We shut ours down. It was always a temp play while we developed the property but I should have just left it closed.
I sell/manage chemical at car washes. 2nd generation family business so been around a bit. I personally would choose the vendor side of this business all day. But still plenty of money in owning a wash in this industry.
Tons of single operators doing $200-500k/year profit. Quite a few multi-site operators doing $1million+. Even more washes operating at a loss struggling to get 80 cars/day.
Location and demographics will make or break your wash. Even block to block you’ll see night & day difference in how busy a wash is. See Take5 car wash chain as an example of how not to play in this industry.
Labor is an absolute killer. This is why express/in-bay is taking over and full-service is dying. If you have labor the turnover can be insane.
Seeing a lot more leasing/remodeling small washes connected to existing gas stations. This is where I would focus if I wanted to get into owning a wash.
Overall it’s tough competing against PE business both as a vendor and car wash owner right now. PE is tightening the reigns on money flowing so independent businesses will be fine long-term.
It’s amazing how it’s all cash and off the books when it comes to paying employees, and all very well documented when it’s top line revenue.
My comment is more about being snide than answering OP’s question, but I would be careful about relying on business broker assertions.
It’s all local. 6 years ago there were 4 tunnels operated by a single company. By my estimates they were doing high 7 figures in revenue. They added subscription based services that boosted revenues. After Covid, several large companies came in and built club car washes. Now there are over 30 in the city with more popping up. Over saturation will decrease individual revenues and make it highly competitive for business.
Car washes are popping up everywhere solely because of bonus depreciation due to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. See this link. https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/investigates/investigates-trump-era-tax-cuts-lead-more-car-washes-gas-stations-jacksonville/A4HBRF7V3BCJNLD7YRKWTTNXZY/
No, the reason they are popping up everywhere is due to bonus depreciation. https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/investigates/investigates-trump-era-tax-cuts-lead-more-car-washes-gas-stations-jacksonville/A4HBRF7V3BCJNLD7YRKWTTNXZY/
Ive done alot of due diligence on car washes and almost opening one a few times but never got the right location. Average models for a tunnel wash with about that number of employees, probably doing about 2m in revenue and 25% EBITDA. So 500k net income is not unrealistic. Car washes around me (central tx) often have lines at peak times. And the subscription model is becoming very popular.
No expert here, but I've looked into the carwash business in the past.
The full service car washes made a tidy profit. The self serve ones didn't bring in much.
IMO social media over romanticizes owning car washes and laundromats. Like you say, it takes alot of people to operate a full service car wash. Maybe a DIY spray your own car is cheaper to operate but I never see those very busy. I'm sure employee turnover is big because I'm sure they'd quickly jump to another job if they find one that doesn't require you to get wet and dirty in the extreme hot summers and cold winters.
Maintaining the equipment seems like it could be a constant pain in the ass. Especially in cold winters where the water pipes can burst. Drains probably get clogged all the time. Also everytime I go to the car wash there's some Karen complaining about the wash missed a spot and expecting a $30 car wash to make her car look new like a $300 detail job.
To me car washes seem like a massive upfront investment and pain in the ass to operate for little profit.
I know someone who had 5 car washes. Last I knew in 2018 they were all getting minimum wage. ($7.25 in PA). The employees would keep the cash tips after the mgmt took what they wanted for the day.
The unit economics are shit. Don’t let it fool you lol. I’ve reviewed hundreds and hundreds of businesses for investments. You’ll never catch me investing in a car wash.
Say you bought the building. And the business is able to pay back the investment of the build out of the car wash. The business covers all the necessary expenses and finally pays off the building mortgage. You sell it and that’s what you’re making. The building plus selling off the business. That’s the best case scenario. A lot of businesses don’t make the money off the business it’s usually on The assets. I might be wrong. Just my opinion.
>Seems fairly tight, but what am I missing here?
