Car washes try to stand out with customer service, different approaches

Tim Harty, The Business Times

Club Car Wash opened two locations in Grand Junction this year, one at 691 24 Road in May and one at 2122 North Ave. in August.

Champion Xpress Car Wash built two locations in Grand Junction before that, opening one at 540 Warrior Way in March 2023 and one at 2830 Patterson Road in May 2024.

Take 5 Car Wash opened two car washes in the Grand Valley in October 2022 as part of a grand-opening event for 17 new locations in Colorado. One is at 2475 U.S. Highway 6&50, and the other is at 3228 F Road.

The point being: That’s a lot of large, tunnel car washes that came to town in a short time. And that’s a lot of competition now for the car-washing public’s cash.

So, what does a car wash in Grand Junction have to do these days to get customers to pull into their car wash? Then keep them coming back?

Customer service, the type of car wash (friction or touch-free) and branding all were mentioned by the likes of Van’s Car Wash owner Ben Van Dyke, Stop Wash Go owners Kriss Bergethon and Alex Moore, and Champion Xpress Chief Operating Officer Jeff Wagner.

Van’s Car Wash and Stop Wash Go are touch-free car washes with mostly self-serve bays, while Champion Xpress (and the aforementioned Club Car Wash and Take 5) is a friction car wash.

Wagner touted the Champion Xpress customer service that starts with an attendant guiding a vehicle toward the tunnel. That attendant stops the vehicle to prep it with a spray of soap and some scrubbing to remove bugs from the front bumper, grill and windshield. Then, the vehicle goes through the tunnel, and it exits to find another attendant, this one armed with towels to dry off the vehicle.

Wagner said Champion Xpress stands out in the car-wash crowd by sticking to its core values, that great customer service can win the day.

“We’re gonna give you a clean car, and we’re gonna work hard, but added to that you know we’re gonna get the customers what they expect there,” Wagner said. “Hopefully we’re doing it with a smile, a kind word, encourage them to come back and have a Champion’s day.”

He added, “Bottom line is it comes down to your people, and we feel like we have great team members and great people, and we think that’s gonna give us the Champion difference.”

The finishing flourish of towel drying the vehicle before it drives away is something Wagner said Champion Xpress tries to do across all of its sites.

“We feel that’s a nice way to make sure that we give you a clean car, we’ve taken care of things, and just to give you another nice wave and send you on your way,” he said. “Because who doesn’t feel good when you got your car clean?”

Moore said Stop Wash Go, which has locations at 2884 North Ave. in Grand Junction, 2767 B 1/2 Road on Orchard Mesa and 3240 F Road in Clifton, hasn’t been affected much by the influx of tunnel car washes. He said touch-free car washes “will always have a good market.”

That’s because not all vehicles can go through a friction wash, which means they have to go the touch-free route.

“Trucks, RVs, contractors who have a bed full of tools, they can’t go through. A bunch of people are gonna get kicked out of line because they’ve got a bike rack,” Moore said. Bergethon then added to the list, saying, “Or their truck’s too long, or it’s a dually, or it’s pulling a trailer.”

Moore added cars that are too muddy aren’t allowed in a tunnel car wash, and to that Bergethon said, “We have a slogan: We love your mud. Bring your mud.”

In addition, Moore said anyone who has a bad experience at a friction wash will seek out car washes like Stop Wash Go, which have another advantage: They’re open 24/7.

The Stop Wash Go in Clifton is a stone’s throw from a Take 5 Car Wash, and Moore said having competition so close is welcome. He likened it to the “dealership effect” with auto dealers.

“Why do you want to be next to your competitor? Because that area becomes the place known to buy a car, and people can shop, shop, shop, shop,” Moore said. “Now, you see this with car washes. Self-serve car washes that are next to tunnels can do very, very well.”

A little psychology is at play, too.

“The demand can grow,” Bergethon said, “because when car washes are built, the awareness of car washes goes up from people driving by them and people see a car wash, and (think), ‘I need to wash my car.’

“So there’s a certain level where other car washes can actually increase the amount of cars that are being washed overall in a geographic area to a certain point. You know, everybody can do better for a while. And then there’s some breaking point where there’s too many, right? And then everybody’s going to kind of suffer, because there’s just not enough demand.”

With touch-free Van’s Car Washes at 305 Ute Ave. in downtown Grand Junction and 413 Monument Road on the Redlands,Van Dyke can echo Bergethon and Moore’s points. He takes a similar marketing approach, too.

“We kind of branded ourselves as an alternative to a friction wash,” he said.

Furthering Bergethon’s thoughts about car-wash competition and perhaps saturation in the Grand Valley, Van Dyke said, “I’m a big believer in the free market, and I think at the end of the day the consumer kind of will eventually decide when enough is enough, and, you know, the cream rises to the top, and you see how it settles from there.”

Van Dyke said he has seen similar situations play out in other communities, and if a market is saturated, contraction will naturally occur.

“I think we will kind of hit a tipping point,” he said. “Usually what I see is a community will get a few different chains in at once and you’ll kind of see a survival of the fittest. Who essentially offers the best product kind of wins out and takes over the market for the most part, and the competitors will kind of fall off. And you’ll either see them change hands or some of them just kinda end up going vacant, unfortunately.”

While that might seem to favor chain stores over the little mom-and-pop car wash, Van Dyke said he has seen it both ways. Sometimes the little guy prevails.

“Some of them thrive and do exceptional,” he said, “because they’re able to offer a product that the national brand really can’t match, just because they’re so spread across the entire country. You get an owner of a direct site that has their hands on things very frequently, you’re typically gonna come up with a better product, and customer service can even kind of raise those companies above the others.”