Are they building standalone car washes like crazy in your area too?

[Tom M King]

Nearest car wash 15 minutes away one way. 10 minutes here and it’s done. Push button on pressure washer for quick blast off. Foam gun. Long handled brush. Rinse. Hit windows. Done. Good enough.

[Brian Elfert]

Nearest car wash 15 minutes away one way. 10 minutes here and it’s done. Push button on pressure washer for quick blast off. Foam gun. Long handled brush. Rinse. Hit windows. Done. Good enough.

You live in area of the country that probably doesn't use any road salt, and rarely gets below freezing. Here in Minnesota in the winter it is pretty hard to wash your car yourself, unless you find a rare sunny day when it gets up to 40 degrees. I will run my car through the touchless car wash once or twice a month during the winter months.

[Tom M King]

Correct. They brine the roads maybe once a year every third year. Nothing we own goes on the roads then until after a good rain has passed.

[Brian Elfert]

Correct. They brine the roads maybe once a year every third year. Nothing we own goes on the roads then until after a good rain has passed.

You just stay home after they put salt brine on the roads? Couldn't that mean you are at home for days or weeks until there is a good rain? You must be retired.

[Tom M King]

Usually just a couple of days. Plenty to do here on the Ponderosa. Not possible to run out of work without leaving home. Self-employed since 1974.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I think I remember hearing the CarTalk guys say that there was no point in washing your car during the winter other than to make it look nice, because the undercarriage would be covered with salt again before you had gone a mile from the car wash, but that it was good to wash them in the spring after the salt was gone.

[Warren Lake]

I heavy rust proof then leave it till spring. The manual says power wash below after each winter. Im not set up to that and once did hire they didnt care much about doing it well but can go to one of those car washes that does below and do a rust proof after the winter after it. Just not done that have many layers or rust proof built up thick with road dirt. Black factory paint below it all.

[julian abram]

Yes, a company called Club Car Wash has been building like crazy the past 2 years in NW Arkansas. They have built in 7-8 locations. We have a $22/month subscription for one car. Can use any location with unlimited washes but we probably only average 1-2 washes/month.

[Jim Becker]

The one with the most building action around here is called "Pete's Car Wash". I suspect that this kind of business lends itself to owners adding locations by putting profits from existing locations into building new locations. My understanding from having looked at a local proposal for a car wash location is that there are just a few companies that provide the "hardware" and are involved with owners and potential owners for the planning an execution of each new location which makes it almost "cookie cutter" to bring more online.

[Brian Elfert]

The one car wash under construction I drive by multiple times a week used what looked like a prefabricated structure. I assume they use the same basic building for all of their car washes.

[Cameron Wood]

Maybe more car washes are being built in response to the moronic fad of black cars, which along with their other shortcomings, require 3 or 4x the amount of cleaning to look OK.

[Pat Germain]

Oh yeah, lots of car washes built in the Colorado Springs area over the past ten years.

A new car wash went up near my house several months ago. They have a monthly payment plan which gives you unlimited washes. I don't like monthly payments. I asked if I could get a plan for a year. They said I could and I would get a discount. Took a while to sign me up, but now Mrs. Pat can whip her Subaru into the car wash any time she likes. I asked if it was really unlimited. They assured me it was and shared that some people run their cars through multiple times in the same day and that's fine. The car wash has a scanner which matches the license plate to the make of the car so you can't swap plates for all six of your vehicles.

I recently heard a story on NPR about all the new car washes going up everywhere. They interviewed an automotive expert who said most people used to wash their cars at home, but this is no longer the case. Now 80% of car owners get them washed at an automatic car wash.

Someone mentioned watering restrictions earlier in the thread. That's a big deal in Colorado. We are typically on watering restrictions every summer. It's a real pain to comply with watering restrictions when you're trying to wash your car. It's much easier to whip into the automatic car wash. And the new automatic washes clean and recycle the water, so it saves water to boot.