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The One About Car Washes · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the car wash I mean podcast,
0:13
Speaker 2: I mean pod wash. This is Josh and there's Chuck
0:16
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you should wash.
0:20
Speaker 1: No, put your car in neutral. Think your foot off
0:22
Speaker 1: the gas, foot off the break well gas? Really?
0:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, I guess, but yeah, break.
0:30
Speaker 1: See, I'm fired. That's why you get promoted.
0:33
Speaker 2: Right, you're you know, I keep you on. You're a
0:37
Speaker 2: great guy. You keep morale up with the other employee.
0:40
Speaker 1: So I've kept a lot of jobs that way.
0:42
Speaker 2: I'll betman, I'll bet I've lost a lot of jobs
0:45
Speaker 2: because of the opposite, Because your photos on the brake,
0:50
Speaker 2: because I purposely kept my foot on the brake.
0:52
Speaker 1: Question, what what's your deal? How do you How do
0:56
Speaker 1: you get your cars clean? I walk me through that.
1:00
Speaker 2: Sure, I guess, really, we get them cleaned. We have
1:05
Speaker 2: a guy who details sometimes he's really reasonable and good.
1:09
Speaker 1: Like at your house. Yeah that's still never done that.
1:14
Speaker 2: But well it can get really pricey. We just happened
1:17
Speaker 2: upon this guy who was good and very inexpensive comparatively.
1:21
Speaker 2: I mean some of those are.
1:22
Speaker 1: Like four or five A pop that's too much money to.
1:25
Speaker 2: Get, yes, and so we stumbled upon this guy. So
1:30
Speaker 2: even even though we still use them kind of sparingly. Yeah,
1:33
Speaker 2: most of the time, we'll take them through an automated
1:37
Speaker 2: car wash, a friction type, no less, and that's what
1:41
Speaker 2: we do. And then we vacuument ourselves afterward, and we
1:44
Speaker 2: get all sweaty and we start giggling and laughing and
1:47
Speaker 2: we go get a slushy.
1:49
Speaker 1: Nice Scott is that is a slushy thing a tradition
1:52
Speaker 1: for real?
1:52
Speaker 2: No, no, I just made that up. It seemed like
1:54
Speaker 2: a nice ending.
1:57
Speaker 1: You get me again, but that one was too normy.
2:00
Speaker 2: And believe no, I know, I wasn't trying to get you.
2:02
Speaker 2: I was just trying to put a pleasant spin on
2:04
Speaker 2: sweaty vacuuming.
2:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got you. Okay, slushy sounds like a nice ritual,
2:09
Speaker 1: think about it.
2:10
Speaker 2: I could go for a slushie right now. A blue raspberry,
2:13
Speaker 2: that's my favorite.
2:15
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I like a little coca cola and cherry mixed.
2:18
Speaker 1: If we're talking traditional.
2:19
Speaker 2: Icies, well that's a frozen coke right, Yeah, those are
2:23
Speaker 2: good too. I grew up on those. Yeah, you remember
2:26
Speaker 2: the straws that had like the cutout at the bottom
2:29
Speaker 2: which made it kind of like a little spoon too.
2:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, gosh, good stuff.
2:35
Speaker 2: How about you? How do you get your car washed?
2:37
Speaker 2: Or do you not? Because I read that sixteen percent
2:39
Speaker 2: of people don't.
2:40
Speaker 1: Don't watch their cars at all.
2:42
Speaker 2: Ever, like apparently theyn't own a car and never wash
2:45
Speaker 2: it for the entire time they own it, you know.
2:47
Speaker 1: I see those occasionally and I'm wondering, do you even
2:50
Speaker 1: ever wash your car? And maybe not?
2:52
Speaker 2: Do you even know what people say about you behind
2:54
Speaker 2: your back?
2:55
Speaker 1: They right washed me on your car right on rules.
3:00
Speaker 1: I go through the The corporation is called Swifty, but
3:07
Speaker 1: I've always called it the Shifty, I think because of
3:10
Speaker 1: that old Internet cartoon from years and years ago, So
3:15
Speaker 1: I called the Shifty. And so I go through the
3:17
Speaker 1: Shifty about about once a month or so. And there
3:21
Speaker 1: you vacuum beforehand, and even though you're not supposed to,
3:25
Speaker 1: I do like my armor rawling and stuff like that,
3:28
Speaker 1: my sort of lazy detail. And then I drive through
3:31
Speaker 1: the Shifty, usually with Ruby, she loves the car wash.
3:36
Speaker 1: And now because of the great TV show High Maintenance,
3:41
Speaker 1: I got it from Ben Sinclair and High Maintenance, I
3:43
Speaker 1: crank up the song Plantasia that you know well, but
3:48
Speaker 1: that served as our opening song to our Biosphere two tour,
3:53
Speaker 1: so he did that in of course he was getting
3:55
Speaker 1: like super high in slow motion listening to plant Asia.
3:58
Speaker 1: So Ruby and I aren't doing that part. But that's
4:01
Speaker 1: the tradition, she says, put on the song, we put
4:03
Speaker 1: on the song. We go through this fifty and that's
4:05
Speaker 1: how I get my car clean, except maybe once a
4:08
Speaker 1: year I will take it and drop it off for
4:11
Speaker 1: like a good non lazy chuck detail. I got you,
4:15
Speaker 1: but I never had anyone come to the house man.
4:17
Speaker 1: That's the that's the dream.
4:19
Speaker 2: One day chuck there to dream.
4:21
Speaker 1: I know. Just Emily doesn't do any washing. She's always
4:25
Speaker 1: just like, can you please take my car to get detailed. Yeah,
4:28
Speaker 1: I'm with you, and I'll just make that happen.
4:31
Speaker 2: And yes, that's one way you can clean a cart.
4:33
Speaker 2: You can have a detailed You can go to one
4:35
Speaker 2: of those like open brick bays that have a high
4:39
Speaker 2: pressure washer hose.
4:41
Speaker 1: I used to do that.
4:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not talking about those, we're talking about a
4:46
Speaker 2: specific kind of car wash, typically the automated car wash,
4:51
Speaker 2: where you you do what you just described you just
4:55
Speaker 2: go through a wild ride and your car gets cleaned
4:57
Speaker 2: as you move through a tunnel and come out the
4:58
Speaker 2: other side. And there's a bunch of other types, but
5:01
Speaker 2: there's like a long, storied history. And what I took
5:05
Speaker 2: from this research, Chuck, is that that history is all American.
5:12
Speaker 1: It really is, because since the car started being a thing.
5:18
Speaker 1: I believe the first vehicle washer patent was given out
5:21
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh one to scare it Hanley of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, American.
5:27
Speaker 1: And when the Model T came out, you had your
5:30
Speaker 1: first what was known as an automobile laundry. But these
5:34
Speaker 1: were all on the West coast. They were like Portland,
5:36
Speaker 1: Oregon for some reason.
5:37
Speaker 2: San Francis as count is America.
5:40
Speaker 1: Absolutely. But then that thing you sent me was wild
5:45
Speaker 1: and I'm literally as like I'm fifty three years old
5:48
Speaker 1: when I learned of that car bowl that people drove around,
5:51
Speaker 1: and what were those called?
5:52
Speaker 2: I think they called it an auto bowl?
5:54
Speaker 1: An auto bowl? Can you describe that?
5:57
Speaker 2: It's like a concave. It's almost like a giant bird
6:02
Speaker 2: bath that multiple cars can drive around in a circle.