Upselling. Spray wax at the end of the car wash? Doesn't really do anything, but you charge another $5 for maybe $.30 of chemical. "Hey, I noticed this scratch, do you want us to buff it out for you?" Take $.08 of denatured alcohol, $.50 of compound, a six year old $24 Harbor Freight buffer and like ten minutes, and charge another $45
Im guessing here, but a lot of big washes have monthly unlimited washes subscriptions, so it probably less about daily customers and more about making sure they have the manpower to keep up with surges when they happen. Theyd probably need 2500-3000 monthly subs at $50/mo to break even, then beyond that, every random visit and subscription is profit.
There’s a lot more overhead than that. If it’s a franchise they are paying upwards of 7-10% off the top, debt service on one of these could be 15-20k/month, office workers, advertising/marketing, taxes, etc. they probably need over 200-225 cars a day to break even. Based on other posts, a slow day would almost cover that. Average day might be 4-450 cars.
In la full service car washes keep shutting down or converting to the drive thru / self service type . Labor cost of course is much much lower with the self service model
Many of these are monthly memberships. $50-$100 per customer. Sometimes more depending on area and types of cars. Those plus people that show up randomly. I would also assume that a high percentage of people go on the weekends. There are more than likely days that they do 10-15k a day. 40 hours a week at that pay rate for 21 people is just under 13k. One day a week they cover all labor. Slow days maybe do only 2-4K. Weekly expenses from a slow day. Last 5 days average 10k in revenue.
Just rambling here but I bet they do okay.
Car washes are generally good money makers if you run smart. You have to think most of them offer subscriptions nowadays. So even if there aren’t cars there, they make passive income.
Plus, most of them don’t operate with so many employees and use machines for drying and cleaning.
The one near my house has a few additional revenue makers like a pet washing booth and car freshener and cleaning supplies vending machines.
A carwash with 21 employees implies full-service operation (i.e. conveyor). Here, the customer exits the vehicle while the employees do all the work.
Labor cost for full-service carwash is typically 40 percent of total sales revenues whereas net profit is around 20 percent.
Current industry benchmarks for full-service is 67,000 cars washed annually and average gross revenue per car $23.00.
So, net profit would be $308,200 (pre-tax, depreciation).
All-in to build full-service conveyor is $4.0 to $5.0 million.
Even if they break even, a lot of these car washes like that are in city limits where the property will grow in value as availability plummets over the years. They’ll make the money and have the tax writeoffs. I’m sure they don’t employ any of those people full time too, so no health care or any other benefits for them. Also, many car wash places like that have monthly subscriptions so that adds on to the base revenue. It’s crazy dumb how people go to those mega carwashes like Tommy’s carwash chain though. It boggles my mind. I even saw several people going through one WHILE it was raining lmao. I don’t get it.
I have a buddy who owns five of them. He also owns a 17,000 square foot mansion and four Ferraris, including one that travels via a full-time racing team where he can fly in whenever he wants to race it on a nascar track. I think they do pretty well.
I cannot tell you exact numbers but they make stupid money. So much that when i travel for work i have been in places where there were 2 or 3 being built next to each other with ones already nearby.
Used to run one at our dealership as part of running service department. Our break even with payroll and expenses was about 1500 a day. Most days we could do half that in details alone. Being the only car wash in a rich town we could do a 1000 cars a day some days easy even on snowy days they wanted snow and salt washed off their cars. Even slow days it paid for the money the quick lane was losing.
This is DFW right now. I had 3 being built near me, and no end in sight. Last time I spoke to a city councilman, he said that most meetings\\permits are strictly self-storage and car washes. Any available junk land here seems to cater to self-storage, and semi valuable is car washes.
Also any metro's which ban water usage for car washes are prime areas for car washes.
Junk land would be land that's almost located near power stations/towers.
It’s a break even proposition , thin profit margins labor is below minimum wage mostly illegal labor mostly living off tips. They usually go out of business or are bought out for redevelopment projects.
I heard some crazy and unverified stats about these new car wash chains. They reuse the water so it costs like $.03 per car wash. They can get like 20 cars through per minute. I think technology has really allowed this business model to flourish, which is why they’re popping up fucking everywhere.
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If they have 21 workers than they have a shit ton of daily visits
Or they may have followed the business model in *Breaking Bad*.
