Washing dealership cars, and water spots

showgsluvv

New member
I wanted to get into a power washing business, washing dealership cars. A friend of mine is doing this right now but all he does is spray the cars down with plain water then has two people wipe them off with a chammi. I read somewhere that this is a very bad way to do the power washing, I was wondering why would it be bad if u have high enough pressure to "break" the bond of dirt on the car, because that is whats mostly on these cars right? I was also thinking about how to minimize water spotting if I was to go the same route as this guy. So would a solution with a little bit of water softener, then some dish washing spot remover, and a little bit of wax mixed into the power washer help minimize the water spots? this would all be coupled with two people drying the car with leather chammi's. Thanks in advance.
 
Here is a post I wrote on another board. I didn't feel like rewriting it so I just copied it and pasted it here. Let me know if you have any other questions.


I wash car lots and is something you really have to think about when you start. When figuring out how the hardness of your water you need to find out your TDS(total dissolved solids) reading. It is measured in ppm(parts per million). For spot free rinse you would like your TDS reading to be below 40 ppm. In my area the city water is 160 ppm. Even if you use a water softener the TDS level won't change. You are just exchanging calcium and magnesium for sodium. There are two ways to drop the ppm. RO system or DI tanks. I started out using a DI tank just to see if the "spot free" water really worked like people said it did. It worked great. The problem being is that the tank cost me $155 to exchange. I can get about 1200 gallons through the tank before I need to get a new tank. That is 13 cents a gallon. That is too much money. It is nice because it brings the TDS readings from 160ppm to 0. I went out and bought a RO system. Nothing really big. It puts out 100 gallons a day. I let it run non stop filling into a storage tank at my shop. When I need to fill my tanks with the water I use a high volume pump to dump it into my tank on my rig. The RO system will take my TDS level from 160ppm to about 16 ppm. That is still good enough to be spot free. What I do then is run the RO water though the DI tank and bring the 16ppm to 0. The thing with an RO system is you have to buy it. It cost me around $2000 for the whole system. With me using a DI tank and running RO water through it it only has to bring the TDS from 16 to 0 instead of 160 to 0. So it lasts about 10 times longer. If you figure in the cost of the RO system with the replacement filters, salt for the softener, electric, water, etc. in the long run you pay about 1.7 cents a gallon for RO water. Then for my DI tank it costs me 1.3 cents a gallon for a total of 3 cents a gallon. Remember that if you run a DI tank by itself the cost will be higher per gallon. Alot of this has to do with the area you live in. I think Scott says he gets a lot gallons out of his tanks. There are parts of the country where the TDS of the city water is less only 80ppm. That would mean there water is twice as good as here and get get double the usage out of there tanks. I only use my spot free water to rinse with. Now that we have the water out of the way lets move on. I use two guns on the job meaning two machines. I use a little 4 gpm cold machine to spray my RO/DI water. It is not good to run DI water through the pump because you will have to replace the seals ever so often. That is why I use a small inexpensive machine to do that. When you wash cars you need to downstream your soap. I use a light soap and wax. I cut it like 160 to 1. It works great. My lots love that stuff. They love how they shine when we are done. We have taken are lumps trying to fine tune our stuff but we have it down now. I use rollover nozzles on car lots. It is the only way to go. who wants to change tips all the time? That will slow you down. I would need to change my tip over 500 times a day if I did that. Dual lances won't work here either. They are too heavy. You will be spraying in a rapid motion to get the soap/water off the car. It will wear you out. I use high over 3000 psi but I don't get close to the cars. I use the high psi for the wind it creates. It helps blow the soap off fast. DO NOT use more then 100' of hose or you are going to wait too long between soap and clean water. I soap up the car. My guy comes in with hand mitts and mitts the whole car down. I come by with my soap gun flick it to high pressure wait 8 seconds for my clean water and I rinse. I use a water softener on all my water. Then I put that gun down and grab the spot free water gun. I give about a 20 second quick rinse to blow off all the soft water and leave behind a spot free car. I use two 275 gallon tanks on my rig. I have to keep my water separate. I get about 25 - 30 cars done in one hour, that is used cars by the way. I get $2.50 a car so that is $62 to $75 an hour washing cars. When I wash my new cars I can get away with a DI rinse only. Then it is about 50- 60 cars an hour. I used to squeegee and towel dry the cars. That is a pain in the ass. The cars don't look as good either. That spot free rinse can't be beat. I do about 160 cars a week. So I make around $400 a week from them. I am working on a few other lots to bump up that total. I do my cars on a wednesday morning and a thursday morning. What I like best about the cars is it is money you can count on every week. If you don't have soft water then the cars will turn out crappy even if you do hand dry them. You could do alright on overcast days but wash cars in the sun and that water will dry very fast and leave water spots. Spots that don't come off real easy. Rinse aids help a little but if you have hard water you will still have spots. You really need to think about washing cars. It is more then meets the eye. If you have any other question feel free to ask
 
Hey Steve, after reading that post, I can tell you that I do NOT want to wash car lots, for sure!

