EXPRESS PLUS Carwash - Yes or No?

Conveyor operators what do you think of the EXPRESS PLUS Concept - exterior car wash with an express detail operation?

Why would you do it, why not?

What are your opinions?

As they say in advertisements: "No dealers please."

In this case: "No consultants please, just active car wash operators."

Thanks

Bud Abraham

You two should just get a room.

Jimmy...

I rest my case.

haha

No bud, I would nto do it even though I have a separate building I could convert over to provide express detailing/after-care/off line full service or whatever else you want to call it. Why? One word - Labor - I neither want nor desire the headaches involved in placing employees (especially the kind that would appply in this area) inside people's cars. There's far too many temptations inside people's cars today not to mention the liability. Let'em clean out their own cars, then I don't get blamed for the stuff that supposedly comes out missing or broken. We did full service for 36 years and I would sell the place before I ever went back to that fiasco.

full serve for 45 years and flex for 10...have been outside only for 3 and haven't looked back, labor is such a PIA, even now you would think you would get the cream of the crop with unemployment being so high but still get the same morons in and out. Never had a problem with temptation because 7days a week open too close I was standing over there backs. I wasnt gonna have the same carwash life for my kids like I had! Im sure your program is great but you give a quality wash at a reasonable price with striving customer support and service you can make it..If i was in over saturated market then I think I would still be doing express interiors...flex is definetlty the way to be in that market...I'm sure I may have not been the text book case of flex but any offline vac, window, tire treatment, freshener the basics was what got me to where we are today!

Bud,

First of all, thank you for trying to squash my freedom of speech in a public forum.

The worth of any business model is the value/wealth it creates. If your model is worth its salt, it will be adopted by others accordingly.

Otherwise, it will flounder along like a low-volume carwash or it may die just as many other "good" ideas have done in the past. I speak with volumes of experience in this regards.

Although I wish you a lot of luck with Express Plus, I believe the above comments underscore the uphill battle you face.

The need for a lot of people and managing them effectively has always been a necessary evil of full-service. Veteran operators deal with it and, quite frankly, most new investors don't want any part of it, flex-serve included.

Tou'che Steve...

Bud, I would say no...but right now I would say NO to car washing completely. Spend $2 million plus for a new site today...no way. None of my sites could support a "new site" level of debt service (with or without detailing).

I'm running for political office...the gov't seems to have all the money
now. I want to work for the people that can just print mo' money when they need it.

After a dismal year, we are having the worst December ever!!! There's little or no hope for any real recovery here and I've always been an optimist. I've been around car washing for 40+ years and never seen business this bad...for this long. Weather and economy kicking my .....

I'm tired of saying: things will get better...I think they could get worse!

I hear ya Jimmy. I believe I would walk away before I would to beg the low lifes to come to work everyday and please don't come in high and steal from my customers and me...been there before..Like you I don't get it invest 2 to 3 million and then charge 3.00... I do believe the weather is hurting me worse the the economy..average for Springfield today is 45 deg. currently it's 18 degs.with a 25 mph NW sustained wind ...open the doors and my curtain flash freezes....all dressed up today and no where to go... :-(