I used to wash trucks, and for a long time they were my bread and butter. I was doing about $6000 a weekend in truck washes. Not a ton of money, but not terrible.
I gave them up about a year ago. There were multtiple reasons. One was that every driver thought you were their slave, and were an idiot. The manager would not reign them in, and they wanted a detailed truck, thinking that we were making bank. We weren't making as much as they thought, with all the over head, but, we were doing okay.
Next reason was the number of employees that were required to wash that many trucks. Keeping in mind, we never washed on Sunday, and still pulled that type of revenue, it is basically amazing. The employees were a killer. My favorite was the time that "they were going to show me" and all took off work on the same weekend. I started on Friday night, by myself, worked until dark, which was about 8 pm, since it was summer, and was up at 4 the next morning. I finished up at dark that night. I washed 95 belly dumps, by myself in that time. Needless to say, I was exhausted, and honestly, kind of proud of myself for pulling it off. No one was the wiser.
Then of course, in my neck of the woods, there are millions of independent entrepreneurs that make Phoenix their first stop as they make their migration north, east and west. These independent entrepreneurs are typically very happy making $15 an hour, for a short time, so the prices are low, until they figure out that they could have charged way more. By that time, they have ruined the market, and I would consistently get the "the last guy charged us X, why are you so much more?" At that point, I would always ask why the didn't use the last guy, and they would get mad, and get the point, and move on to someone else that they could get to do the trucks for X.
Fleetwashing is a tough gig. It is even tougher if you do it at a time when your children are small, because you are working when they are home from school. It really sucked to be always leaving the house as they were walking up to the front door.
I don't miss it much at all.