6:06
Speaker 2: And apparently the bottom is purposely ridged in concrete to
6:11
Speaker 2: make the whole ride very bumpy, and you're driving through
6:14
Speaker 2: water that comes up to the undercarriage of your car. Yeah,
6:18
Speaker 2: old timey car by the ways the twenties. And while
6:21
Speaker 2: you're doing this, it gets all the mud and muck
6:23
Speaker 2: off of your car from all the unpaved roads.
6:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a little splash pad and you just
6:27
Speaker 1: do donuts and everyone else is doing donuts and splashing
6:31
Speaker 1: each other, and it just it looked like a really
6:35
Speaker 1: kind of fun idea.
6:36
Speaker 2: It did. But then think about that water man and
6:38
Speaker 2: the stuff shutting off of the bottom of their cars.
6:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to be first in line each day.
6:43
Speaker 2: For sure, like for grand opening, and then never come back.
6:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, those were super cool, though not what we
6:50
Speaker 1: were talking about with the automobile laundry. Like I said,
6:53
Speaker 1: they started on the West Coast. But then if you
6:56
Speaker 1: want to leave the West Coast and go to the
6:57
Speaker 1: first automobile laundry, you'd have to go to Detroit, where
7:01
Speaker 1: Frank McCormick and JW. Hinkle opened up an automobile laundry
7:06
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen, charging a dollar fifty, which is close
7:10
Speaker 1: to fifty bucks for that twenty minute watch.
7:13
Speaker 2: Forty five bucks. I saw which is I mean, this
7:17
Speaker 2: is essentially detailing, though, is what they were doing. Like
7:20
Speaker 2: you would bring your car in, you would get out
7:22
Speaker 2: and stand around, and a bunch of professionals would clean
7:25
Speaker 2: your car inside and out. So yeah, I mean that's
7:27
Speaker 2: pretty good for a detail today, even if they did
7:31
Speaker 2: a half a so so job.
7:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was in nineteen thirteen. That hey, that's
7:37
Speaker 1: fifty it's sort of clean as well. You know what
7:40
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
7:41
Speaker 2: Is that the one that's at the corner of Ponce and.
7:45
Speaker 1: No, that's Cactus.
7:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one. I used to go there.
7:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now that's a detailing place, okay. And that's where
7:52
Speaker 1: I would go when we were recording at Pont City Market.
7:55
Speaker 1: I think that's one reason I don't detail as much anymore,
7:57
Speaker 1: because I could just drop it off there and then
7:59
Speaker 1: walk over to work. Yeah, and we don't do that
8:02
Speaker 1: anymore because that building has been demolished.
8:06
Speaker 2: Has it really pun out market?
8:08
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm just kidding.
8:09
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, Wow, I didn't realize we were
8:11
Speaker 2: propping it up that much.
8:12
Speaker 1: No, it emotionally is demolished for me. But over the
8:16
Speaker 1: teen years, there were various patents awarded a lot of
8:20
Speaker 1: different like apparatus, like you know, maybe a better sprayer
8:24
Speaker 1: or a better hose piping systems. Like there were a
8:27
Speaker 1: bunch of different patents handed out, and then finally in
8:31
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties we got our conveyor belt car washes,
8:35
Speaker 1: but still not automated because they had like forty people
8:39
Speaker 1: like you would watch the bumper, then the next person
8:41
Speaker 1: would watch the back right fender and that kind of thing.
8:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this was so this is the first gleaming
8:46
Speaker 2: of the automated car wash that we know and love today.
8:49
Speaker 2: Cunningham's Automobile Laundry was debuted in Chicago in nineteen twenty two,
8:54
Speaker 2: and like you said, there was a bunch of people
8:57
Speaker 2: and they did an assembly line style because everybody was
8:59
Speaker 2: crazy about the assembly line at the time. They would
9:02
Speaker 2: hook your car up to a chain and tow it
9:04
Speaker 2: along and as it was passing, people would do whatever
9:07
Speaker 2: they were supposed to do, Like this guy was in
9:09
Speaker 2: charge of cleaning off the headlights. This guy picked you know,
9:13
Speaker 2: the gnats, the dead gnats off of the canopy of
9:16
Speaker 2: the car. Everyone had a job and it was actually
9:21
Speaker 2: an improvement from some of the earlier ones where they
9:23
Speaker 2: used the assembly line because there would be people who
9:25
Speaker 2: had to push it from station to station. So I'm
9:28
Speaker 2: quite sure that the workers were like, we love this
9:30
Speaker 2: tow line thing.
9:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, they don't have to push a car around,
9:34
Speaker 1: and those cars are heavy.
9:35
Speaker 2: Who wants to do that?
9:36
Speaker 1: They're not like these light things these days. Right pre
9:41
Speaker 1: World War Two, that was mostly those laundries. After the war,
9:47
Speaker 1: there was a guy, well, there were a couple of people. Really.
9:50
Speaker 1: Nineteen forty six was a big year. There's one guy
9:53
Speaker 1: named Thomas Simpson who was credited as creating the first
9:56
Speaker 1: semi automatic system. It also had a conveyor. You hooked
10:00
Speaker 1: your car to a bumper and it did its thing,
10:04
Speaker 1: but you still got out of the car. And there
10:07
Speaker 1: were still people involved. That same year, in nineteen forty six,
10:12
Speaker 1: a guy named Leo Russo. And I've seen different stories
10:16
Speaker 1: about this guy. I saw that he had this idea
10:18
Speaker 1: before the war, but then World War two comes along
10:22
Speaker 1: and they take his steel foundry business the government and
10:24
Speaker 1: basically says, hey, you got to start making military parts
10:29
Speaker 1: for us. So he kind of refined his Minutemann it
10:33
Speaker 1: system during the war and then pivoted and started kind
10:37
Speaker 1: of making this system. He built the actual equipment as
10:42
Speaker 1: a system and said, hey, you can buy this Minuteman system.
10:45
Speaker 2: And that's pretty much the standard today. If you want
10:47
Speaker 2: to open a car wash. There's plenty of companies that
10:50
Speaker 2: manufacture entire car wash systems. You just need to build
10:53
Speaker 2: the building and then buy their parts and install them.
10:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and someone will build your building too.
10:59
Speaker 2: Right, you don't have to do it yourself.
11:00
Speaker 1: Yes, a lot of money get this done.
11:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope you know how to la bricks.
11:07
Speaker 1: The Minuteman would cost about two hundred and seventy grand today.
11:10
Speaker 1: He sold it to people for sixteen thousand.
11:13
Speaker 2: Right, And so this was a huge breakthrough as far
11:16
Speaker 2: as like automatic car washes went. Like there were still
11:19
Speaker 2: people involved, true, but and they used the existing technology
11:23
Speaker 2: where you towed a car through a very long tunnel.
11:26
Speaker 2: But there was also like like all manner of new
11:29
Speaker 2: apparatus and machines and cool stuff that your car would
11:34
Speaker 2: encounter along the way. Like now there were spinning brushes,
11:38
Speaker 2: there were jets of soapy water. They used vacuums that
11:42
Speaker 2: could suck the two pay right off of somebody twenty
11:44
Speaker 2: paces away. There was the overhead dryers that kind of
11:49
Speaker 2: hung down, like the ductwork hung down, and it looked
11:51
Speaker 2: like you were kind of passing under a giant silver octopus.
11:54
Speaker 2: Like it was an amazing Like this guy basically said,
11:58
Speaker 2: let me think of the future and filled it and
12:00
Speaker 2: then eventually people will build better versions of what I created.
12:04
Speaker 2: That's essentially what the minute Man system was.
12:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, in nineteen forty six, which is impressive. His first
12:09
Speaker 1: client was a guy named Paul Mouranian in Detroit once
12:14
Speaker 1: again at Paul's Automatic Auto Wash again in nineteen forty six.
12:18
Speaker 1: He sold that very first one and it was it's
12:21
Speaker 1: recognized Paul's as the first automated car wash, so much
12:26
Speaker 1: so that it had a Life magazine article written about it,
12:29
Speaker 1: two minute car Washer colon spectacular new machine scrubs seven
12:34
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty autos a day.
12:37
Speaker 2: I just bought the thing, said Paul. I had nothing
12:39
Speaker 2: to do with it. Yeah.
12:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone even built the building.
12:44
Speaker 2: So one of the other things, like we said that
12:46
Speaker 2: there were people still involved, but there was vastly fewer people.
12:50
Speaker 2: I saw forty or fifty you could run into in
12:53
Speaker 2: an auto laundry working to clean your car typically, but
12:57
Speaker 2: with the with the minute Man system, it was down
13:00
Speaker 2: to as few as eight people. That's a huge reduction
13:04
Speaker 2: in workforce and therefore costs too. And that if there's
13:08
Speaker 2: any theme or thread to the history of automated car
13:12
Speaker 2: washes in the United States, it's getting as as many
13:17
Speaker 2: humans as humanly possible out of jobs in the car
13:21
Speaker 2: wash industry. That's that's essentially what they've been trying to
13:24
Speaker 2: do since day one.
13:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was sort of laughing today, ironically at the
13:30
Speaker 1: thought of like somebody in the tunnel where we can
13:32
Speaker 1: where you can watch your car go by and get
13:34
Speaker 1: cleaned by robots, like on social media complaining about like
13:39
Speaker 1: AI technology getting rid of humans and stuff, and they're like, oh,
13:43
Speaker 1: to six minutes for my card get washed by those machines, right,
13:47
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right, that's I mean, that was one
13:50
Speaker 1: of the first big examples of automation in America of like,
13:55
Speaker 1: let's get people out of here, let's design these robotic
13:58
Speaker 1: arms to spray things and scrub things. And it was
14:01
Speaker 1: a huge hit, like huge There were fifty car washes
14:06
Speaker 1: in America in nineteen forty six. When Paul's opened nine
14:10
Speaker 1: years later, there were two thousand of them, and fifty
14:13
Speaker 1: of them were opening per month.
14:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, because America is like, we love cars and we
14:18
Speaker 2: have a bunch of money and pent up demand from
14:20
Speaker 2: the war, so let's go nuts in the car wash industry.
14:24
Speaker 2: Paul's or not Paul's, but Russo's minute Man system was
14:28
Speaker 2: invented at the perfect moment essentially.
14:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. And then before we break, I think we
14:34
Speaker 1: have to recognize the Anderson family, the Anderson boys, Archie,
14:40
Speaker 1: Dean and Elden Anderson in Seattle in nineteen fifty one
14:43
Speaker 1: opened up their Elephant Car wash, and that was what's
14:47
Speaker 1: sort of looked back on basically as the first fully
14:51
Speaker 1: automated automated automated I want to do one on the
14:57
Speaker 1: automat by the way, Okay, I mean i'll tell you
14:59
Speaker 1: about that.
15:00
Speaker 2: Is that the lunch thing?
15:01
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, but it was a no touch system,
15:06
Speaker 1: meaning things touched your car, but basically people did.
15:09
Speaker 2: Not right things, meaning like tools like brushes and stuff.
15:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, just because we're gonna we're gonna differentiate between the
15:18
Speaker 1: touchless true touchless systems and the no fingy system right.
15:22
Speaker 2: So yeah. So finally in the early fifties we have
15:25
Speaker 2: like the first truly automatic car washes at Elephant car
15:29
Speaker 2: which is still around today. It's one of more iconic
15:32
Speaker 2: signs in the United States totally. So okay, let's take
15:35
Speaker 2: a break and you know, we'll come back. So I
16:02
Speaker 2: said that, you know, we've been well, not we, but
16:05
Speaker 2: the car wash industry has been trying to get few
16:06
Speaker 2: and fewer people involved, like over time, and they've gotten
16:11
Speaker 2: really good at it, because it's entirely possible now that
16:15
Speaker 2: you will go to a car wash, a truly fully
16:19
Speaker 2: automated car wash, and there will be one person you
16:22
Speaker 2: run into, and that is the human being who is
16:25
Speaker 2: standing at the entrance of the tunnel you're pulling into,
16:28
Speaker 2: waiving you one direction or the other to get your
16:31
Speaker 2: front left tire onto the conveyor that's going to pull
16:35
Speaker 2: your car through that tunnel. That's that's essentially could be
16:38
Speaker 2: the only person that you'll run into at a car wash.
16:40
Speaker 1: Now, you know, I will say at my shifty and
16:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a company thing or each
16:46
Speaker 1: are you just laughing at shifty?
16:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know why it keeps getting me, but
16:49
Speaker 2: it does.
16:50
Speaker 1: It sure does. There are quite a few people that
16:53
Speaker 1: work there still. Besides the person guiding you in, there's
16:57
Speaker 1: there's probably six or seven people that you know, the
17:00
Speaker 1: walk around and kind of make sure the vacuums are
17:01
Speaker 1: working right, or they'll help you out if you can't
17:03
Speaker 1: figure something out. Like it's still it's still customer friendly.
17:07
Speaker 1: There's not just one, you know, someone picking their nose saying, like,
17:10
Speaker 1: you know, put your foot off the brake and put
17:13
Speaker 1: it in neutral.
17:14
Speaker 2: There's one we go to and that is the only
17:16
Speaker 2: person there. I mean, I'm sure there's other people inside
17:19
Speaker 2: in the ac, but that's the one person working outside
17:24
Speaker 2: at least one of the places we go.
17:26
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure that's when you go to open up
17:28
Speaker 1: a franchise. I'm sure the mister money Bags or missus
17:32
Speaker 1: money Bags is like, how many people there was the
17:36
Speaker 1: fewest amount of people I can get away with on
17:39
Speaker 1: the pay roll, right, and shifty heads off to them
17:42
Speaker 1: because they keep the payroll going at least a little bit.
17:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's another model too. The one I'm talking
17:47
Speaker 2: about is the fully automatic Express exterior model, which was
17:51
Speaker 2: a revolution in car washes. I was developed by Benny's
17:55
Speaker 2: Car Wash and Baton Rouge down in Louisiana in the
18:00
Speaker 2: very early two thousands two thousand and one. As Kubrick
18:03
Speaker 2: would put it, and they It just kind of took
18:07
Speaker 2: off from there, because again, you need one person, Like
18:10
Speaker 2: a bunch of manufacturers started making the machines that you
18:12
Speaker 2: need to do this. Touchscreen technology started to develop a
18:16
Speaker 2: lot more reliably, like you could basically walk away from
18:22
Speaker 2: your car wash. I mean not really, but it took
18:25
Speaker 2: a lot less of your time and effort to run
18:29
Speaker 2: a car wash than it used to. And they'd already
18:31
Speaker 2: tried this once before in the sixties and seventies. They
18:34
Speaker 2: tried it with coin operated washes, but they tried to
18:37
Speaker 2: just put those in and walk away, and that's just
18:39
Speaker 2: not how it works. So those things got abandoned. That's
18:42
Speaker 2: not happening with these right now. They're they're actually proliferating
18:45
Speaker 2: at a untold speed.
