sufac.com

Car washes seem to be great businesses and a recent article in Calgary Inc revealed some interesting numbers. For example a new two-auto bay car wash in Sylvan Lake (small town of just over 10,000 people and a million tourists/year) was set up for $1.4 million. It’s expected that each bay brings in approximately $15,000/month. At that rate it would be paid off in about 47 months or just over three and a half years ignoring interest. Not too bad.

Self washers however seem a bit too pricey, they cost about $4,000/month to run and the average one brings in about $4,000/month. Not too grand a margin there. But if you have some money in your community you could think about starting a full detail service like TLC Auto Detail. They charge between $400-$1,000/detail and will even do wet sand polishes, where they dismantle the panels and polish each one. Crazy.

And since your customers won’t travel far you’ll need to dish out enough for a great location. In fact that’s the number one cost of a car wash, the dirt underneath. Overall, I’d say they’re an okay businss, but there is lots of competition, you can only reach the customers within a few miles and it costs a heck of a lot to get started. I’d much rather leverage an innovative business model rather than my bankroll and pursue something similar to Threadless.com (check out our post on threadless.com).

-Craig Sharkton