Q: How much land do I need?
A: To give you an indication of the amount of land required for your site, an average carwash of 4-5 bays (this could be a combination of self serve and automatic) would require 1500 square metres.  Access to and within the site is very important.  You must allow room for cars to queue and also allow for them to move about the site to access all of the services available.

Q: There is no prime vacant land in the suburb/town where I want to start up a car wash.  Does the site need to be on a main road?
A: Main road location is fantastic, although some budgets don’t allow for this. The majority of your business will come from your local catchment area (as against passing trade), so as long as your customers know where the car wash is, they will frequent it regardless of location. For example, the customer may plan to drop into the car wash before going off to the football. Or it may simply be a Sunday ritual, like mowing the lawn. In this instance, a main road location does not matter. However, if your facility has a Touchfree Automatic car wash on site which offers convenience and spontaneous purchases, then the main road location will work to your advantage.

If you are considering setting up a self serve car wash facility, there is an important fact you should know.  In most cases, self serve carwashing is a planned purchase.  The reason for this is that the customers have to physically wash the car themselves, so they need to consider the possibility of getting wet. Certainly they will exert some energy, so they may also get sweaty. This is compared to an automatic car wash, which is often a spontaneous purchase.

More Info on Site Requirements