18:52
Speaker 1: I will also say this, boy, I'm really selling shifty
18:56
Speaker 1: right here. But they have someone and this part annoyed me,
19:00
Speaker 1: and now I understand it. They even have someone at
19:02
Speaker 1: the touch screen when you're in your car, like push touching,
19:06
Speaker 1: offering to touch the buttons for you. And I'm always like, no, man,
19:09
Speaker 1: I got it, it's fine. But now I realize that
19:13
Speaker 1: they also mention the subscription and they're trying to sell subscriptions,
19:18
Speaker 1: is what's going on, Yeah, because that's where the big
19:21
Speaker 1: money is.
19:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second. But
19:25
Speaker 2: at the one we go to, they let you use
19:27
Speaker 2: your hand, but they hold your hand, they guide while
19:32
Speaker 2: you make your selections.
19:34
Speaker 1: Make a pointing finger, make a pointy finger.
19:36
Speaker 2: Kind of off putting.
19:38
Speaker 1: All right, So should we take someone through the actual
19:40
Speaker 1: car wash?
19:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's but get inside, take your foot off the brake,
19:45
Speaker 2: put your car in neutral. Yeah, let's not play wrong,
19:48
Speaker 2: because this is a serious business.
19:50
Speaker 1: That's right. You put your car in between those rails.
19:54
Speaker 1: Once they give you the thumbs up. Your car is
19:57
Speaker 1: gonna be guided in there by something called a correlator,
20:00
Speaker 1: and those are the perpendicular rollers to the tires that
20:02
Speaker 1: are gonna slide that puppy right in there. And then you,
20:08
Speaker 1: like you said, hopefully your foot is already off the
20:10
Speaker 1: brake in the neutral, but if not, it should definitely
20:12
Speaker 1: be by this point, right, And then you have these
20:14
Speaker 1: other little wheels that pop up and move your car
20:19
Speaker 1: along down that conveyor.
20:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can also be like a tread that's tall
20:24
Speaker 2: enough to keep your car from rocking forward or backward. Right,
20:26
Speaker 2: that's the newer version. So once the car enters a tunnel.
20:31
Speaker 2: This is where I was like, oh, okay, and this
20:34
Speaker 2: is fairly old technology, but from what I could tell,
20:37
Speaker 2: it's still generally how they do it. There's a beam
20:40
Speaker 2: and infrared beam that's constant until your car breaks it,
20:43
Speaker 2: and the beam is connected to the computer that's running
20:47
Speaker 2: the whole show, and it tells the computer just how
20:50
Speaker 2: long the car is, and then depending on how long
20:53
Speaker 2: the car is, the computer will adjust the wash that
20:57
Speaker 2: it gets. It'll just how far back the roll going,
21:00
Speaker 2: for what duration they spin for like, there's a lot
21:04
Speaker 2: of information they get just from the length of the car,
21:06
Speaker 2: and then that that kind of adjusts the wash that
21:09
Speaker 2: you're going to get.
21:11
Speaker 1: Never even occurred to me that that's I just figured
21:14
Speaker 1: everyone got the same watch.
21:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too, I thought so until yesterday. They have
21:18
Speaker 2: another one that's similar at the exit where you're supposed
21:21
Speaker 2: to break it, and then if it doesn't go back
21:24
Speaker 2: in the time that the computer calculates it should, it
21:27
Speaker 2: assumes that you've stopped at the exit, and it shuts
21:29
Speaker 2: down the conveyor and the whole thing and all these
21:33
Speaker 2: teenagers come over and start yelling at you, right.
21:36
Speaker 1: Put it in drive.
21:37
Speaker 2: Now, what's wrong with you?
21:40
Speaker 1: Man? While you're going through there, you're going to get
21:44
Speaker 1: that pre wash sprayed on there. That's going to start
21:47
Speaker 1: to loosen everything up a little bit. Then you go through.
21:50
Speaker 1: These things have names. It's called a mitter curtain, that
21:54
Speaker 1: sort of Sigmund the sea monster fabric strip that goes
21:59
Speaker 1: left to right you drive under is called a mitter curtain.
22:03
Speaker 2: Right, and they I think of a more like Grimace
22:07
Speaker 2: than anything. They remind me of Grimace from McDonald's. Okay,
22:12
Speaker 2: the whole point of is it basically lays on top
22:14
Speaker 2: of your car and moves around to kind of rub
22:17
Speaker 2: in that solution and also kind of rub off whatever
22:20
Speaker 2: grim it can. It's almost like, so if the solution
22:24
Speaker 2: is like the shampoo that your stylist puts in your hair,
22:28
Speaker 2: the midter curtain is their fingers working it through.
22:31
Speaker 1: Is there anything better than that when you get your
22:33
Speaker 1: hair cut?
22:36
Speaker 2: No? Not really that with like a hot towel and
22:38
Speaker 2: all that stuff. It's pretty good.
22:40
Speaker 1: Like now, I know, I aw the kings and queens
22:43
Speaker 1: and royalty head people wash their hair. HiT's the best.
22:45
Speaker 2: Sure, our detailed guy does that too, right there in
22:50
Speaker 2: our driveway.
22:51
Speaker 1: Josh you first, or Umi, okay, take your foot off
22:55
Speaker 1: the brake, close your eyes. Then you get the foam,
22:59
Speaker 1: usually some sort of deep cleaner. Uh. And you're gonna
23:02
Speaker 1: get all manner of and you know they're all a little
23:04
Speaker 1: bit different, but you're gonna your car's gonna be getting
23:06
Speaker 1: sprayed down really hard. You're gonna have scrubbies that are
23:09
Speaker 1: gonna be slapping the side of your car, plantages playing.
23:13
Speaker 1: You and your daughter are laughing. Your car gets medium
23:20
Speaker 1: i'd say low, low high to medium high clean. Okay,
23:26
Speaker 1: when you get through it, it doesn't you know, this
23:28
Speaker 1: is a lazy way to do it, and it costs
23:29
Speaker 1: like five or six bucks. So that's why I do it.
23:33
Speaker 1: I'm not fooling myself into thinking that this is a
23:36
Speaker 1: great wash and then it doesn't maybe scratch up my
23:38
Speaker 1: car a little bit here and there.
23:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not supposed to them. We'll we'll talk about
23:42
Speaker 2: why in a second, but it's it's not supposed to.
23:46
Speaker 2: It totally does the if you get wax, you'll get
23:51
Speaker 2: wax after that rent in the second mitter curtain and
23:54
Speaker 2: then you'll get dried off. They have one now called
23:57
Speaker 2: the laser wash three sixty which is a amazing and
24:01
Speaker 2: in a ten second pass it can remove eighty percent
24:04
Speaker 2: of the water on your car.
24:06
Speaker 1: Right, But see that one is totally touchless, right the
24:10
Speaker 1: laser wash, Yeah.
24:12
Speaker 2: Yes, but it still has a drier function.
24:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just too good of a stat not
24:17
Speaker 2: to share. I had to find a place to put
24:18
Speaker 2: it in.
24:19
Speaker 1: No, I love it. I also love that rain shower
24:22
Speaker 1: at the end this article that Day Prepared for Us
24:26
Speaker 1: talks about the high pressure jets to remove everything. Mine
24:30
Speaker 1: does a very heavy rain shower type of thing, which
24:34
Speaker 1: I really enjoy.
24:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
24:37
Speaker 1: And then that dryer that what do they say they
24:39
Speaker 1: get about eighty percent off or is that just the
24:41
Speaker 1: laser watch.