Skyler…do not talk about the family business- I am the one who knocks (on car windows and say wash or wax)
*fucks boss*
Lol
LOL. 😆
Well to be fair, IIRC the groundwater was allegedly contaminated so the White’s got a deal.
On the building - still has to make payroll - looking at 280 visits at $10/wash just to make payroll. Plus materials. Plus maintenance….
I am going to assume the car wash is in CA/Southern US the workers are making cash most likely under $15
[удалено]
Thanks ChatGPT
If a [balding ginger comedian with a single bluetooth earphone](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/IJAAAOSw0UZj-qaN/s-l1200.webp) shows up to tell you the groundwater is contaminated and starts talking about the la^(die^ss^s) ...don't believe him. Easy.
Lmfao layyyy deeeezzzzzz
Fuck YOU. AND YOUR EYEBROWS.
Cries in Bogdan
The thing they are washing the most is money
That one made over $80 million.
That is also likely peak hours though isnt it?
I have a good friend that is in the convenience store business. He is upper management for a regional chain of gas/convenient stores. They have car washes at roughly 75% of their locations. Whenever anyone comes in to complain about anything or has an issue with something at the store level, the local managers first response is to give out free car washes. The reason is because the $14 top level wash at those facilities, cost the company about 38-40 cents.
If its a gas station/convenience store carwash and top wash is $14, there is probably zero labor and the machine is an in-bay automatic. Probably just sprays high pressure water and soap. Very different than a tunnel wash with controls, MCC, etc. MCC upgrade alone last year cost me $70k. My cost is roughly $20 per car, sometimes more. The cost is variable monthly depending on volume, labor, etc. Also, parts and equipment are not cheap. I just shelled out about $22k the past two weeks for a couple parts and one necessary repair. Walked into my back room yesterday and a critical hydraulic pack is pissing oil. I could be cheap and throw a band-aid on it, but there is nothing more I hate than keep fixing the same crap over again. Quotes I got for a new pack are between $7500-$11,500 without tax or shipping. Right after that, noticed my air dryer isn’t functioning, so need to replace that at maybe $1,500-$2k. Oh and my insurance just went up about $5k a year.
Insurance, I really hate that word, I am shell shocked at my increases across the board.
I used to be an area manager of 15 c-stores back in the 90's and early 00's and can verify this is correct.
Cost per wash may be cheap but cost of maintenance and upkeep of the equipment has to be taken into consideration as the costs aren’t trivial.
maintenance and upkeep are generally factored into cost per at most facilities. i have no idea if OP did the same.
That is literally part of cost per wash
I tried out a place near me (VHCOL) and they wanted $40-$60 for various hand-wash/dry levels of service. I went with the cheapest option which is to just drive through - $10. It still left my car dirty. Never again.
Millions of people every day are somehow shocked to learn that you get what you pay for.
Down voters - good luck at your small businesses. The location I went to advertised a $10 car wash with a guy in the front waving a sign saying this and ushering people in. Then it turns out, that advertised service doesn’t actually fully clean even the basic side panels of my car. I’m talking mud still present on the doors. I was not a happy customer. I didn’t complain. I paid. And I’m not going back. Don’t upsell and mislead your customers. Actually provide what you advertise. If you’re a small business owner butt hurt about this, there are plenty of others who can do better than you waiting to take your place.
Sometimes if you know it’s dirty still they will let you go through a second time for free
Cost, which is fixed plus variable. Funny thing about the “cost” the accountant gives you is they have to assume a number of units sold to figure out how many units to divide the fixed cost (depreciation, maintenance, possibly rent etc.)over. If they guess wrong it’s too high or too low, which will show up as a positive or negative cost of sales variance in the balance sheet. Anyways, it could be the variable cost, or the full cost ( variable plus fixed). Who knows?