By the way, with regards to our phone tag, I know that I'm "it" righ now.
 
Here is a post I wrote on another board. I didn't feel like rewriting it so I just copied it and pasted it here. Let me know if you have any other questions.


I wash car lots and is something you really have to think about when you start. When figuring out how the hardness of your water you need to find out your TDS(total dissolved solids) reading. It is measured in ppm(parts per million). For spot free rinse you would like your TDS reading to be below 40 ppm. In my area the city water is 160 ppm. Even if you use a water softener the TDS level won't change. You are just exchanging calcium and magnesium for sodium. There are two ways to drop the ppm. RO system or DI tanks. I started out using a DI tank just to see if the "spot free" water really worked like people said it did. It worked great. The problem being is that the tank cost me $155 to exchange. I can get about 1200 gallons through the tank before I need to get a new tank. That is 13 cents a gallon. That is too much money. It is nice because it brings the TDS readings from 160ppm to 0. I went out and bought a RO system. Nothing really big. It puts out 100 gallons a day. I let it run non stop filling into a storage tank at my shop. When I need to fill my tanks with the water I use a high volume pump to dump it into my tank on my rig. The RO system will take my TDS level from 160ppm to about 16 ppm. That is still good enough to be spot free. What I do then is run the RO water though the DI tank and bring the 16ppm to 0. The thing with an RO system is you have to buy it. It cost me around $2000 for the whole system. With me using a DI tank and running RO water through it it only has to bring the TDS from 16 to 0 instead of 160 to 0. So it lasts about 10 times longer. If you figure in the cost of the RO system with the replacement filters, salt for the softener, electric, water, etc. in the long run you pay about 1.7 cents a gallon for RO water. Then for my DI tank it costs me 1.3 cents a gallon for a total of 3 cents a gallon. Remember that if you run a DI tank by itself the cost will be higher per gallon. Alot of this has to do with the area you live in. I think Scott says he gets a lot gallons out of his tanks. There are parts of the country where the TDS of the city water is less only 80ppm. That would mean there water is twice as good as here and get get double the usage out of there tanks. I only use my spot free water to rinse with. Now that we have the water out of the way lets move on. I use two guns on the job meaning two machines. I use a little 4 gpm cold machine to spray my RO/DI water. It is not good to run DI water through the pump because you will have to replace the seals ever so often. That is why I use a small inexpensive machine to do that. When you wash cars you need to downstream your soap. I use a light soap and wax. I cut it like 160 to 1. It works great. My lots love that stuff. They love how they shine when we are done. We have taken are lumps trying to fine tune our stuff but we have it down now. I use rollover nozzles on car lots. It is the only way to go. who wants to change tips all the time? That will slow you down. I would need to change my tip over 500 times a day if I did that. Dual lances won't work here either. They are too heavy. You will be spraying in a rapid motion to get the soap/water off the car. It will wear you out. I use high over 3000 psi but I don't get close to the cars. I use the high psi for the wind it creates. It helps blow the soap off fast. DO NOT use more then 100' of hose or you are going to wait too long between soap and clean water. I soap up the car. My guy comes in with hand mitts and mitts the whole car down. I come by with my soap gun flick it to high pressure wait 8 seconds for my clean water and I rinse. I use a water softener on all my water. Then I put that gun down and grab the spot free water gun. I give about a 20 second quick rinse to blow off all the soft water and leave behind a spot free car. I use two 275 gallon tanks on my rig. I have to keep my water separate. I get about 25 - 30 cars done in one hour, that is used cars by the way. I get $2.50 a car so that is $62 to $75 an hour washing cars. When I wash my new cars I can get away with a DI rinse only. Then it is about 50- 60 cars an hour. I used to squeegee and towel dry the cars. That is a pain in the ass. The cars don't look as good either. That spot free rinse can't be beat. I do about 160 cars a week. So I make around $400 a week from them. I am working on a few other lots to bump up that total. I do my cars on a wednesday morning and a thursday morning. What I like best about the cars is it is money you can count on every week. If you don't have soft water then the cars will turn out crappy even if you do hand dry them. You could do alright on overcast days but wash cars in the sun and that water will dry very fast and leave water spots. Spots that don't come off real easy. Rinse aids help a little but if you have hard water you will still have spots. You really need to think about washing cars. It is more then meets the eye. If you have any other question feel free to ask

The Gunn Man still around ?
 
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