24:42
Speaker 2: Well, the laser wash three sixties website boasted that, so
24:46
Speaker 2: I'm guessing that's higher than the industry standard.
24:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. That feels about right because when you come out,
24:51
Speaker 1: it blows some of the water off. But again I'm
24:54
Speaker 1: not I don't have the kind of car that I'm
24:56
Speaker 1: precious about water spots and all that stuff. I don't
25:00
Speaker 1: get the wax, I don't you know. I just want
25:02
Speaker 1: to get it pretty clean.
25:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's plenty of car washes, like at an
25:07
Speaker 2: express exterior model, Like, you're done, go get out of here.
25:11
Speaker 2: Maybe you can go use the vacuums if you haven't
25:13
Speaker 2: used them beforehand, Right, there are some that there'll be
25:17
Speaker 2: like a team of people whose job it is to
25:19
Speaker 2: wipe down the water spots that the dryers didn't get off. Yeah,
25:23
Speaker 2: and I was reading on a detailer's website like that
25:25
Speaker 2: apparently is really bad for your car. Depending on where
25:29
Speaker 2: you live, those water spots will dry up and the
25:32
Speaker 2: minerals inside stick around and just basically eat through your
25:35
Speaker 2: paint job and can go into the body of your
25:37
Speaker 2: car to where you're talking about body work. Again, this
25:41
Speaker 2: was a detailer's website, but I did see that that's
25:44
Speaker 2: still considered a problem even with the touchless car wash,
25:48
Speaker 2: that there's as long as there's water spots that can
25:51
Speaker 2: that can stick around, the car wash is conceivably harmful
25:55
Speaker 2: to your car.
25:56
Speaker 1: Wow, it's like the blood of the what was the creature?
26:00
Speaker 1: An alien? That's a name, I can't think, Yeah, dripping
26:04
Speaker 1: through all the different levels.
26:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. What a great
26:08
Speaker 2: movie was that.
26:09
Speaker 1: An Alien's Alien? The very first alien has that sort
26:13
Speaker 1: of iconic moment where it's dripping down through all the levels,
26:15
Speaker 1: the one.
26:16
Speaker 2: With Thanry McBride.
26:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's one thing I am going to take
26:23
Speaker 1: issue with, and I'm basically going to ask you what
26:25
Speaker 1: you think the CPCH rate, which is cars per hour
26:29
Speaker 1: is how is a setting like it's how fast that
26:33
Speaker 1: conveyor moves your car through the car wash? And apparently
26:37
Speaker 1: at a car wash, like you make money by how
26:39
Speaker 1: many cars you can wash in an hour, and you
26:42
Speaker 1: want to get that rate just right because if you
26:44
Speaker 1: send people in through fast to squeeze more cars in,
26:47
Speaker 1: it's not going to get washed as much, and people
26:49
Speaker 1: may want to go through again or complain. So you
26:51
Speaker 1: want to strike that perfect balance. But I just don't
26:55
Speaker 1: you figure that people are going to come and get
26:57
Speaker 1: their car wash no matter what, or are there literally
27:01
Speaker 1: people that pull in and they're like, oh, this line's
27:03
Speaker 1: too long and they just leave.
27:06
Speaker 2: I think the greater risk is somebody who gets their
27:09
Speaker 2: car washed and notices that there's like still grime on
27:13
Speaker 2: like the quarter panels of their car, and they're like, well,
27:19
Speaker 2: I'm not going back to this place. I'm gonna go
27:21
Speaker 2: to the one that's two doors down. That's just as
27:24
Speaker 2: convenient for me. And see how their washes are. Like,
27:28
Speaker 2: I think there's plenty of people who would do that,
27:29
Speaker 2: who'd be like, that's not okay, and rather than go
27:32
Speaker 2: complain and try to get their five bucks back, they
27:34
Speaker 2: just go to a competitor. That's how competitive the industry
27:39
Speaker 2: is right now, that you have to get it right essentially,
27:42
Speaker 2: even though plenty of them don't get it right. Ideally
27:45
Speaker 2: you would get this right. And that calculation of how
27:47
Speaker 2: many cars to send through their per hour is extremely
27:52
Speaker 2: oh maybe extremely, it's not the word. It's a lot
27:55
Speaker 2: more detailed than you would think, because it's not just like, okay,
27:59
Speaker 2: if I put X number of cars through per hour,
28:02
Speaker 2: can make X number of dollars, and we'll just set
28:04
Speaker 2: it to that. You have to take into account the
28:07
Speaker 2: quality of your water, like the hardness of your water,
28:10
Speaker 2: the softness of your water, how much of your water
28:12
Speaker 2: you're recycling, the quality of the detergent you're using, would
28:16
Speaker 2: make a big difference. Like all these things that in
28:19
Speaker 2: and of themselves give you a good result or a
28:22
Speaker 2: poor result are all going to factor or they're all change.
28:26
Speaker 2: They're variables of this larger cars per hour calculation that
28:30
Speaker 2: you have to make and these these the machinery gets
28:36
Speaker 2: kind of slow or gunked up or whatever on a
28:38
Speaker 2: daily basis, So you essentially have to stay on top
28:41
Speaker 2: of this every day at a good car wash.
28:43
Speaker 1: From what I was reading, yeah, okay, I guess I'm
28:46
Speaker 1: not explaining myself, because here's what I don't get. What
28:49
Speaker 1: is the benefit of being like, oh, I'm gonna set
28:52
Speaker 1: it just a little bit faster, Like, I don't think
28:55
Speaker 1: setting it a little bit faster would I mean, it
28:59
Speaker 1: might get they're quicker, but I don't know if that
29:01
Speaker 1: would get more cars through in a day unless at
29:05
Speaker 1: the end of the day they're like we're closed, all
29:07
Speaker 1: you ten people go home. You know what I'm saying.
29:11
Speaker 1: I don't know.
29:13
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you. This is the answer like volume,
29:15
Speaker 2: like if you have cars backed up and yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
29:19
Speaker 2: I think it's exactly what you're saying. You're saying if
29:21
Speaker 2: the line's too long, somebody will turn around and go
29:23
Speaker 2: to a different car wash. Totally totally. Like some of
29:27
Speaker 2: those car washes, they'll have lines like out into the
29:29
Speaker 2: parking lot outside or out into the road outside sometimes
29:32
Speaker 2: and definitely people will go and either come back later
29:35
Speaker 2: or go to another one, and at times like that,
29:38
Speaker 2: your cars per hour really matters, but you don't want
29:41
Speaker 2: to juice it up too much because again, all those
29:44
Speaker 2: people that you just got money from might not come
29:46
Speaker 2: back because you didn't do a very good job of
29:48
Speaker 2: cleaning their car.
29:49
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes a little bit of sense to me,
29:51
Speaker 1: I guess, and people are probably like, choke, why don't
29:54
Speaker 1: you just get it? Maybe I'm from my own personal experience,
29:57
Speaker 1: because it's fifty you vacuum first, so you're already in
30:02
Speaker 1: there and vacuuming and cleaning your car. Like if the
30:06
Speaker 1: line's long, you're just in that line. You're not like
30:09
Speaker 1: you can't just leave.
30:10
Speaker 2: Oh really, that's terrible. That sounds illegal.
30:13
Speaker 1: No, Like, once you go in there and get that
30:16
Speaker 1: pre pre vacuum, you have committed to the service of
30:19
Speaker 1: getting your car wash.
30:20
Speaker 2: Huh. The one we go to has or one of
30:23
Speaker 2: the ones we go to has a free vacuum first,
30:26
Speaker 2: and it used to be afterward, but then they redid
30:28
Speaker 2: the curbing and all that stuff, so now it's first.
