Over the years, I've designed and developed many types of mobile car wash units. And I worked with our vendors, contractors, and other companies in the pressure washing industry to come up with what I believe to be the most efficient mobile carwash trucks, trailers, vans, and setups. One thing I can say is that when it comes to mobile car detailing, and mobile washing size very much does matter. And often it is the smaller size which is most efficient. Let me explain.
You see, before retirement I ran a franchising company which sold mobile car wash units, and depending on the type of washing one would do, it often made sense to go with a larger truck to hold more water, that is to say a larger plastic water tank, which would support the weight. Remember water weighs 8.2 pounds per gallon, so if you want to take 300 gallons of water you're looking at a 2500 pound payload. That's a lot more than the average truck can take. Remember, 2000 pounds equals 1 ton.
Indeed, I also came to realize that sometimes 100 gallons of water or even less was sufficient for doing high-end cars at people's homes, or at their office buildings. And we discovered that working out of the back of let's say a Cushman Scooter, or a small three wheeled vehicle often made a lot of sense. This is because you were never in someone's way in a parking structure, parking lot, and it didn't take very long to walk around the work vehicle to get supplies.
Working out of a bigger vehicle, or a large trailer is not as easy as you might think. Then there is the issue, especially now with the price of fuel on saving money buying gasoline. A small three-wheeled vehicle may have a two or three cylinder motor, and they're pretty much a fuel sipper, which means you'll have more money at the end of the day because your costs are lower.
In fact, over time we developed international units which were very small trailers, and they could easily be towed by a three-wheeled vehicle, or even modified to be moved around like a pushcart or a rickshaw. Anyone going into the mobile car washing or detailing business needs to consider the importance of the size of the vehicle based on the type of work you will be doing because size really does matter.
Therefore, you need to do some strategic thinking here, consider all the options, and surf around the Internet until you find exactly what you need to get the job done at the lowest possible cost. Please consider all this, and e-mail me if you have any other questions, comments, or concerns.
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 23,850 articles by July 4, 2011 is going to be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off now..
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