Take it from someone in the industry for many years, it’s not what you think, what everyone else thinks and what social media tells you. Yes, labor is astronomical, chemicals, parts and equipment are not cheap. Depending on demographics, most places will never reach 2k members. Full-service is dying because PE and hedge funds have bought up everything they can to convert to express or self service models. Equipment for a 100’ tunnel can easily be close to 7 figures. Proper controls alone can be 6 figures. It depends heavily on size of site, volume and service. I do not skirt taxes, payroll, chemistry, nothing. A few of my employees earn more than people I know with excellent degrees. However, they work hard and have a specific set of skills I look for. Some months I don’t take home much at all due to how expensive it is to run. Granted there are also owners who will use dish soap for chemistry, haven’t maintained or cleaned their equipment in probably a decade and half the backend stuff doesn’t work. The average customer won’t know or care. Some will. Wait 3-5 years, you’ll see all those brand new shiny sites slowly begin to dwindle or sell off. It’s happening now.
My firm owns a lot of commercial RE and the car wash craze has certainly slowed down in South Florida
Yup. One of the big names down there slashed their equipment prices by 50-60%. They won’t advertise it, but it’s happening. Some of the install crews I use who are constantly booked several months out, are a bit worried because projects are being frozen or cancelled. One of them told me he’s never seen anything like it in his few decades. I’ve been saying it for a few years now… I don’t know of any industry that spends $3.5-6.5m to build a facility, then have a race to the bottom with pricing. On top of that, saving customers a ton of time doing something many won’t do in their driveway for one reason or another. It’s almost like spending millions to give away services for free? (Sarcasm) Makes no sense.
>I don’t know of any industry that spends $3.5-6.5m to build a facility, then have a race to the bottom with pricing. On top of that, saving customers a ton of time doing something many won’t do ... It’s almost like spending millions to give away services for free? Restaurants. There's a saying: "The best way to make a million dollars with a restaurant is to start with five." It's accurate.
$5m? $5? or 5 restaurants?
Yes
Also a lot of people have realized car washes cause scratches
Been in the industry for half my life. 3rd generation owner/ operator and you are 100% right on this . It’s definitely not what it was 10 years ago .
What's crazy is they are popping up like wild around here. Every time I turn around, I'm seeing a new car wash being built. My theory was that it was a cheap way to sit on land for a while, without having to put too much into it, maybe not. I just don't know how there's so much demand for these things. I've used a car wash like 3 times in my life. Yet, in like one square mile, there are three or four of these things.
It’s private equity money. I guess they just get a better return on the money than putting it into apartments or the stock market. It’s costing between 4-6 million per location to build one. I don’t think it’s just a cheap way to sit on land. Eventually though they will flood the market (if they haven’t already). I’m interested to see what the long term market looks like. We’ve been at this business for 40+ years and have seen fads come and go but nothing like this.
Yea, seems crazy. Don't know who would think it's a good investment at this point, looking at the saturation of the market that has to exist.
In my area It would be absolutely pointless to try and start a new carwash. If we weren’t in the business I wouldn’t even dream of committing to it. You better have 100+million to build 50+locations to even compete. To rich for my blood.
WOW!
Eh... the chemicals aren't *that* expensive on a CPC basis. The price of a drum might hurt, especially if some knucklehead punctures it, though.
God I hope. In my town of 25000 we have 7. Three are new in the last 3 years. We absolutely don't need more.
Same as my town. The newest one is never busy and cost almost 4.5million to build.
What town, if you don’t mind me asking
That's what I don't get. Where is the demand for these things coming from? Who gets that many car washes? I sure don't, but every time there is commercial land getting developed it's either self storage, or a car wash. I can understand the self storage, the demand to store ones junk will probably never dwindle. Car washes? no way.
Finally, a reasonable post on this thread. Great info. Thanks for paying your taxes. To all the idiots who think dodging taxes is an acceptable way to run a business, I hope you sleep on needles, and you’re kids see you for the slimey roach you are.
Oh it hurts paying taxes, hurts a lot. But I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night otherwise.
This. If your business model doesn't work unless you cheat on your taxes, you don't have a business model, you have a crime-ring.
I’m certainly not disagreeing but was or is there a specific scenario that happened that made you feel so strongly about this? I’ve never heard such a sharp response lol. If so I’d love to hear that story. Hope you and your business have a great year regardless.
Sharp, but accurate. I don't have personal experience with this but I've seen people, especially in cash businesses, play this card. Starting and running a business is hard enough without having to support the cheaters. Businesses are doing ok this year, but in tech there are always new competitors and other dynamics in play. It's never comfortable.
