Touchless cost per car (2024)

I'm currently needing to upgrade my IBA and unsure which way to go either touchless or friction. I currently have a friction machine but I'm not partial either way. they both have pros and cons. I like the idea of touchless in regards to washing vehicles with accessories and no brushes touching the vehicle, but I'm also certain a friction will put out a cleaner car with less chemical and water. my main concern is that the touchless will cost more to run and out weigh its benefits in regards to washing vehicles with accessories. This is the first wash I've owned so I am new to this sort of thing. I do all my own maintenance and troubleshooting on my current machine.

Will the cost in chemical and water in the touchless offset the maintenance and cost for brushes on the friction?

There are other frictions in my area and not any touchless nearby, I live in a rural area where cars could be dirtier than being in a city.

What is the cost per car on a touchless?

I don’t have a touchless IBA so I can’t tell you how much the cost per car is. Many operators on this forum can, however. You are correct on all of your assumptions. There are limitations on both and the decision should be based on which one will give you more customers. Any new machine is an upgrade from whatever you replace and that will be a big win right there.

You said you are in a rural area where cars might be dirtier - that might be tougher for touchless, but it depends on what kind of dirt and if people are washing once a month or once a week. Do you have a large percentage of vehicles that cannot use a friction because of their size, accessories or configuration etc.?

Just the presoak chemical costs of a touch free can retail at $1 for two passes of product. Some areas can get by with much less costs but you see few people that do it for less than .50 per car. It's costly but can work with a base wash price of $8-$10 commonly seen these days, The long term chemical costs of touch free will cost more than a string of damage claims from a friction unit. I've got two Istobal friction units and after 70K total cars my "legitimate" damage claims total less than 1K and consist mostly of a rear wiper arms getting caught and breaking . Water quality becomes more of an issue with touch free and you can also have seasonal problems. Water consumption can be a bit higher too.

My personal opinion is I'd worry less about the costs and more about what your market wants in your area. A few years ago I'd swore I'd never own another touch less but now realize they have their niche and there are customers that travel a long way to use mine. The express tunnels are everywhere and now the C stores seem to be getting out of the wash business and those tend to be friction. If you have a good happy friction base I'd be tempted to stick with that. But if an express builds a block away they can steal a lot of those customers. If you have a lot of friction options in your area and few touch free than a touch free might be a good option.

washnshine said:

I don’t have a touchless IBA so I can’t tell you how much the cost per car is. Many operators on this forum can, however. You are correct on all of your assumptions. There are limitations on both and the decision should be based on which one will give you more customers. Any new machine is an upgrade from whatever you replace and that will be a big win right there.

You said you are in a rural area where cars might be dirtier - that might be tougher for touchless, but it depends on what kind of dirt and if people are washing once a month or once a week. Do you have a large percentage of vehicles that cannot use a friction because of their size, accessories or configuration etc.?

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Most of my customers wash about twice a month so i wouldn't say they are caked with mud or overly dirty. they are just dirtier than say a car in the city that never leaves the pavement. I'm not sure about the percentage of vehicles that cant use friction because they haven't ever tried to use the auto. Just driving around town though there are multiple vehicles that could use touch free but couldn't use the friction. The ones that have tried just end up tripping my top brush.

Most vehicles are free of accessories. Vehicles with accessories are such a small .%age that it is inconsequential in your decision, imo.

differentiating yourself from your competitors is critical to success. yes, touchfree is higher cogs. you can offset that with a higher price.

create some cash flow projections for touchfree vs friction. play around with numbers and adjust price point and cogs both ways to get a better idea of long term profit potential of each option.

Greg Pack said:

Just the presoak chemical costs of a touch free can retail at $1 for two passes of product. Some areas can get by with much less costs but you see few people that do it for less than .50 per car. It's costly but can work with a base wash price of $8-$10 commonly seen these days, The long term chemical costs of touch free will cost more than a string of damage claims from a friction unit. I've got two Istobal friction units and after 70K total cars my "legitimate" damage claims total less than 1K and consist mostly of a rear wiper arms getting caught and breaking . Water quality becomes more of an issue with touch free and you can also have seasonal problems. Water consumption can be a bit higher too.

My personal opinion is I'd worry less about the costs and more about what your market wants in your area. A few years ago I'd swore I'd never own another touch less but now realize they have their niche and there are customers that travel a long way to use mine. The express tunnels are everywhere and now the C stores seem to be getting out of the wash business and those tend to be friction. If you have a good happy friction base I'd be tempted to stick with that. But if an express builds a block away they can steal a lot of those customers. If you have a lot of friction options in your area and few touch free than a touch free might be a good option.

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I have only had a couple damage claims myself with mine as well but I'm only a year into ownership. Two side mirrors that were already sun rotted.

