Information on Starting a Car wash Bussiness Please ??

keys_2

I would love to hear your thoughts /views and suggestions on a car wash idea I have please .? ?? I will be honest and I have not looked into this yet , as this has only entered my head this week , so I thought I would ask here first , all information would be great please ?

Since being very young I have always had a goal of owning and building my own bussiness .It is a certain line of work , It will cost me alot of money as I will have to build premises and alot of the work involved is similar to charity work . This will take me many years to gain the sort of money I would need to do this { unless I won the lottery } . So I am prepared to work hard towards this goal and I often think of bussiness ideas to earn me the money to eventually meet my goal in later life
I do not have much funds and I have come up with the car wash idea recently which seems the easiest for me to follow up under my circumstances i.e I have little funds and I am a single parent so obviously the job role has to fit around childcare and babysitters .
So here goes :

The idea is to have a hand car wash { myself and maybe 2 other people I know to be the staff to start off with }
I guess you need to rent land yet I wouldnt need a huge space just enough to build a cheap cover to stand under .
To make it a car wash with a bit of a twist and hopefully get more customers and it to be a place to remember is to have the females dressed up in waterproof oufits similar to pom pom girls i.e shortish skirts , and the men looking like hunks { quite american looking }

I would like more information mainly on costs if anyone could help or point me in the right direction please ?
I guess clothes, soaps etc and equipment would be around £20 a week ish
I could employ students as there would be no experience nesscary and hours could be full / part time
Advertising would be around £100 a month to start off with on home printer and newspapaer advertising
uniforms £100 start off with
We could charge cheap prices to start with i.e Soap and rinse £3.00
Valet no more than £5.00


I live in the Greater Manchester area so need it local
Does anyone know the rough price guides to the following please ?
How much is land to rent ? Do you need a licence / employing people costs ? Buisness tax ? anything else I would need to get please ? How do I find these things out please ?

I maybe being stupid but do you think this bussiness could begin with a spending limit of £1500 , 00 ???

What Would make you visit a hand car wash more than doing it yourself ?

Doozergirl

I would rather drive a dirty car than have it washed by a 'hunk' or a tarty girl You are excluding part of your target market by trying to appeal to a niche. You won't convince more people to wash their cars by offering this service and you will alienate many potential customers.

Dealing with water all day every day, getting grubby and operating outside in most months of the year in UK weather would not be an condusive atmosphere for being scantily clad... if you did, you'd need really decent outfits, not budget ones that wouldn't withstand a night out, let alone a hard day's work.

You need to use decent products - you have a duty of care to the car and will need to use products that are tested properly on cars to avoid damaging them. Even with cheap products I could see you spending more than £20 a week. Lord knows how much you'd spend on branded products.

You don't need premises to wash cars as you could mobile valet.

Decent Insurance for car valet companies isn't the cheapest - the cheapest policy for a motor related company from an insurer I know of, is £1200, more expensive if you want cover for other people's vehicles whilst on your own premises. And you need it if you damage something.

Car washing in itself isn't a bad idea but there isn't a niche market out there for people that only want their cars washed by people in fancy dress. You want to appeal to as many people as possible, not as few. I like being able to get on with what I'm doing so a mobile valet while I'm at home is good, as is people washing my car whilst I'm shopping.

There do seem to be a lot of options for car washing out there at the moment but there is obviously an idea in there and your initial set up costs realistic if you consider that you will mainly spend from your cashflow. The pub down the road has set a dodgy looking one up in the car park. I've seen one in Birmingham in a petrol garage forecourt where people queue for ages in big fancy cars - I think because they don't charge enough (I'd question their profitability in fact) as they evidently do a good job with queues like that

There is obviously an idea in there and your initial set up costs realistic if you consider that you will mainly spend from your cashflow. You don't need any staff to start with - you only hire once you have enough business for them to work on.

silvercar

Our local Tesco now has a hand car washing service in its petrol station as does an (outdoor) second hand car showroom.

What does this say:

a. a lot of competition
b. low start up costs.
c. visibility (in terms of passing traffic) is important - more so than hunks of cheer leaders.

How profitable is it? Our local one charges about £6 a car has 4 guys working at break neck speed and do a car in about 10 minutes. So they are taking in £60 an hour with 4 guys to pay minimum wage= x4 =24. So £36 to pay for insurance, premises hire, materials and advertising. Also all the employment legislation on holidays etc probably means more than £6 a guy an hour. At £8 you get left with £28 for all the extras. £28 x 70 hrs a week = nearly £2000 a week.

Sunshine12

I think its great that you are interested in starting your own business etc but I dont think you should concentrate on the girls in short skirts/men looking like hunks as all this does is cheapen your business idea and make it look like a gimik rather than a professional set up. It will minimise your ability to employ staff as presumably you will be looking for a certain kind of person to do this and I also dont think it will necessarily attract customers just because of this (apart of course from perverts.) You need to do alot of market research in your area to find out how much people will pay etc. and find out what competition you have as well as what your competitors are charging. You will also need to look into insurance which may be quite costly. I wish you well.