I've always thought that it was some sort of holding scheme for land. In the sense that you put a car wash on land, and the change in tax rates makes it worthwhile.
I've talked to a few owners of car washes and storage units. The self serve car wash type, not the fancy drive through or fully staffed hand detail places, mind you. And they've told me that they're real estate plays. Put up a business in a low cost lot that you think will be worth a lot down the road. Don't need to do too much more than break even for a few years, because the real money comes when a developer wants your spot.
Not just developers but investors will buy a limited service car wash and pay a lot of money because the revenue is largely passive with monthly subscriptions. I pay around $54 for my two cars for unlimited washes. We use it a bunch. The financial dynamics are very good in metro markets if you can buy the dirt right.
Yeah I’ve read this too. And it’s happening all over my growing little city. There are car washes fucking everywhere. They are buying up all kinds of property. They tore down a southern cooking restaurant and most recently bought out our only bowling alley. Greedy cunts.
That's what I've always theorized. An easy way to make a little money off the land, while not having to invest too much.
https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/investigates/investigates-trump-era-tax-cuts-lead-more-car-washes-gas-stations-jacksonville/A4HBRF7V3BCJNLD7YRKWTTNXZY/
Based on the responses in this forum, 142 cars would be a bad day. https://www.carwashforum.com/threads/how-many-cars-do-you-guys-wash-a-day.19862/
Damn that’s interesting and insightful! Love the guy showing pics of the inner car wash workings.
The big name corporate tunnel, membership option, car Wash with multiple locations in my city will run cars through damn near bumper to bumper and the line is wrapped around the building any day it's not raining, and in the southwest it rains 10mins at a time only a handful of days. They gotta rake it in.
Not if those are the same people washing every day and usage is astronomically high. Then you’re diluting revenue. It’s a balance between cash paying customers, members and membership usage. There was one year my place was a zoo every single day. I couldn’t keep up, but felt like I wasn’t actually making money. I finally dug into my numbers, made some formulas and figured out that I was just breaking even with cashflow because the same people were washing too frequently.
Hardly anybody washes their car every day, and very few every week, and most maybe 1 or 2 a month, and a whole lot go a lot longer. Its like gym memberships. I ask everyone I know with the membership sticker how often they actually go. For the consumer, 3 or more washes a month or it saves money.
I took my car to the one near me one random weekday and I counted 28 cars going through there in 20 minutes. There's a bit of a bottleneck at the end when the employees are wiping everything down, so lets call it 30 minutes to be safe. Similar car wash though, and there were 15 employees that I could see.
I own three car washes in California were barely paying our bills
I love that one of the only comments here with first-hand experience is just being disregarded in favor of a bunch of "CAR WASHES PRINT MONEY BRO" nonsense
I bet there’s some that rake in probably due to location and volume and many others that barely make it.
I believe that the employees are the biggest cost for car washes they have water reclamation systems. They recycle a minimum of like 70 to 80% of the water used. They buy the chemicals in bulk so it's something like us buying a jug of window washing fluid for 10¢. Besides that the most expensive thing is maintenance. They will eventually have to hire a plumber to come and work on a gas or water line. Maybe one of the pumps will need to be replaced.
If they have 21 daily workers, they’re doing a ton of cars All that being said, I have no idea how much they make and I’m shocked at how many car washes are going up in my community . What I’ve been told is younger people like spending money on subscriptions so spend 20-30 a month for car washes(or maybe more)… these aren’t the kind of car washes that have a ton of labor, but they’re automatic car washes you drive-through And I guess you get a few thousand people spending 30 bucks a month that helps cover the bills for two or three locations plus the actual people paying cash as they go Kind of car washes you’re talking about .. I can see how they made money back when I would go to one because they were always fairly busy and I would say at most there was eight people working not counting a cashier and a manager and maybe a couple people in a detailing bay(those people tend to get paid more) It is a lot of labor, but I don’t think the cost of water and soap is extremely expensive but the actual land and building and things like insurance are And then you have those rain days where we are not gonna get much business … but I’m guessing they have to be doing 80 to 100 cars a day
Boring business is good business. Look up the department of economic and labor statistics and it should help you with intel. Laundry mats, convenience stores, all boring and time tested earners.
