Car Wash Detailing Hack

[Rob Ibarra]

Need the BP brains to help me with a Car Wash hack. I'm looking at buying a self-serve car wash and force value / revenue by installing a car port / detail bay for a mobile detailer to be stationed there weekly and offer custom detail services. Has anyone here done that and/or know what I should be charging for booth rent, services, percentage of profits. Any and all advice is appreciated and welcome. Thank you!

[Jaron Walling]

Love the self service car wash but not a fan of the detailing bay connected to it. The auto detailing businesses we have worked with either make you drop the vehicle at there place, or it's mobile (usually interior details). I can't see detailers wanting to rent space with a carwash connected. It's an unnecessary expense to operate the business. I think the convivence factor for the customer isn't there. 

[Rob Ibarra]

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

Love the self service car wash but not a fan of the detailing bay connected to it. The auto detailing businesses we have worked with either make you drop the vehicle at there place, or it's completely mobile. I can't see detailers wanting to rent space with a carwash connected. It's an unnecessary expense to operate the business.

Thank you, love the insight. What would you suggest on improvements and value adds for a self-serve car wash?

[Jaron Walling]

Quote from @Rob Ibarra:

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

Love the self service car wash but not a fan of the detailing bay connected to it. The auto detailing businesses we have worked with either make you drop the vehicle at there place, or it's completely mobile. I can't see detailers wanting to rent space with a carwash connected. It's an unnecessary expense to operate the business.

Thank you, love the insight. What would you suggest on improvements and value adds for a self-serve car wash?

 If the property is big enough you could add vacuum stations. I enjoy washing my car and truck and like the convivence of doing a quick vacuum on my floor mats.  

You could install vending machines. Anything that's quick and easy to purchase when someone is washing a car on a hot day. 

Paint correction and detailing take hours of labor, materials, and a dust free environment. It's never quick and easy. My neighbor details cars and motorcycles as retirement side-hustle. He keeps the customers vehicle for at least 2 days. 

[Rob Ibarra]

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

Quote from @Rob Ibarra:

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

Love the self service car wash but not a fan of the detailing bay connected to it. The auto detailing businesses we have worked with either make you drop the vehicle at there place, or it's completely mobile. I can't see detailers wanting to rent space with a carwash connected. It's an unnecessary expense to operate the business.

Thank you, love the insight. What would you suggest on improvements and value adds for a self-serve car wash?

 If the property is big enough you could add vacuum stations. I enjoy washing my car and truck and like the convivence of doing a quick vacuum on my floor mats.  

You could install vending machines. Anything that's quick and easy to purchase when someone is washing a car on a hot day. 

Paint correction and detailing take hours of labor, materials, and a dust free environment. It's never quick and easy. My neighbor details cars and motorcycles as retirement side-hustle. He keeps the customers vehicle for at least 2 days. 

Thank you for the insights, awesome information!

[Chris Mason]

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

Quote from @Rob Ibarra:

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

Love the self service car wash but not a fan of the detailing bay connected to it. The auto detailing businesses we have worked with either make you drop the vehicle at there place, or it's completely mobile. I can't see detailers wanting to rent space with a carwash connected. It's an unnecessary expense to operate the business.

Thank you, love the insight. What would you suggest on improvements and value adds for a self-serve car wash?

 If the property is big enough you could add vacuum stations. I enjoy washing my car and truck and like the convivence of doing a quick vacuum on my floor mats.  

You could install vending machines. Anything that's quick and easy to purchase when someone is washing a car on a hot day. 

Paint correction and detailing take hours of labor, materials, and a dust free environment. It's never quick and easy. My neighbor details cars and motorcycles as retirement side-hustle. He keeps the customers vehicle for at least 2 days. 

I like the vending machine idea. Remember that junk food isn't the only thing you can fit in a vending machine. The jury is out on if snacks are the best fit for something like this, or stuff that the customers could use to detail their own cars. 

In your shoes OP, I like the vending machines, but I'd keep my mind open. Do some a/b testing. Maybe buy two of them (used). Put snacks and drinks in one. And put overpriced car detailing stuff in the other. 

Disclaimer: this post may or may not have been inspired wholesale from me stealing ideas from a mortgage client (but not a car wash in Georgia, so you are not their competition). :P

If you have the space, a covered "self-serve car detailing port" area isn't crazy. Post a sign limiting them to 6 hours or something, and enforce it (ie, call the tow truck company whose sign you have posted) at 24 hours.

For the self-help detailing products to put in the vending machine, google search "what extra things do i need to detail my car" and read some car detailing guru's list that you should quickly find (if the post has a bunch of upvotes from other car detailing gurus, that's probably a good sign). And mark these mother-truckers up, they are paying for the convenience... providing you aren't somehow preventing them from buying the stuff themselves beforehand (the way movie theaters do), it's not at all immoral. 

My purely hypothetical car wash mortgage client has 3 vending machines full of vastly overpriced car detailing stuff (next to a physical bulletin board showcasing some shiny freshly detailed sexy cars...), and one with snacks at normal vending machine markups (buys either at Costco, or whatever he finds on sale).

GL.

[Don Konipol]

Quote from @Rob Ibarra:

Need the BP brains to help me with a Car Wash hack. I'm looking at buying a self-serve car wash and force value / revenue by installing a car port / detail bay for a mobile detailer to be stationed there weekly and offer custom detail services. Has anyone here done that and/or know what I should be charging for booth rent, services, percentage of profits. Any and all advice is appreciated and welcome. Thank you!

A couple of years ago I financed a car wash with four self service bays, two drive through automated bays, and a detailing station.  The whole thing was owner operated, and the detailing accounted for over 50% of the profit. 

I personally think the detailing MAY be a great idea, IF the location of the car wash is on a highly traveled street in a neighborhood with lots of residences within a 2 mile radius. 

Your rental agreement with a detailer is going to depend on the experience, quality and track record of the detailer.  If you rent to someone relatively new in their first ownership venture, the most probable agreement is one calling for a monthly payment with a percentage of the revenue on top.  Of course, the risk of failure/underperformance is high.  With an established, experienced detailer you can expect a monthly rent only, unless you have a location so great that detailers are dying to get in.  

By leasing out the detailing "bay" to a third party detailing business you are still a "passive" investor as you are not operating the detailing with employees. If it cost you say $50k to build out a detailing space and you receive $600 monthly rent double net then you've got a 14% ROI. My gut is you can do better than that. On a small property in a relatively volatile business without credit tenants I would require a minimum 20% ROI. So if it cost $50k to build out I'd be looking for net rental income of $10k annually.