30:31
Speaker 1: You could leave.
30:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, you just drive right right through.
30:37
Speaker 1: I bet people do that.
30:38
Speaker 2: I'm sure some people do, for sure, But I think
30:41
Speaker 2: also wouldn't you just be like, well, I might as
30:43
Speaker 2: well get a car wash while I'm here too.
30:46
Speaker 1: I mean, I am here and it's right there.
30:48
Speaker 2: Exactly all right. Moving on, Okay, So before we take
30:53
Speaker 2: a break, let's talk about touchless technology, because we were
30:55
Speaker 2: talking about a specific kind of car wash that gives
30:59
Speaker 2: you that exterior express thing that we just walked everybody through.
31:04
Speaker 2: That is a in tunnel friction automatic car wash checks
31:10
Speaker 2: all those boxes. This is very important. Everybody, like you
31:13
Speaker 2: can't go through the rest of your life not knowing
31:14
Speaker 2: this terminology. There's another kind that says that friction thing
31:20
Speaker 2: I don't know about that we should go with something
31:23
Speaker 2: that doesn't use brushes, that nothing actually contacts your car
31:27
Speaker 2: except water, chemicals, air, and well that's it.
31:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's it. I can safely say I've
31:36
Speaker 1: never been through one of these, and I guess I'm
31:39
Speaker 1: a big dummy because I've never really seen these. I
31:42
Speaker 1: haven't either, but I watched a video of it, and
31:46
Speaker 1: it is one of the big differences. It's a single bay,
31:49
Speaker 1: so you pull your car in and just it's sitting there.
31:52
Speaker 1: It's not only conveyor belt that doesn't have a car
31:54
Speaker 1: behind you and in front of you while they're in line,
31:56
Speaker 1: of course, But yeah, I watched this thing and it's
32:00
Speaker 1: nothing such in your car, just spraining the heck out
32:01
Speaker 1: of it and blowing things and water and chemicals and
32:05
Speaker 1: the whole deal that you described. And I'm sure they
32:08
Speaker 1: have them in Atlanta. I just don't know where they are.
32:10
Speaker 1: But in the late eighties it was a guy named
32:13
Speaker 1: red Lewis, William red Lewis, and he owned a car wash,
32:17
Speaker 1: I think more than one, and he was tired of
32:20
Speaker 1: paying people for you know, damage mirrors or if they
32:23
Speaker 1: break the antenna or you know, anything that can happen
32:26
Speaker 1: scratching up your car really bad. So he thought about
32:31
Speaker 1: this system. It's the laser wash four thousand is the
32:34
Speaker 1: most prominent technology. Now there's the laser wash three sixty
32:39
Speaker 1: that you talked a little bit about, but it was
32:43
Speaker 1: it sold a lot. I think he sold about eight
32:45
Speaker 1: thousand of these. And if you have like a super fancy,
32:49
Speaker 1: nice car and you don't want to pay for the
32:52
Speaker 1: detailing every time, then I think a lot of people
32:56
Speaker 1: like that use these.
32:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, And even in Audi's user manual it says it
33:04
Speaker 2: is best to use a car wash without revolving bristles
33:06
Speaker 2: if possible, essentially like use a either a hand wash
33:11
Speaker 2: or a touchless car wash, which again that's different than
33:13
Speaker 2: no touch. Touchless again just means there's just water chemicals,
33:17
Speaker 2: there's nothing physically touching your car. Right, So, yes, it
33:21
Speaker 2: is endorsed. The nicer the car you have, the likelier
33:25
Speaker 2: it is you're going to use a laser washer or
33:27
Speaker 2: some sort of touchless But yeah, I've never seen one
33:30
Speaker 2: before either, and I don't know where to find one.
33:32
Speaker 2: But I'm sure they're all over the place too, I
33:35
Speaker 2: guess because they's so much smaller than the tunnels. The
33:38
Speaker 2: tunnel version, you just drive right past them and don't
33:40
Speaker 2: even notice.
33:42
Speaker 1: Well, they're not doing their job if they don't have
33:43
Speaker 1: one of those spaghetti arm blow up thingies right well, and.
33:47
Speaker 2: We should say also, yeah, totally. We should say also though,
33:51
Speaker 2: that the reason those brushes are so like hated among
33:55
Speaker 2: car wash officionados is not because the brushes themselves are
33:59
Speaker 2: the problem. Make them with like microfiber today, like they're
34:02
Speaker 2: really soft, like you would at a slow enough f
34:05
Speaker 2: rpm you probably enjoy like just being having those spin
34:08
Speaker 2: around your naked body, right, But like rocks grime, dirt,
34:15
Speaker 2: all that stuff can get stuck to the ends of
34:17
Speaker 2: these things just a little bit, tiny, tiny, tiny little bit,
34:21
Speaker 2: and when that thing starts spinning at one hundred or
34:23
Speaker 2: two hundred rotations per minute, it's going to like tear
34:28
Speaker 2: up the finish on your car. It certainly can. And
34:31
Speaker 2: so they have to clean brushes constantly all the time,
34:34
Speaker 2: every day, or a good car wash will or else
34:37
Speaker 2: you're gonna have customers complaining that you just scratch the
34:40
Speaker 2: finish on their car. And so people who are into
34:42
Speaker 2: touchless are like, let's just avoid the whole thing and
34:44
Speaker 2: don't use bristles at all.
34:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I do understand mine is not the only perspective.
34:50
Speaker 1: And just because I don't get all bent out of
34:53
Speaker 1: shape about a scratch or two on my car, I
34:56
Speaker 1: know that people there are people that are really, really,
35:00
Speaker 1: really really into their cars and don't want any anything
35:03
Speaker 1: like that to ever happen to their little baby.
35:05
Speaker 2: Yes, for sure, Can we take a break, I think so.
35:10
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back and we'll finish up
35:12
Speaker 1: with more car wash fitness. All right, So most of
35:38
Speaker 1: the car washes we've been talking about, or you know,
35:40
Speaker 1: the fully automated kind you get in, you go, you
35:43
Speaker 1: sometimes you stand. I mean I stay in my car
35:46
Speaker 1: because that's what kind of car wash. Sometimes you will
35:48
Speaker 1: get out though still in your car will just be
35:50
Speaker 1: ghost driven. And I mentioned those little windows they started
35:54
Speaker 1: putting windows in. We're like, hey, some people like to
35:56
Speaker 1: follow Kids certainly love to walk along see their car washed.
36:00
Speaker 1: People that love their cars like their own children might
36:04
Speaker 1: want to follow along and watch their car get washed.
36:07
Speaker 1: They brought a certain internesting value, a certain entertainment value
36:15
Speaker 1: to it by opening up those windows and keeping people
36:19
Speaker 1: occupied with the ones you have to sit in. They
36:23
Speaker 1: started putting in, you know, flashy lights and things like that,
36:26
Speaker 1: Like that has nothing to do with getting your car
36:28
Speaker 1: clean or operating that computer system. It's like, hey, you're
36:33
Speaker 1: in your car. You may have claustrophobia, you may want
36:35
Speaker 1: to freak out, so here's some fun things to distract.
36:38
Speaker 2: You, right, And apparently that doesn't really work for people
36:41
Speaker 2: with like severe claustrophobia who's spiled for some reason take
36:45
Speaker 2: their cars through the car wash. And I was reading
36:47
Speaker 2: like an industry website blog post on customers with claustrophobia.