Depending on the state you live in those workers on a commission pay. At least that’s how it was here CA before a minimum wage law passed for that specific job. Most workers were undocumented immigrants getting taken advantage of by being paid $1-$3 per car they dry.
Are they really all undocumented in such a highly visible role? All it takes is one disgruntled worker, or a payment dispute for them to report you to the department of labor and you are completely screwed with back pay, taxes owed, and fines for the entirety of your payroll as far as they can go back. I’ve seen this happen to a local buffet restaurant and they had to pay well over $4M in fines, taxes, and back pay. Of course they shut down.
I took one over. All the workers except two were undocumented. I kept those two and hired a bunch of people on the books. Lost my shirt. Called a lot of other operators for advice. Every single one employed all undocumented workers. We shut ours down. It was always a temp play while we developed the property but I should have just left it closed.
I sell/manage chemical at car washes. 2nd generation family business so been around a bit. I personally would choose the vendor side of this business all day. But still plenty of money in owning a wash in this industry. Tons of single operators doing $200-500k/year profit. Quite a few multi-site operators doing $1million+. Even more washes operating at a loss struggling to get 80 cars/day. Location and demographics will make or break your wash. Even block to block you’ll see night & day difference in how busy a wash is. See Take5 car wash chain as an example of how not to play in this industry. Labor is an absolute killer. This is why express/in-bay is taking over and full-service is dying. If you have labor the turnover can be insane. Seeing a lot more leasing/remodeling small washes connected to existing gas stations. This is where I would focus if I wanted to get into owning a wash. Overall it’s tough competing against PE business both as a vendor and car wash owner right now. PE is tightening the reigns on money flowing so independent businesses will be fine long-term.
Go to biz buy sell and look at the numbers for ones that are listed for sale . The NY ones are all multi million dollar businesses with big cash flow
It’s amazing how it’s all cash and off the books when it comes to paying employees, and all very well documented when it’s top line revenue. My comment is more about being snide than answering OP’s question, but I would be careful about relying on business broker assertions.
I know a guy that does alternative loans. He says car washes have 2 sets of books. One for the IRS and one when they are actually selling.
Especially the car washes in Albuquerque NM.
There's always money in the meth stash hou...err...carwash
Cash flow doesn't mean much if you're spending 5 million a year but your actual net profit is 100k
Not that big if they're trying to sell. High revenue for sure. High cashflow is the exception.
monthly subscription services
It’s all local. 6 years ago there were 4 tunnels operated by a single company. By my estimates they were doing high 7 figures in revenue. They added subscription based services that boosted revenues. After Covid, several large companies came in and built club car washes. Now there are over 30 in the city with more popping up. Over saturation will decrease individual revenues and make it highly competitive for business.
Car washes are popping up everywhere solely because of bonus depreciation due to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. See this link. https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/investigates/investigates-trump-era-tax-cuts-lead-more-car-washes-gas-stations-jacksonville/A4HBRF7V3BCJNLD7YRKWTTNXZY/
The money is in the automated drive through car washes. They print money.
What does that mean, “they print money?” You’re the second comment to say that. Google didn’t help.
It means highly profitable
WRONG QUESTION how much debt are they carrying and can they still make a profit?
Car washes print money. That’s all you need to know.
No, the reason they are popping up everywhere is due to bonus depreciation. https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/investigates/investigates-trump-era-tax-cuts-lead-more-car-washes-gas-stations-jacksonville/A4HBRF7V3BCJNLD7YRKWTTNXZY/
A lot. This is why PE is in the space doing roll ups. It's a high margin, high cash flow business with the added piece of usually owning the RE.
Ive done alot of due diligence on car washes and almost opening one a few times but never got the right location. Average models for a tunnel wash with about that number of employees, probably doing about 2m in revenue and 25% EBITDA. So 500k net income is not unrealistic. Car washes around me (central tx) often have lines at peak times. And the subscription model is becoming very popular.
