"The maintenance course I attended last year has more than paid for itself. I would conservatively estimate a 10-15x return on my investment. I have implemented a weekly lube and grease program - Every Monday we lube and grease all of our fittings. First Monday of the month we do our monthly lubes.

We have educated the site managers on how to prevent damages by properly lubricating all neoglide, microclean and fabric.
We monitor chain tension daily to ensure that we do not cause chain jambs due to loose tension. In 18 months or operation we have been down for less than 2 hours due to conveyor jambs or hydraulic hose issues.
Most importantly, we instituted a daily chemical usage monitoring procedure. We measure chemical usage and enter that usage into a spreadsheet which calculates usage per car, total usage by pump station and provides inventory on hand by pump station. This has done two things:
1. We can identify pumps and dilution systems out of adjustment very early (within a day or two of identifying a trend) and correct them.
2. We can accurately adjust usage to maximize the efficiency of our chemicals for each package based on the season. I conservatively estimate that we have saved $500-$1,000 per month in chemicals.
We wash 3x as many cars at our express as we do at our full serve and our full serve uses the same amount of chemicals. I am convinced this is because we have instituted the maintenance procedures at our new express wash.

I can't imagine making a $2.0 million dollar investment in a car wash and not attending at least your intro maintenance class".


Karl Murphy
Owner, Carolina Auto Spa
Cary, NC




“I now have the confidence to extend my equipment life 10 + yrs. (This is) valuable for experienced owners and managers to put more structure and focus around a generally unstructured aspect of the car wash business.”