Hand car washes. How do they make money.

[KungFuPanda]

I know I've heard a lot of people on here say that they're just a money laundering front. Not all of them can be can they?

I live in Manchester city centre and if you drive out of the city centre in any direction, within less then 5 minutes you will bump into a hand car wash place which will do a good job of cleaning your car and give it a mini valet for a tenner. Pre rinse, foam, wash, rinse, dry and then spritz the outside with spray wax and buff. Polish the glass inside and out. Vacuum the interior, mats and boot. Clean the dash and most surfaces. Some even use a paintbrush to clean out the air vents. If you've lucky you'll get an air freshener too.

So out of that tenner they have to pay the staff, cover the utility bills and make a profit.

Anyone have any insight into this?

[Sump]

With the legit ones it's just a numbers game. Chemicals are so cheap and labour is quite cheap. On an average car your cost is likely to be about 25 pence in chemicals.

With 5 labourers on £30 a day at £150 and you can serve around 150 cars a day inconsistently at £5 a go at £750. Optimistic figures but for this time it gets by. Crank up to summer and you can serve consistently over 200 cars a day.

However the one next door to us runs a drugs game in the back. People get their car wash and buy some marijuana.

[thelawnet1]

they are dependent on cheap immigrant labour, and most aren't viable without. Same applies to many business, including Dominos pizza and others.

[acer12]

It's a cash business so under declare everything - vat, claim lower wages so lower NI payments, lower corp tax, owner pays lower tax on his wages

All the above could probably mean that £1 of sales is equivalent to £2 sales in a legitimate company

[JulianHJ]

A car wash local to me is owned by a guy with a taste for supercars. Over the years there have been persistent rumours that he made his money in the "import/export" business, with an emphasis on the former.

[r11co]

JulianHJ said:

A car wash local to me is owned by a guy with a taste for supercars. Over the years there have been persistent rumours that he made his money in the "import/export" business, with an emphasis on the former.

Cash only businesses that on paper turn little or no profit are ideal ways to launder money. See also tanning salons...

[Willy Nilly]

Sump said:

However the one next door to us runs a drugs game in the back. People get their car wash and buy some marijuana.

up selling

[swisstoni]

If they are laundering money, shouldn't they be making big declared profits to try and launder the suitcases of dodgy cash they have lying about?

[liner33]

£10 for 5 mins is £120 ph , the guys earn around £10 per hour cash , the operators make more money than your average independent garage

[Blaster72]

This is one example

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/car-wash-boss...

The poster above mentions 5 labourers at £30 each a day. That's also another way, don't pay minimum wage or taxes.

I'm sure there are some legitimate ones around but I really can't see how our local ones make money especially in winter. Only seem to be busy on Saturdays.

[200Plus Club]

Once witnessed a rather exciting fistfight between the staff at my local Kosovan car wash and also got a free air freshener! Beat that!
The fight only ended when one of them legged it as he was about to be brained with a length of wood. The car wash owner apologised to his queue of customers and then just carried on :-)

[HayesDC2]

Always wondered this myself, the hand car wash near me must conservatively have 30 employees.

[A.J.M]

Cheap labour.

Local one to me has a steady turn over of staff to the point some haven't even mastered basic English like "hello" or the price of the wash.

Does help it's in a busy location but it's well known the place and the taxi service next door is run by drug dealers.

[Saleen836]

Do the staff all claim to be self employed, then claim very low income so hit up the government for all the benefits they can get their hands on?

[anonymous-user]

1. They employ illegals
2. They barely pay them
3. It's generally a front for something else

Avoid them like the plague personally, especially those in multi story car parks. Who the fk thought that one through?

[AshBurrows]

They have 80,000 cars through per day. At least according to the accounts

[nct001]

liner33 said:

£10 for 5 mins is £120 ph , the guys earn around £10 per hour cash , the operators make more money than your average independent garage

Except it's more like 15 minutes for three people to clean inside and out so more like £10 for 45 minutes work.

These places don't even break even and the profit comes from laundering for prostitution, drugs, crime or whatever.

All it takes is one rainy day and staff still need some money just to live! And it will lose money not even cover wages.

(I had a car forecourt that used to be a car wash so know the numbers).

[Sheepshanks]

Apparently the water companies hate these guys for their use of water and discharge of untreated waste water into surface drains. Policing them must be horrendous.

[MockingJay]

I wondered the same. My local car wash has 5-6 staff there usually and the guy who runs it has a 2015 S Class

[austinsmirk]

One car wash site and business was sold in Bradford.

the new owner then "found out" the land (and thus the business) sold wasn't even legally available for sale.

eg scrap land at the side of a road/old pub car park or something.


must admit when I see them around here, my reckoning is a front for other stuff. typically there's normally some turf war shooting or something at some point too.