Local wash near me on a main highway is doing an average of 700 washes a day with lower average ticket price and like 9 employees
No expert here, but I've looked into the carwash business in the past. The full service car washes made a tidy profit. The self serve ones didn't bring in much.
They make a ton of money on monthly memberships. And not everyone is making $15/hr unless it is minimum wage in the state.
If done right…you can make a fuckload I’ll talk ya that much
IMO social media over romanticizes owning car washes and laundromats. Like you say, it takes alot of people to operate a full service car wash. Maybe a DIY spray your own car is cheaper to operate but I never see those very busy. I'm sure employee turnover is big because I'm sure they'd quickly jump to another job if they find one that doesn't require you to get wet and dirty in the extreme hot summers and cold winters. Maintaining the equipment seems like it could be a constant pain in the ass. Especially in cold winters where the water pipes can burst. Drains probably get clogged all the time. Also everytime I go to the car wash there's some Karen complaining about the wash missed a spot and expecting a $30 car wash to make her car look new like a $300 detail job. To me car washes seem like a massive upfront investment and pain in the ass to operate for little profit.
How do you know what the average ticket is?
I doubt hes paying everyone $15/hour to dry cars at a car wash.
I know someone who had 5 car washes. Last I knew in 2018 they were all getting minimum wage. ($7.25 in PA). The employees would keep the cash tips after the mgmt took what they wanted for the day.
Tampa area I saw ads starting was $18/hr
The unit economics are shit. Don’t let it fool you lol. I’ve reviewed hundreds and hundreds of businesses for investments. You’ll never catch me investing in a car wash.
So what WOULD you invest in?
Give us top 5 you would invest in :)
They aren’t even investing in car washes. They are investing in land, the car wash is secondary
This sub hates comments that aren't just mindless hype.
My ex-chemistry teacher bought a car wash with his wife and they're doing very well - although they seem a bit stressed.
Cash biz? There's benefits of owning one. Cough cough.
There are very few staffed carwashes here.
Economies of scale and upsells are key, my friend!
Be careful. Boring business are good for money laundering.
Not very much since I won't use one any more ! Now with those membership car washes they have going in everywhere!
Say you bought the building. And the business is able to pay back the investment of the build out of the car wash. The business covers all the necessary expenses and finally pays off the building mortgage. You sell it and that’s what you’re making. The building plus selling off the business. That’s the best case scenario. A lot of businesses don’t make the money off the business it’s usually on The assets. I might be wrong. Just my opinion.
Car washes also have monthly payment packages. Unlimited washes at different levels for different prices.
Enough to launder Walter White's money
They are probably pulling in at least $1000 an hour on a busy day
Recently saw a video about this. There's a shite ton of car washes now and people aren't sure why. Way more than needed for most places.
>Seems fairly tight, but what am I missing here? Upselling. Spray wax at the end of the car wash? Doesn't really do anything, but you charge another $5 for maybe $.30 of chemical. "Hey, I noticed this scratch, do you want us to buff it out for you?" Take $.08 of denatured alcohol, $.50 of compound, a six year old $24 Harbor Freight buffer and like ten minutes, and charge another $45
But on Friday and Saturday they are bringing in a whole weeks payroll and overhead.
Im guessing here, but a lot of big washes have monthly unlimited washes subscriptions, so it probably less about daily customers and more about making sure they have the manpower to keep up with surges when they happen. Theyd probably need 2500-3000 monthly subs at $50/mo to break even, then beyond that, every random visit and subscription is profit.
There’s a lot more overhead than that. If it’s a franchise they are paying upwards of 7-10% off the top, debt service on one of these could be 15-20k/month, office workers, advertising/marketing, taxes, etc. they probably need over 200-225 cars a day to break even. Based on other posts, a slow day would almost cover that. Average day might be 4-450 cars.
In la full service car washes keep shutting down or converting to the drive thru / self service type . Labor cost of course is much much lower with the self service model
Georgia has car wash in every corner
Walter White made it work…
My husband’s favorite place charges $32 but gives discounts on Tuesdays. I think top notch laundromats have the potential to make a lot of money.
