New life of an old car wash

A self-service car wash can be built from scratch or … reconstructed from an existing facility.

What is the benefit, and is there any? Let’s consider the case of a branded ALLES car wash in St. Petersburg at the address: shosse Revolutsii, 69P.

Why are self-service car washes “dying”?

Go out of date. Particularly it concerns car washes built before 2017, which worked on 4-5 programs without banking equipment (no cash desk). Such car washes were built according to the European model: small boxes, poorly heated floors, absolute want of any kind of customer service.
There is no proper management. The owner has little interest in the car wash.
The term of land lease expires, and the previous owner is not going to renew it. If the location is good, buy the facility without hesitation!

Good news. Out-dated car washes can be brought back to life. But only subject to their complete upgrade, both external and technological.

The last point is the most important. Not only the attractiveness of a car wash for customers, but also the average paid amount depends on it. For example, the most popular options on ALLES self-service car washes are Turbo, hot water, wax, osmosis, color foam. Plus air and vacuum cleaner in the dry zone. Half of these options were simply absent at old car washes.

Now let’s take a particular example

Background: not very prosperous 6-station self-service car wash based on Polish equipment built 2015 at the intersection of Sh. Revolutsii and Industrialny pr. in St. Petersburg. The location is top-class, but the previous owner lost interest in this business and neglected the facility.

The solution is to purchase a self-service car wash and completely reconstruct it according to ALLES standards:

new slabs at washing stations;
spacious area for the dry zone;
new service room (one of them is for fast food);
powerful lighting all over the site;
corporate branding;
the latest generation of ALLES equipment 2021

Let’s count. Purchase of a loss-making facility – 5 million rubles (part of the old equipment was sold). Total investments ~ 19 million rubles (complete overhaul + new ALLES equipment in the maximum configuration).

The turnover forecast is the average of 1.3 million per month, at “peaks” – up to 2.5 million per month.

At large, a fairly good reincarnation. The result is a completely new, most advanced self-service car wash at the already known and high-traffic place.