Top Tips for Maintaining Your Self-Service Car Wash

Ensuring Reliability and a Steady Flow of Customers

Wand-type and self-wash car washes are the backbone of the industry. They’ve been around forever and are hands down the most reliable option for customers.

Most self-serve wash bays are open 24 hours and can fit any kind of vehicle, not just standard cars and trucks. They’re affordable to use, making it possible for customers to clean their cars more frequently. This often outweighs the little bit of labor required to wash the vehicle themselves.

When customers drive up, they don’t typically have to worry about long lines or unexpected closures due to broken equipment.

A self-serve wash’s biggest selling point is reliability. You know the saying, “if you want something done right, do it yourself.” Customers drive away from your business each time knowing they’ve cleaned up to their personal standards.

The biggest part of running a self-service car wash business is maintaining that image of being reliable. It is up to you to keep your equipment, car wash bays and location in tip-top shape.

Know Your Customers to Optimize Your Maintenance

Running a 24/7 business maximizes your profits but leaves no guaranteed time for fixing things that are broken, cleaning up your business or restocking supplies.

In order to not disrupt one of your most profitable times of the day, it’s essential to know your customers and how they typically use your business. Try to plan all of your upkeep for the downtimes. This keeps customers happy and ensures they can keep using your car wash equipment

Another great way to balance improvements and services is to always keep some of your car wash bays open. Focus your cleanings and repairs on a couple of bays at a time, instead of going for a full shutdown.

Your Punch List for Taking Care of Your Self-Serve Car Wash

The beauty of a business where the customers wash their own cars is there is no need for constant staff presence. However, at some point it’s time to stop by and take care of business.

Don’t forget these key steps to a good car wash maintenance plan:

• Check that equipment is functional and safe to use
• Have trained service technicians perform routine adjusts and repairs to your equipment
• Replace the stock of cleaning supplies including towels and glass wipes
• Restock the soap used for the car wash wands
• Clean the facility including picking up trash left on the ground
• Clear out trash cans
• Ensure your coin-fed or credit card kiosk is operational
• Check the water pressure
• Test the car wash wand in each bay

Pit Cleanings to Keep Your Car Wash Pristine

Self-service car washes gain around 5 ounces of sludge per vehicle that flows into your car wash pits.

Keeping these pits clean is especially important for the self-service bays. Your customers are in the bay, right next to the pits. If they’re overflowing or smell horrible, car washers will notice right away.

Cleaning out your pits is essential to keeping your business operational and compliant with wastewater regulations.

Pit Crew offers efficient car wash pit cleanings complete with waste processing on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Your pits are quickly vacuumed out so you can get back to reliable 24/7 service. Call us today to schedule your next crucial cleaning.