36:52
Speaker 2: It was very heartwarming. They were like, no matter what like,
36:55
Speaker 2: be patient with these people they're experiencing, like essentially a
36:58
Speaker 2: mental breakdown right now if they're panic. But it can
37:01
Speaker 2: be a problem at car washes when people panic in
37:05
Speaker 2: their car because they become close to claustrophobic in the
37:08
Speaker 2: tunnel and they try to get out. People have died
37:11
Speaker 2: getting pinned, not necessarily from claustrophobia, but for misadventure, essentially
37:16
Speaker 2: getting pinned between their car and the machinery, and like
37:20
Speaker 2: it's dangerous to do that. You do not want to
37:22
Speaker 2: get out. It's not just a matter of getting wet,
37:25
Speaker 2: Like you can die in a car wash and if
37:28
Speaker 2: you get out at the wrong place. So they were
37:31
Speaker 2: basically saying, like, if a customer ever comes up to
37:33
Speaker 2: you and they're acting anxious or nervous and they ask
37:36
Speaker 2: you or one of your employees to drive their car
37:39
Speaker 2: through the car wash for them, just say yes, say sure,
37:41
Speaker 2: of course, and do it for him, because they probably
37:44
Speaker 2: have claustrophobia and they might freak out, like in the tunnel.
37:47
Speaker 2: And they also started opening tunnels up a lot of
37:51
Speaker 2: the machinery has like stuff that's kind of on the
37:55
Speaker 2: sides or up higher a little more out of sight.
37:59
Speaker 2: But it's really open. They'll put in windows to let
38:02
Speaker 2: an outside light into the tunnel. They've tried a bunch
38:05
Speaker 2: of stuff, but apparently it still happens.
38:09
Speaker 1: I definitely remember when I was a kid, car washes
38:13
Speaker 1: were much more claustrophobic feeling. I remember they were darker,
38:18
Speaker 1: and I remember those they were the big roller brushes
38:21
Speaker 1: that would basically like all come at you at once,
38:25
Speaker 1: and it's just not like that now. So I definitely
38:27
Speaker 1: can remember the difference. I did mention car wash subscriptions
38:32
Speaker 1: being where all the dough is and I've never bought
38:36
Speaker 1: one because I'm one of those people. It's like it sounds,
38:38
Speaker 1: you know, they're trying to sucker me into something. If
38:40
Speaker 1: you get your car washed. More like if you go
38:44
Speaker 1: through those things like once a week, then you're making money,
38:48
Speaker 1: not making money, but you know what I mean. Like
38:50
Speaker 1: I think you have to go through like three times
38:51
Speaker 1: in a month to break even or maybe even get
38:54
Speaker 1: ahead a little bit on most of these services. So
38:57
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good deal. Actually, I don't know if
39:00
Speaker 1: I'm still going to do it, because I don't know
39:01
Speaker 1: if I would commit to going once a week. Probably not.
39:04
Speaker 1: But that's just like Dave said in the article, you
39:07
Speaker 1: can basically print money if you have a healthy subscription
39:11
Speaker 1: service at your franchise.
39:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, because, like, let's say somebody does come through. Let's
39:16
Speaker 2: say you sell subscriptions for twenty five bucks and you
39:20
Speaker 2: sell regular car washes for ten bucks to try to
39:22
Speaker 2: encourage people to go with the subscription. Right, yep, somebody
39:26
Speaker 2: washes their car three times, they've actually come out ahead.
39:29
Speaker 2: But there's plenty of people like you who get it
39:32
Speaker 2: and just do it that one time and don't find
39:34
Speaker 2: time to come back in that month, And you're subsidizing
39:37
Speaker 2: or offsetting all the people who make sure they come
39:41
Speaker 2: back like five times that month. And even still what
39:44
Speaker 2: the car washes used to cost, which is like five
39:47
Speaker 2: bucks or something before the subscription model, you're still making
39:50
Speaker 2: way more than you were selling individual car washes from
39:53
Speaker 2: the subscription. And it's apparently very easy to talk somebody
39:57
Speaker 2: into it. You just have to say, come on like
39:59
Speaker 2: a bunch, right, and they cave every time. And this
40:03
Speaker 2: subscription model is so lucrative that it has created a
40:07
Speaker 2: boom in the car wash industry in the United States
40:11
Speaker 2: and abroad. I take it.
40:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, because equity firms are like oh wait, you can
40:16
Speaker 1: put in this much money and make that much that quickly.
40:19
Speaker 1: There are more than sixty thousand car washes in America
40:22
Speaker 1: according to Bloomberg News, that is going to be double.
40:27
Speaker 1: Like they're talking up to one hundred and twenty thousand
40:29
Speaker 1: car washes in the next eight years. Wait, what year
40:32
Speaker 1: is it? Six years? Yeah, by twenty thirty. And they've
40:38
Speaker 1: found out this little stat. More car washes have been
40:41
Speaker 1: built in the last decade than since nineteen forty six
40:45
Speaker 1: when they started doing this to begin with. Yeah, combined
40:47
Speaker 1: and that nuts, that is nuts. But you know, they're
40:50
Speaker 1: basically like a you can make like a million and
40:52
Speaker 1: a half bucks in revenue if you have a pretty
40:55
Speaker 1: average subscription based car service. And twenty I think the
41:01
Speaker 1: most recent stat da've had was twenty twenty one. Only
41:04
Speaker 1: twenty one percent of people probably even less now are
41:07
Speaker 1: washing their own car, compared to fifty percent in the
41:10
Speaker 1: mid nineties. So like, people are using these things and
41:13
Speaker 1: they're making a ton of money.
41:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are. So these things are proliferating so much
41:18
Speaker 2: that some towns are actually putting moratoriums on their construction.
41:23
Speaker 2: They're like, we got enough, we got five we don't
41:25
Speaker 2: need anymore. There's only five thousand people in the whole town,
41:29
Speaker 2: and these companies are pushing back. In some cases they're
41:32
Speaker 2: suing the towns or whatever, which seems shoddy, like the
41:34
Speaker 2: towns should be able to say no, we don't want
41:36
Speaker 2: you in there. But the thing that the towns are
41:40
Speaker 2: worried about is number one, these things employ almost no one, right,
41:45
Speaker 2: so maybe they bring two three jobs to town that
41:48
Speaker 2: weren't there before. They pay very little in taxes. I'm
41:52
Speaker 2: not sure how, but they figured out the tax based stuff.
41:54
Speaker 2: They're just not paying a lot in taxes, and they're
41:58
Speaker 2: not giving back to local economy. They're sucking money out
42:01
Speaker 2: of the local economy into the corporations and equity funds
42:04
Speaker 2: that own these car washes, and they're enriching they're investors.
42:08
Speaker 2: They're not having any positive impact on the economy there.
42:11
Speaker 2: And then on top of that, it's getting so close
42:14
Speaker 2: to oversaturation or has reached that in some places that
42:18
Speaker 2: very soon these things are going to start being abandoned
42:20
Speaker 2: and it's going to end up just like malls, where
42:23
Speaker 2: you've overbuilt and now all of a sudden you have
42:25
Speaker 2: these big, hulking buildings that you can't figure out what
42:27
Speaker 2: to do with the same thing's going to happen with
42:30
Speaker 2: a car wash. What do you do with an abandoned
42:32
Speaker 2: car wash building, aside from demolishing it and starting over.
42:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're not. You're gonna be shooting Chuck
42:39
Speaker 1: Norris movies and zombie movies in a car wash like
42:43
Speaker 1: you can an abandoned all.
