Thinking about adding a car wash to your gas station, car dealership or other business site? There are many types of solutions to choose from. From a complete car wash park, including roll-overs, self-service wash bays, and payment, to a small single self-service wash bay. This article helps you find the perfect car wash solution.
Why add a car wash solution to your site?
Adding a car wash solution to your site is ideal to create more value for your customers and maximize your revenue. Especially as car wash solutions are easy to use or can even be completely self-serviced, meaning the visitors of your site can wash their car without help of employees. Gantry and self-service wash systems are therefore profitable cleaning solutions for car dealerships, car wash parks, workshops and service stations. Furthermore, keeping vehicles clean, whether we are talking about cars or commercial vehicles, leaves a positive impression and plays an important role in safety and value preservation.
What to consider when investing in a car wash solution?
Before investing in a car wash solution, there are a few things you should consider:
1. Is there customer demand?
Before investing, you need to know if customers will use your car wash solutions. This depends very much on the type of site and where your site is located. It is best to create an analysis for potential, including factors such as: the area, inhabitants, streets, traffic flow, and nearby shops. This should be followed by a competitor analysis to make a proper conclusion regarding the potential for your car wash.
2. Is it for internal use or external use?
For many sites, it is interesting to add a car wash machine to their site, so their customers can use it to clean their vehicles, which is called ‘external use’. The opposite of that is when businesses like garages, car dealerships or fleet operators invest in car wash machines for internal washes. Resulting in reducing costs and/or a higher valued service. As, for example, for garages, customers can get their car repaired and washed at the same time. For what type of use will your potential new car wash be? Deciding this helps in finding out which car wash solution fits you the best.
3. Which car wash machine fits your strategy?
In order to be successful, it is important to define the right wash strategy for your site. This depends on the planned wash figures, on the competition, and on the habits of customers within your region. Based on this strategy, the right machine must be chosen. Besides the type of Car wash – such as automatic solutions as Rollovers or non-automatic solutions as self-service, there are several features available to increase the wash quality, the capacity, and the customer experience.
TSG installs 4 different categories of car wash solutions for you: car wash rollovers, truck wash rollovers, wash bays, and one-bay self-service systems.
Car wash Rollovers
Car wash rollovers are one of the most widespread automatic vehicle as systems in the world. Rollovers are compact machines equipped with different washing and drying systems, such as brushes, high pressure cleaning, wheel-wash, and the application of products like shampoos, foams, and waxes. The driver of the car drives to the vehicle system, puts it in place until the machine signs ‘stop’ and turns the engine off. The machine moves back and forth, while the car stays in place. This is different from a wash tunnel, where the drivers stay in the car and the car is slowly being moved through the car wash tunnel.
Rollovers are very versatile machines, and their compact nature ensures wash effectiveness with smaller surface area. Car wash Rollovers are ideal for all types of sites, such as gas stations, car dealership, or commercial fleet operators.
The Kärcher Car Wash Rollover – Klean!Star iQ
The Klean!Star iQ is Kärchers impressive gantry vehicle wash system, perfect for adding a premium car wash service with high washing volume to your business. The Karcher Klean!Star iQ impresses with a unique side brush, a new wheel wash system and a unique design.
Truck wash rollovers
A truck wash rollover is an automatic wash system specifically designed for the size of a truck. It is typically added to sites where truck drivers are, such as transport companies, depot centers, or specific gas stations for trucks (which is where they rest and fuel their truck).
The Kärcher Truck Wash Rollover
For cleaning large vehicles, such as trucks, Kärcher offers the TB-line. Kärcher’s TB-line is designed for automatic exterior cleaning of large commercial vehicles. This 3-brush gantry impresses with a maximum washing height of 5.05 meters and a maximum washing width of 2.90 meters. Individually selectable washing programs for different degrees of soiling and low maintenance optimize the cost-benefit calculation for users and operators. Furthermore, two photoelectric sensors fitted as standard guarantee safety. This ensures that attachments and accessories (such as spoilers) are reliably identified.
Self-service wash bays
Wash bays create a complete self-service car wash, where customers can wash their own cars and experience maximum result from quality wash equipment. With washing bays, users are fully in control of which part of their car is cleaned, ensuring small corners of their car are never forgotten. And it is perfect for shorter wash times. Furthermore, for many customers who use self-service, the fun of washing the car is important. With special features, this can be supported and consequently customer loyalty can be increased.
The Kärcher SB MB & SB OB
Kärcher’s SB MB is a coin or token-operated self-service washing system that can be supplied as a cabinet version for outdoor installation or as a pre-assembled skid version for installation in a technical room, according to your wishes.
The system is designed for the operation of up to four washing stations (further solutions for up to 8 bays are also available) and is fabricated individually in accordance with specific customer wishes and needs. This ensures that the system includes exactly the components that are needed and desired. Additional wash programs, such as pre-wash or power foam, maximizes the turnover. The well-proven Kärcher technology and high-pressure pumps guarantee best cleaning performance and quality.
The SB OB Kärcher is similar to the SB MB, but has a smaller footprint. The SB OB can be configured as needed. In addition to the four standard wash programs (high pressure, foam, rinse, and wax), extra programs for washing the wheel rims, care and maintenance, and the removal of stubborn dirt, can also be added. So, while having a very compact design, the SB OB still covers all cleaning and maintenance requirements of a complete vehicle wash, making it ideal for operators with limited space.
Combine Kärcher car wash solutions with TSG’s payment systems
An important part of the usability of a car wash, is the payment options you offer. TSG has developed two payment solutions for external use, CarwashPay and SelfwashPay, that make the payment for car washes much easier.
With CarwashPay and SelfwashPay you can offer your customer the convenience of the most recent payment options. This includes contactless payment for bank and credit cards, a scanner for QR codes and barcodes (think of discount vouchers, but also the unique barcodes). Our systems even offer the option for subscription holders to start the car wash via number plate recognition! Furthermore, it creates a perfect and easy overview of all sites from everywhere via a web portal.
For internal use, such as for fleet operators, payment is not necessary, and an identification system can be applied. Enabling your employees can easily start the car wash with an identification tag.
Interested in of our car wash solutions?
TSG & Kärcher have been working closely together for years. Based on our exclusive partnership, we can offer you a profitable and complete car wash installation. From replacement of car, truck, and self-service wash equipment and overhauls of car wash parks to complete new construction of car wash projects, combined with our payment solutions or vehicle identifier solutions.
