The Car Wash Business

**comment** · Jun 21st, 2011, 12:47 PM

I've made a similar thread in General Discussion about a simple mobile detailing business, but here I want to talk about actual Car Washes.

I've been entertaining the idea for about 2 weeks now and done a bit of research and I just cant decide if this is practical for someone my age (17) or a fastlane way of thinking. So here's some numbers.

There are three types of car washes

Full-service: Your car goes on a conveyer, gets sprayed, waxed, etc, and then exits the conveyer to be manually dried and polished. Usually these have in-door services like vending machines.
In-bay automatic (also called a rollover): You put in 5-10 dollars in a machine and drive into the bay while the wash "rolls over" your car, and then you drive away.
Self-service: The most common. You put in 25cents for a minute and you wash it yourself with supplied soap and water.

Now here's where I get a bit turned off by the idea.

Average startup costs per car wash:
5- bay self-serve with single in-bay automatic: $500,000 to $600,000
Full-service: $1,500,000 to $1,800,000

And here's the average you can make:

Full-service car wash: $500,000 to $900,000 per year
In-bay automatic car wash : $75,000 to $125,000 per year
Self-service car wash (assuming a four-bay, self-service facility): $55,000 to
$100,000 per year

So you can see, it takes about 4-7 years to make back what you originally invested, and after 7 years I'm sure things will be out of date and need replacing and other issues will arise.

Can someone my age actually start a project this large, or is this for possibly later in life?

**comment** · Jun 24th, 2011, 09:12 PM

3 days and 0 replies. Man I'm surprised. No one on here has any input on this business at all?

**MCD** · Jun 25th, 2011, 09:58 AM

Those averages seem very high to me. If a car wash costs $10 you would need to wash 136 cars every day of the year to gross $500,000. In an eight hour day that is close to a car wash every four minutes. Seems a bit unreasonable to expect that much IMO. But if those numbers are correct and that is in terms of profit than that sounds like a hell of a business.

As for you being to young, I don't think that matters at all. The only thing that might hold you back is lack of funding because I don't know many 17 year olds that get approved for 1.5 million dollar loans. Also you might not be able get some of the permits and will not be able to sign contracts but in one year that won't be an issue so if its something your interested start working on making it a reality. If there is one thing that I can say that would help you it is that you shouldn't let anybody tell you what you aren't capable of doing. When I was 11 (or 12 can't remember) I was told that I was to young to get a DBA (doing business as) luckily I didn't listen. I marched down to the county clerks office requested a DBA for my DJ business and nobody stopped me. I'm probably the only minor in my county to ever get a DBA and I have a notarized certificate to prove it. If listened to what people told me, I would probably be like every other kid my age working at Baskin Robbins or the likes. So don't let your age get in the way of what you want.

**comment** · Jun 25th, 2011, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by MCD

Those averages seem very high to me. If a car wash costs $10 you would need to wash 136 cars every day of the year to gross $500,000. In an eight hour day that is close to a car wash every four minutes. Seems a bit unreasonable to expect that much IMO. But if those numbers are correct and that is in terms of profit than that sounds like a hell of a business.

As for you being to young, I don't think that matters at all. The only thing that might hold you back is lack of funding because I don't know many 17 year olds that get approved for 1.5 million dollar loans. Also you might not be able get some of the permits and will not be able to sign contracts but in one year that won't be an issue so if its something your interested start working on making it a reality. If there is one thing that I can say that would help you it is that you shouldn't let anybody tell you what you aren't capable of doing. When I was 11 (or 12 can't remember) I was told that I was to young to get a DBA (doing business as) luckily I didn't listen. I marched down to the county clerks office requested a DBA for my DJ business and nobody stopped me. I'm probably the only minor in my county to ever get a DBA and I have a notarized certificate to prove it. If listened to what people told me, I would probably be like every other kid my age working at Baskin Robbins or the likes. So don't let your age get in the way of what you want.

But being 17 I cant sign for anything, so I'm not sure how I'd go about getting a loan?

I'm starting a mobile detailing business for this year in hope when I turn 18 I can get a loan, or maybe I'll find something else before then.

My father, who's owned 3 huge businesses since he was 23 says that even if I'm 18 it will be impossible to get any kind of a loan "in this economy". It doesnt even have to be a 1.5 million loan, just a 500k loan to start a self-serve wash so I can get myself going.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do to get this started.

**domular** · Jun 26th, 2011, 05:29 PM

Maybe dumb but if you want to get going without the loan you mentioned detailing which is more about labor and time and not equipment.

**Calgary** · Jul 14th, 2011, 04:25 AM

Once, I've thought of what it would be like to own a car wash as I love washing my rover.
So, after looking up how much a state of the art car wash would cost, i quickly lost interest.
However, another idea sparked which would cost that much as well but the risk of my business would be low due to the value of the assets. I haven't started my business yet. In the process of looking for some investors after making a VERY long business plan.

**rc08234** · Jul 14th, 2011, 11:40 AM

Those averages do seem a bit high. Its all about location though. I know a guy that owns one about 10 mins from atlantic city, right next to a few car dealerships and he makes serious money. Not only is he getting people coming and going from AC, I'm sure he also gives the dealerships deep discounts to get their cars washed there.

As for the loan, you would be lucky to get one for 50k, let alone 500k. Even if you took out a 30 year mortgage the payments would be 1600$ a month. How are you going to make the payments while you buy the property, design, and build it? You are going to need some other cash flows.