The car wash industry continues to expand at a fast pace. Much of the growth can be credited to the convenience and ease of use for washing your car.
The convenience factor is especially important to the automatic self-serve car wash, a segment of the car wash industry that some observers see as growing at an even faster pace. Automatic, self-serve car washes require less upfront investment than the more traditional tunnel washes and lower operating costs.
During the recent Car Wash Show 2025 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, attendees had a chance to learn some tips about succeeding in this segment during a presentation, “Self service visibility in the age of express.”
“I believe recipes are important,” said presenter Brent McCurdy, president, Red Rhino Car Wash and McClean Solutions LLC.
“You don’t want to go and buy a car wash, then start thinking about what you’re going to do.” It’s important to know about things like developing car wash membership, return on investment, car wash money math and more.
McCurdy, who currently operates seven automatic washes, has grown through acquisition and has been able to increase the annual revenue of most of the washes he has acquired. He boosted one from $80,000 to more than $300,000.
“We implemented pricing changes,” he said. “We added state sales tax. We added a monthly wash program. We put in new automatics or added them.”
Recipe for success
McCurdy’s recipe for success consists of the following 10 steps:
- Use a name and logo that sounds like a brand. “I believe you need to go with extra tech style…It looks so professional…It takes the place from 1990 or 2000 into the future.”
- Use credit card acceptors, bill acceptors and new payment doors on the automatic car wash machines.
- Provide pay stations and monthly wash programs. “You can’t just have an old school push button thing that looks like it’s outside an old 7-Eleven.”
- Add sizzling marketing, including exterior lights. “Express exteriors are sizzling. You pull in, there’s all these arches, places to park, they give out towels, they give out cleaner, they have signs that say ‘join our monthly club.’”
- Use dryers in the self-service bays, including foaming Carnauba and ceramic protectant.
- Cover all bollards, paint the building, add lights and cover eye sores.
- Make the walls bright and clean.
- Only use quality products. “If you’re not offering foam brush, ceramic, Carnauba, dryers in a bay, you’re like your mother’s kitchen…If your presoak can’t wash without using a foam brush, you don’t have a great presoak.”
- Don’t have cones. “A cone says you’re going out of business. You’ve got to be open all the time.”
- Have an attendant on site.
Self service versus tunnel washes
The advantages of self service over tunnel washes, according to McCurdy include:
- They are more affordable. The cost is between $400,000 to $2 million as opposed to $4 million to $10 million for a tunnel wash.
- Touchless and 24-hour service distinguishes self service washes over tunnel washes.
- Fewer employees are needed.
- There is less competition. If another wash opens nearby, a self-service won’t go out of business. “We have an advantage that when we build an awesome business, the likelihood of people building another automatic self-service car wash… I think it’s almost zero.”
Another advantage over tunnel washes is that competitors are not constantly scouting out locations that a self-service wash can open at. “We’re flying under the radar,” he said. “We’re not competing to buy that lot.”
How much can you charge?
As in any business, pricing is critical in a self-service car wash. McCurdy thinks many owners are afraid to raise their prices.
“You can charge a lot more than you think,” he said. “Do not underestimate what people are willing to pay.”
He resisted raising prices a year and a half before adding a $20 wash at one location.
“I put my $20 wash in,” he said. “Instantly, 25% of my customers were buying my $20 wash.”
When he introduced the $20 wash, he added a fourth wash; raised self serve pricing from $3 for 4.5 minutes to $4 for 4 minutes; raised the bottom wash from $6 to $8; raised the top wash from $12 to $15; and created upsells for trifoam and graphene on top wash.
He got zero emails, calls or complaints about it.
“We didn’t lose any business and we’re making 33% more,” he said.
In making this change, he went from two presoaks to three, from one ceramic pass to two, and slowed down the hyper rinse.
He also began charging the state sales tax. His payment provider, Cryptopay, allows him to charge for sales tax on credit card sales.
“If 60% of people spend with a credit card, I get a 6% increase,” he said. “That’s a 3.6% increase in my pricing.”
Monthly wash offers
Monthly wash offerings are becoming more popular with consumers, he said. Besides the increased revenue, car washes will look busier if people are washing their cars more frequently, which can attract drive-by business.
“Monthly washing tells people every day your wash is awesome.”
Strength in numbers
To be highly successful, it’s important to have more than one location. Having multiple sites not only generates more sales, but allows for economies of scale.
To expand his locations, McCurdy sought existing washes that he believed would be successful under his management. None of the businesses he acquired were for sale when he approached them.
His buying price was not based on any existing financial formula, but on what he knew it would cost to buy the business and what he believed the site would generate under his ownership.
He considers how much it will cost to fix the site to his needs.
These considerations include:
- Automatic equipment and installation
- Self service new selection bay doors
- Automatic dryers
- Self service pump stand
- Lighting
- Sign
- Softener and RO repairs.
- Automatic door build out and cover
- Pay station
- Upgrade bay walls
- Paint
- Parking lot coating and repair
While some speakers at the convention viewed building a car wash from the ground up as preferable to acquiring an existing business, McCurdy offered the opposite view.
“How much would it cost to build what you’re buying?”
Looking to the future, he is considering adding a virtual assistant to his self-service car washes.
Article by Elliot Maras, Content Writer