42:44
Speaker 2: Right, exactly? Oh, yeah, that was good stuff. Invasion USA, right,
42:48
Speaker 2: Invasion USA? And was that Day of the Dead in
42:51
Speaker 2: the mall?
42:53
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know, I'll just sort of do that
42:54
Speaker 1: in there. I'm sure. I mean, not of the comment
42:57
Speaker 1: had a mall sequence. There's been plenty of Yeah, So
43:01
Speaker 1: as far as you know, people washing their car at
43:03
Speaker 1: home down to probably less than twenty percent. Now, that's
43:07
Speaker 1: what I grew up doing. The old routine in the
43:11
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and eighties when the environment was a complete afterthought,
43:15
Speaker 1: when you would just turn on the hose. You didn't
43:18
Speaker 1: even have the sprayer. You would just throw the hose
43:20
Speaker 1: down on the ground and it would just run water
43:22
Speaker 1: all over the driveway and you would get out your
43:24
Speaker 1: bucket and just wash your car and rinse it. I
43:28
Speaker 1: did that like every other dumb kid in the nineteen eighties.
43:31
Speaker 1: But boy, that's a waste of water. Even if you're
43:34
Speaker 1: using and I don't have the exact percentage of sprayer
43:37
Speaker 1: versus none. Obviously the sprayer is going to make sure
43:39
Speaker 1: water's not moving unless you're pulling that trigger. But you're
43:43
Speaker 1: using more water by a large margin, I believe sixty
43:46
Speaker 1: percent more than a car washed does to wash your car,
43:50
Speaker 1: and then all of that water, all of that grime
43:54
Speaker 1: and the you know, engine residue and oils and exhaust
43:59
Speaker 1: and just you know, your washing car stuff off of
44:01
Speaker 1: your car that's going down into the storm sewer that
44:04
Speaker 1: isn't treated, that's just put right in the waterways. Your
44:09
Speaker 1: car wash doesn't do that. They have to take care
44:11
Speaker 1: of their water. They can't put it down. A lot
44:13
Speaker 1: of them reuse it, like at least a few times,
44:17
Speaker 1: you know, they clean it and use that gray water.
44:20
Speaker 1: I think in California they have to recycle sixty percent
44:23
Speaker 1: of their wash in rinse water. But all of them
44:26
Speaker 1: have to put it. They can't put it down a
44:28
Speaker 1: storm drain. They have to put it in a sewer
44:29
Speaker 1: drain where it's treated.
44:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so those requirements like California's laws have kind
44:34
Speaker 2: of driven the industry to invent like more and more
44:38
Speaker 2: efficient systems. They use less and less water and are
44:42
Speaker 2: able to reclaim more and more water for reuse. Right,
44:45
Speaker 2: so they've got it down to like a really good
44:49
Speaker 2: car wash can use something like I think eight to
44:54
Speaker 2: seventy gallons per car.
44:57
Speaker 1: That's a lot of water.
44:58
Speaker 2: Still yeah, but still though I looked at to twenty
45:01
Speaker 2: eleven How Stuff Works article and they said three hundred
45:03
Speaker 2: to four hundred gallons per ye.
45:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, I mean it's a huge improvement. But
45:08
Speaker 1: also and then Dave makes a good point here, like also,
45:13
Speaker 1: just be wary of any kind of weird advertising that
45:16
Speaker 1: you see in terms of being eco friendly, because these
45:19
Speaker 1: days you can pretty much say what you want. So
45:21
Speaker 1: if you see a car wash advertising, you know, ask
45:24
Speaker 1: him about it. Maybe. But I'm not saying it's all fraudulent,
45:27
Speaker 1: but you will see a lot of car washes that
45:30
Speaker 1: throw words like, you know, eco friendly or you know,
45:34
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of greenwashing no pun intended, that's
45:36
Speaker 1: going on, right with what they're using to wash your
45:39
Speaker 1: car and how little water they're using.
45:41
Speaker 2: And I should say, I get your point, Like if
45:43
Speaker 2: we're about to start fighting resource conflicts over water, we
45:46
Speaker 2: should probably stop using it to wash our cars at
45:48
Speaker 2: car washes.
45:50
Speaker 1: Eventually we'll just have dirty car I mean, look what
45:54
Speaker 1: I guess in Mad Max it was gasoline. But any
45:57
Speaker 1: water shortage movie, all the cars are dirty, right, So
46:01
Speaker 1: are an ax under pain movie.
46:02
Speaker 2: So one of the is that like one of his things.
46:05
Speaker 1: Yeah he didn't, and he's like, every car is clean
46:08
Speaker 1: and every street is wet, and he's like, not in
46:10
Speaker 1: my movies. I got dry streets and dirty cars.
46:13
Speaker 2: Nice. So you mentioned sales gimmicks. That's the same with
46:18
Speaker 2: add ons to consumer reports said, the wax, the ceilings,
46:23
Speaker 2: the wheel cleaning, undercarriage cleaning. Unless you have like salt
46:26
Speaker 2: crusted on your undercarriage, it's not worth us. It's not
46:29
Speaker 2: worth the.
46:29
Speaker 1: Money I always just had. I think both of us
46:32
Speaker 1: are a little bit like uh uh huh, yeah, no thanks, right,
46:37
Speaker 1: So I've never gotten that stuff, and it always seemed
46:39
Speaker 1: like a bit of a sucker seal. But yeah, you know,
46:42
Speaker 1: any kind of upsell. I'm always a little side eyed
46:45
Speaker 1: at what's your angle, pal, Yeah, more money for you,
46:50
Speaker 1: cleaner car for me, I don't think so.
46:51
Speaker 2: Yep, this is it for the episode. But we cannot
46:55
Speaker 2: go through this episode without mentioning the great movie car Wash,
47:00
Speaker 2: which that's it for me. I mean we can just
47:02
Speaker 2: mention it and then also breaking bad to car Washed,
47:05
Speaker 2: two very famous car washes. Oh yeah, okay, here we
47:10
Speaker 2: did it. If you want to know more about car washes,
47:13
Speaker 2: go get your car washed and see what you think.
47:15
Speaker 2: And since I said that it's time for listener mail.
47:21
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this first thing I just looked at
47:23
Speaker 1: when I picked up my phone. Hey guys, longtime UK listener,
47:26
Speaker 1: Wanting to add a fact that you mess. In your
47:28
Speaker 1: dopamine episode. You mentioned the role of genetics and addiction,
47:31
Speaker 1: which can often be taken as denoting an addictive personality.
47:35
Speaker 1: Whilst people's personalities may make them more susceptible to peer pressure, etc.
47:40
Speaker 1: Personality has no genetic influence in addiction, as it isn't
47:44
Speaker 1: biologically inherited. If someone is genetically susceptible to addiction, this
47:47
Speaker 1: can mean they have more receptors in their synaptic clefts
47:52
Speaker 1: or less enzymes, breaking down access in transmitters, leading to
47:55
Speaker 1: heightened effects of substances, leading to more dopamine released. I
47:59
Speaker 1: thought you guys might find this interesting, always happy to
48:01
Speaker 1: have done random knowledge on and suspecting victims at any opportunity.
48:06
Speaker 1: That is from Steve Guercio.
48:10
Speaker 2: Great name, Steve, We're gonna call him Steve G.
48:15
Speaker 1: Steve G.
48:16
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Steve G and throw
48:18
Speaker 2: out some information that we walked right past or maybe
48:21
Speaker 2: even got wrong. We love hearing that kind of stuff.
48:23
Speaker 2: We love being corrected. You can do a via email
48:26
Speaker 2: at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should
48:33
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48:35
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