Fixed Ops Journal - April 2018 - F22

WASH

continued from Page 20

Thomas says 140,000 vehicles used the
Hamilton Honda car wash the first year, rising
to more than 230,000 last year. "It's kind of
maxed out," he says.
For a Honda dealership Armstead is building in Grapevine, Texas, a Dallas suburb, the
car wash will have dual tunnel conveyors that
are 200 feet long, Thomas says. The facility is
scheduled to open late this year or in 2019.
Ricart Automotive, in the Columbus, Ohio,
suburb of Groveport, is looking to add volume
to the single tunnel wash it opened five years
ago to handle the 3,000 Ford, Mazda, Hyundai,
Kia, Nissan and Mitsubishi retail vehicles on
its six lots.
Dan Bryan, the dealership group's service
operations director, says Ricart also details 800
to 1,000 used vehicles a month.
Offering service customers a free wash and
the opportunity to buy or upgrade monthly
wash packages has helped increase satisfac-

tion, Bryan says.
"Everybody's looking at profitability within
the dealership right now," he says. "If we can
invest in the equipment to keep those customers here, then it costs us less to get them to
buy their next car."

Washday problems
There are cautionary tales, however. Dave
Wright added a full-service public wash when
he moved his Nissan-Subaru dealership from
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to nearby Hiawatha in
2015.
A property dispute that disrupted the layout
of the new location led Wright to build a
full-service public wash instead of one just for
internal use, he says. The experience, he adds,
"has been a big learning curve.
"Much like a dealership, it is very complex,
with chemicals, labor, equipment maintenance and failure, software and customer expectations," Wright notes.
Wright almost immediately encountered
operating issues. The local utility installed an

"You clean the cars better and
faster. If you've got the traffic flow
for incoming and outgoing, it just
builds up your volume."
VICTOR THOMAS

improper electric transformer, believed to be
the root cause of motor failures in the wash facility in recent months.
"Then we had a customer panic," he says.
She "tried to drive out [of the wash], causing
some significant equipment damage."
At the Matick dealership, Zimmermann says
he expects the auto wash to create as many as
80 jobs.
Customers will be able to choose from a
range of electronic payment methods. They
will have access to an indoor lounge while
their vehicles are detailed, along with free use
of one of 23 self-service vacuum cleaners.
"Folks have less and less time available,"
Zimmermann says. "With the growing comfort with automation, this will be something
that allows us to accommodate a large range
of customers." 

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PAGE 22

APRIL 2018

FIXED OPS JOURNAL

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