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Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

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Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#211

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

greedo wrote: post #158
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in a place where roads are salted, washing your car is generally recommended to reduce rusting and paint damage. I don't go to the car wash often and I only use the one at my local gas station, but it's rare that I go there and there aren't already at least two cars in line. And I live in a very low population density area. At 1 car every 14 minutes on average, a single bay will easily clear $1,000/day of…

If any of the fancy new car washes in my town were only clearing $1k/day, they'd be folding shop pretty quickly. I don't know where you live, but the wash by me (JetSplash) does between 500-1000 cars a day at over $20 a pop. So you're off by a magnitude or more.

Yeah, not around here though. My estimate is based on how long a wash takes and allowing for people not washing as frequently at night at the wash attached to my local gas station. This is a rural area.

However my neighbor used to own a chain of car washes in the suburbs and going by his 11,000 sq-ft house, I'm guessing it was pretty profitable!

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#212

Post by TylerE »

logifail wrote: post #89

> There are four full-service car washes in town, with a fifth on the way; three are bunched up on a mile-and-a-half stretch of Route 14. Social media complaints about car wash overkill spurred town leaders to take action. Four (or even five) doesn't sound that much? What's the actual problem here? How is a local politican supposed to determine what is the correct density of any particular type of service within her…

If it’s anything like the 3 that have opened in my town of 80k in literally the last year it’s because they’re huuuuuuge. The wash itself is 100+ft long, and tons of parking, vacuums, etc.

Just one of those things takes up the space of 3 or 4 normal gas stations.

The crazy thing is that after a small wave of initial enthusiasm, they hardly ever even have customers.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#213

Post by spywaregorilla »

atrus wrote: post #168
logifail wrote: post #89

> There are four full-service car washes in town, with a fifth on the way; three are bunched up on a mile-and-a-half stretch of Route 14. Social media complaints about car wash overkill spurred town leaders to take action. Four (or even five) doesn't sound that much? What's the actual problem here? How is a local politican supposed to determine what is the correct density of any particular type of service within her…

> If the market were too small, the weakest would fail, right? Right? I find it interesting that we have sayings like this, and sayings like "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." > why should a politician need to step in to regulate, rather than letting the market decide? Because the market doesn't price in externalities. Sure the market will figure out which car washes live. But what abo…

> I find it interesting that we have sayings like this, and sayings like "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

We don't generally say that about small businesses that need cash flow

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#214

Post by RussianCow »

grecy wrote: post #174
atrus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the market were too small, the weakest would fail, right? Right? I find it interesting that we have sayings like this, and sayings like "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." > why should a politician need to step in to regulate, rather than letting the market decide? Because the market doesn't price in externalities. Sure the market will figure out which car washes live. But what abo…

> Sure the market will figure out which car washes live. But what about the ones that don't and the people who subsequently lose their jobs There's a lot going on in your statement to dig through. The article specifically says these car washes barely add jobs.. but let's ignore that. When a business opens and starts to hire people, there is no guarantee it will exist long term. When a person applies for a job, they n…

> When a person applies for a job, they need to do some due diligence researching the business to see if it sounds like something that will be around as long as they want to have a job.

This is a nitpick as I agree with the rest of your comment, but most people are absolutely not qualified to make that assessment. (In fact, it's debatable whether anyone can make that claim with any amount of certainty. Even the most successful investors are often wrong.)

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#215

Post by smt88 »

paulmd wrote: post #206
gunapologist99 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I take pride in the fact I haven't been to a car wash in probably 3 years and have likely gone myself less than 10 times total. You don't come off here as well as you think you do.

Ya, he’s bragging about letting his frame and underbody rust out. (must be nice to live in a place without salt on the roads!)

Most of humanity lives in a place without salt on roads (or doesn't own a car).

I've never washed a car I've owned and my frame is fine.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#216

Post by moomin »

logifail wrote: post #89

> There are four full-service car washes in town, with a fifth on the way; three are bunched up on a mile-and-a-half stretch of Route 14. Social media complaints about car wash overkill spurred town leaders to take action. Four (or even five) doesn't sound that much? What's the actual problem here? How is a local politican supposed to determine what is the correct density of any particular type of service within her…

I’d ask you what you think the purpose of a local politician is, if not to reflect the local people’s wishes in the development of their area.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#217

Post by lostlogin »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #208
atrus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the market were too small, the weakest would fail, right? Right? I find it interesting that we have sayings like this, and sayings like "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." > why should a politician need to step in to regulate, rather than letting the market decide? Because the market doesn't price in externalities. Sure the market will figure out which car washes live. But what abo…

The entire point of working for a living instead of e.g. subsistence farming is that you can simply switch jobs if it's not going well. As an adult if you can't weather a couple of weeks of unemployment you've seriously screwed up somewhere - probably overcommitting to expenses based on assuming that your income is guaranteed. The mindset that someone should be stopped from even offering a job because it might not be…

> As an adult if you can't weather a couple of weeks of unemployment you've seriously screwed up somewhere

Only 64% of Americans could cover an expected bill of $400.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2021-economic-we...

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#218

Post by JKCalhoun »

nickthegreek wrote: post #137
bee_rider wrote: post #83

1) Who is spending $20 a month on car washes? 2) If the problem is that subscription users aren’t paying local sales taxes, why not charge property taxes? (or, Land Value Tax!)

$20 is 2 car washes. Around here moo moo car wash chain is all over and you cat get unlimited washes for like $30/month. Anywhere there is a moo-moo’s there is also a line of cars. Some people get obsessed with keeping their cars squeaky clean here.

$30/month to wait in a line. Fun times we live in.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#219

Post by throwaway22032 »

lostlogin wrote: post #217
throwaway22032 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of working for a living instead of e.g. subsistence farming is that you can simply switch jobs if it's not going well. As an adult if you can't weather a couple of weeks of unemployment you've seriously screwed up somewhere - probably overcommitting to expenses based on assuming that your income is guaranteed. The mindset that someone should be stopped from even offering a job because it might not be…

> As an adult if you can't weather a couple of weeks of unemployment you've seriously screwed up somewhere Only 64% of Americans could cover an expected bill of $400. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2021-economic-we...

Indeed. More than 36% of Americans are clinically obese.

There are a _lot_ of really short sighted people out there.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#220

Post by rootusrootus »

Spivak wrote: post #209
gunapologist99 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I take pride in the fact I haven't been to a car wash in probably 3 years and have likely gone myself less than 10 times total. You don't come off here as well as you think you do.

I really don't get what this is implying, commuter cars are essentially self-cleaning. You're driving on roads where the worst that's gonna happen is some salt buildup in winter that isn't worth washing off in winter (and isn't rusting in winter) and then it washes itself off first rain of spring. This feels like one of those iceberg tips where I'm really glad I'm not in the kind of social circle where having a spotl…

I think it’s pretty normal for people to want to take good care of things they’ve spent hard earned money on. Is driving a filthy car some kind of weird flex?
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