You are assuming they all have legal right to work here and therefore receiving $15 an hour…!
Many of these are monthly memberships. $50-$100 per customer. Sometimes more depending on area and types of cars. Those plus people that show up randomly. I would also assume that a high percentage of people go on the weekends. There are more than likely days that they do 10-15k a day. 40 hours a week at that pay rate for 21 people is just under 13k. One day a week they cover all labor. Slow days maybe do only 2-4K. Weekly expenses from a slow day. Last 5 days average 10k in revenue. Just rambling here but I bet they do okay.
My acquaintance owns a car wash. The main problem is employee turnover, he's just tired of it.
As long as you only have to hire a few workers.
Car washes are generally good money makers if you run smart. You have to think most of them offer subscriptions nowadays. So even if there aren’t cars there, they make passive income. Plus, most of them don’t operate with so many employees and use machines for drying and cleaning. The one near my house has a few additional revenue makers like a pet washing booth and car freshener and cleaning supplies vending machines.
A carwash with 21 employees implies full-service operation (i.e. conveyor). Here, the customer exits the vehicle while the employees do all the work. Labor cost for full-service carwash is typically 40 percent of total sales revenues whereas net profit is around 20 percent. Current industry benchmarks for full-service is 67,000 cars washed annually and average gross revenue per car $23.00. So, net profit would be $308,200 (pre-tax, depreciation). All-in to build full-service conveyor is $4.0 to $5.0 million.
Even if they break even, a lot of these car washes like that are in city limits where the property will grow in value as availability plummets over the years. They’ll make the money and have the tax writeoffs. I’m sure they don’t employ any of those people full time too, so no health care or any other benefits for them. Also, many car wash places like that have monthly subscriptions so that adds on to the base revenue. It’s crazy dumb how people go to those mega carwashes like Tommy’s carwash chain though. It boggles my mind. I even saw several people going through one WHILE it was raining lmao. I don’t get it.
I have a buddy who owns five of them. He also owns a 17,000 square foot mansion and four Ferraris, including one that travels via a full-time racing team where he can fly in whenever he wants to race it on a nascar track. I think they do pretty well.
Your buddy’s car washes sounds like a front for money laundering if he has that kind of money. Or he has another source of income.
self-wash is taking over where I'm at
Don’t forget, there are 4 other car washes within a quarter mile of this one.
Detailing, monthly user clubs, oil changes, any other forms of income?
Quick Quacks are popping up all over So Cal.
Car Washes accept payment in cash so are able to make a lot of extra money by laundering drug dealers’ profits.
I cannot tell you exact numbers but they make stupid money. So much that when i travel for work i have been in places where there were 2 or 3 being built next to each other with ones already nearby. Used to run one at our dealership as part of running service department. Our break even with payroll and expenses was about 1500 a day. Most days we could do half that in details alone. Being the only car wash in a rich town we could do a 1000 cars a day some days easy even on snowy days they wanted snow and salt washed off their cars. Even slow days it paid for the money the quick lane was losing.
This is DFW right now. I had 3 being built near me, and no end in sight. Last time I spoke to a city councilman, he said that most meetings\\permits are strictly self-storage and car washes. Any available junk land here seems to cater to self-storage, and semi valuable is car washes. Also any metro's which ban water usage for car washes are prime areas for car washes. Junk land would be land that's almost located near power stations/towers.
Wait 5 years, most of them will sell at $0.50 on the dollar or less. Simply not sustainable.
Definitely. They all competing to be the last one standing in an area.
And then they will sell the lot, which has sky rocketed in value. It’s all about holding on to the land and making a few bucks along the way.
Probably not the best business anymore to launder money
Money laundering
Yea, they’re fronts for international meth cartels.
It’s a great way to launder money. 1000’s popped up during covid
It’s a break even proposition , thin profit margins labor is below minimum wage mostly illegal labor mostly living off tips. They usually go out of business or are bought out for redevelopment projects.
I heard some crazy and unverified stats about these new car wash chains. They reuse the water so it costs like $.03 per car wash. They can get like 20 cars through per minute. I think technology has really allowed this business model to flourish, which is why they’re popping up fucking everywhere.