Having been in the car wash industry for a number of years I can tell you that most of the people who sell soaps and chemicals to the car wash industry believe that each carwash spends huge amounts of money on soaps and chemicals. The truth is that the carwash industry does not spend that much on soap and chemicals. In fact in surveys the average carwash spent around $20,000 in a whole year on all their soaps and chemicals.
In these surveys the highest soap and chemical users for the highest volume car washes and the entire United States were spending only $30,000 per year and the smaller full-service carwash is spent less than 12,000 per year. Needless to say car washing chemical and soap expenses are not quite as large as some people may be led to believe including the environmentalists who love to blast the carwash industry.
The cost of labor on the other hand of course being the biggest expense was on average over $100,000 per year and that number is up significantly from the surveys in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Labor costs will continue to climb, where as chemicals and soaps will continue to become more efficient and therefore decline.
With labor costs increasing along with various other expenses it appears that the profit margins are also decreasing slightly while the price of a carwash is increasing slightly. Please consider all this in 2006.