Kay_Peel

I've seen similar enterprises - but they are usually one-off Weekend Specials to raise money for charity. The fact that the money goes to a good cause and that the students are up for laugh makes it harmless fun. People who would normally drive past have an excuse to drive in.

From a money saving perspective, I prefer to wash my own car and I would be put off by your gimmick. Once in a while a local builder sets up a car-wash when work is slack and I take my car there because the workers do a fantastic job for about four pounds.

Personally I would find your business idea a bit tacky. I wouldn't like my son or daughter to work there - it would be demeaning to them. As well as equipment, take out a big insurance policy in case your employees are sexually harassed or put at risk from chancers and pervs. And expect lots of protests from the local community who might feel that you are running a knocking shop fronted by a car-wash.

Just a thought.:whistle:

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I'd think the car was grubbier on the way out than on the way in. The girls would all need cabs home to protect them from some of the punters, you'd have to be so careful that none of them were running their own 'business' from the carwash, the blokes would be at risk of ***bashing attacks from people who have seen them working there, and if the only job you can get involves getting covered in soapy water wearing a bikini and writhing over a car windscreen, I'd also be considering any substance misuse on the part of the applicants.

Savvy_Sue

I would start by reading this thread on a service for washing wheelie bins for some of the practicalities which don't yet seem to have crossed your mind.

And I would look at the Businesslink site for help with some of your questions.

And not what you want to hear, but I never wash my car myself - clean the windows sometimes if I can't see out of them - and only get it hand washed once or twice a year, just let it stay dirty the rest of the time! It's usually opportunistic, eg when they are doing it at CostCo for Children in Need, or if the Scouts are doing it to raise funds. There's a car wash business just opposite DH's work, so sometimes if it's dire we take it there. They charge min. £5 btw, not in Manchester but you don't want to be too cheap!

keys_2

Thankyou ever so much for your replies

To be honest the outfits were not my main concern - But mainly something to gain more customers due to the area I live ...As I HATE fancy dress myself ...lol ...mainly for reasons you have all spoken
My boyfriends occupation very regualrly offers charity work doing a car wash and it is very good which also got me thinking , as they get lots of girls returning with their friends on the same day..as they all like the uniform and it is unusual ..even though their car is clean ..lol !
So that bit of the idea was basically meant for the builders and people whom dont noramlly visit car washes
But a long story short ..a guy I know from years ago whom I only knew from being a regular customer in a restaurant I used to work in set up an American Car Wash in an area not to far from me...Minus the outfits ....And everyone goes there and it is now very well heard of in surrounding greater manchester areas ...Yet he was a typical Jack the lad , and has done extremely well for himself and it is still thriving with big queues in a small area for over 4 years now and there is at least 4 competitors within a 2 mile radious ..not to mention well know garages aswell ..Good on him

I said students basically because I have alot of close contact with them at the moment throug ha family memeber , whom are all after part time jobs and are of the flirty type male and female , yet also can very easily stand their ground and love attention - Please dont get me wrong on that comment but they never fail to shock me on their stories ......... And would find this job a walk in the park ...lol

Also what has pushed me to this idea ..........Is when I was alot younger { at least 10 yrs ago } a guy used to really be fast and work hard to wash car window screens that were stuck in the heavy traffic at traffic lights outside the pub I worked in ....weather they asked or not :eek: and got paid by some - a £1 pound a windscreen !!! I still see him doing it now and earns at least £200 a day !! ...I dont think its through the books thow ...Im not certain about that thow - just a random guess as he used to use the water in the pub :cool:


As for stock ...I would only want the best or nearest as this would be my business ..and I just made a rough estimate { without knowledge I admit } ... but I have sales experience and very quickly realized when I moved down to the South for many years near London that wholesalers are alot dearer than that of Manchester where you can get wholesalers selling alot cheaper if you are willing to buy in bulk ..yet the customers down south are willing to pay more ..........But I certainly estimate that after a month after bussiness opens I would have to buy more quality items to keep my customers

I would really like to hear more on the insurance prices please ...as this is the main bit I am lost on and dont know where to look to find it please ?
Like I said this was only an idea I thought of to get the ball rolling of my own bussiness on little money ,which also fits in with family life ...and if it goes wrong so be it ...ive not lost a fortune ....but I am very grateful of your views as I know nothing about this idea and I am taking all your posts seriously ...
Thankyou

keys_2

Thankyou very much for that ,,,I have read through the first link : and yes I understand the idea I had is alot more money costing than I thought ...

I havnt read the second link yet , but will definately read some more tommorrow .

Thankyou for replying , as this was just an idea and I wanted views on this matter ...which I got ...thnakyou for pointing me in the right directions

ailuro2

The question to ask yourself is, if it's so easy, why isn't everyone doing it?

When you go to the bank with your business plan, make sure you've had it spellchecked.;)

Good Luck.:)

xmaslolly76

We had a topless car wash down the road from us not long ago it did booming business for a few weeks then the novelty wore off and it closed a few months later. i always felt really sorry for the girls they were stood outside freezing in wet tshirts trying to pull the punters in. I know your idea is not quite as extreme as that but i could see the same thing happening :-)