I have a good water softener set up and a good R.O. system so water quality isn't an issue. there are only friction options in my town and not a single touch free so that might add some value, and i would bet most customers have never washed in a touch free but I am concerned if the touch free would clean as good as my friction competition if i went that way. I haven't had many complaints on the cars I'm putting out now, just the people who will never be happy no matter what. My machine is 16 years old so I'm definitely due for an upgrade.

Waxman said:

Most vehicles are free of accessories. Vehicles with accessories are such a small .%age that it is inconsequential in your decision, imo.

differentiating yourself from your competitors is critical to success. yes, touchfree is higher cogs. you can offset that with a higher price.

create some cash flow projections for touchfree vs friction. play around with numbers and adjust price point and cogs both ways to get a better idea of long term profit potential of each option.

Click to expand...

Valid point on the vehicles with accessories. All there is in town are friction machines, that's my only reason for considering a touchfree. I'm not unhappy with the friction but i am trying to set myself up for the best success. I also don't want to have to price myself so high that the customers won't use me. my demographic is low-middle class so I'm not sure they will pay 15-18$ for a wash, right now my top wash is 10$ and the guy down the road is 12$.

ShinePro said:

Where you are located makes a difference.
Northern us or southern us
East vs west etc
If I can ask the ?
Then I will give you my cost per car to the penny for all four packages.
Dont mind sharing that info
Fyi - i buy full pallets direct from mfg

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I'm in the southwest, 3500' elevation, temps in the summer low 70-80 and high 95-105 and winter can get into freezing temps but most low 35-40 and high 55-60.

ShinePro said:

My breakdown per wash is on my desk at home
Send you a pm tonight when I get there!

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You're awesome, thank you!

Greg Pack said:

In addition to calculating cleaning chemistry costs you probably need to check the water and sewer cost per car. I'd use 75 gallons as a rough estimate. My cost is 2.6 cents per gallon so I'm using approximately 2.00 water/sewer per car. This is probably double what my friction unit uses. I also estimate depreciation/repair at 1.00 per car and I think you could make a decent argument for a higher number there.

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Thank you, i was trying to find water usage online but couldn't find any. I'm just going to stay with friction now and just swap my 16 year old machine with the new version. I had tried a touchless yesterday and had a bad experience. Lots of overspray all over pay station and just about everything else and it tiger striped my truck.

dusty1 said:

Valid point on the vehicles with accessories. All there is in town are friction machines, that's my only reason for considering a touchfree. I'm not unhappy with the friction but i am trying to set myself up for the best success. I also don't want to have to price myself so high that the customers won't use me. my demographic is low-middle class so I'm not sure they will pay 15-18$ for a wash, right now my top wash is 10$ and the guy down the road is 12$.

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my wash is in a lower to middle class income area as well. I also have only friction machines as my competition and I charge 1618 20 22 and over 50% of the people buy the top wash. You can't always make these kind of assumptions about what people will or will not pay for. I think too many operators are afraid of pricing high but I saw installing a brand new machine and remodeling one bay as the perfect opportunity to try a nice high price point and it worked.

Greg Pack said:

.... I also estimate depreciation/repair at 1.00 per car and I think you could make a decent argument for a higher number there.

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I think it would be much higher per car basis than $1 at the cost of machines/install nowadays. At a $1 per wash, it would be 200-250k washes without any repairs or maintenance. It is really hard to justify a site to spend that much $ on a brand new machine, unless wash volume is almost guaranteed. I would guess its probably closer to $3 per wash in depreciation/repair with a new machine - and I would guess even more on something like a $$$ Petit. All justified, if the site is positioned to produce volume.

Have you considered something like a Mark VII choice wash or similar - there are a few manufacturers that make similar? Would give the customer option between touch less and friction.

But, as I said in my previous post - you really need to see if the numbers will work and pencil out with wash volume to justify an brand new unit, they are big $$$

dusty1 said:

Thank you, i was trying to find water usage online but couldn't find any. I'm just going to stay with friction now and just swap my 16 year old machine with the new version. I had tried a touchless yesterday and had a bad experience. Lots of overspray all over pay station and just about everything else and it tiger striped my truck.

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What machine do you currently have?

dusty1 said:

Thank you, i was trying to find water usage online but couldn't find any. I'm just going to stay with friction now and just swap my 16 year old machine with the new version. I had tried a touchless yesterday and had a bad experience. Lots of overspray all over pay station and just about everything else and it tiger striped my truck.

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Go to other touchless washes as that one is not set up right.

The area you live in will make a huge impact on if a touch free will clean well or not. In our area, to get a decent looking vehicle in our touch free is a lot more expensive compared to our friction sites. We had 4 different reps come in saying they could get the job done and went home with their tail between their legs. We have a ton of road construction and agricultural runoff, and it makes it a tough cleaning environment.

Operating cost of a TF is 2.5X our friction and our friction out washes the TF 3:1