Car Wash

My wife’s relatives recently stayed our home for a week. They came here for vacation. We took them to Yosemite, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and a few other places. They enjoyed their visit in California. One day, my wife took them to the car wash. This is what impressed them the most during the trip.
They were amazed by the car wash shop system. The car wash process was efficiently divided into several stages. Different staff were assigned to each stage:

- Take the order
- Clean up the interior
- Collect payment

- Wax the car

- Wipe the car

They said that they would like to get this service in Japan, but I don’t think this business will work in Japan. There are 2 reasons.

The first reason is quality of car wash. In this car wash system, many people are involved in the car wash process. This system helps work simplify the work and increase simplicity, but I don’t think that this system keeps high quality finish. In addition, automatic car-wash machines are used in the car wash process. These are likely to make scratches on the car. To many Japanese, a car is a kind of luxury, so they are likely to be nervous about scratches on their cars. Some people are extremely obsessive about hand car washes. Quality is the first priority for Japanese car lovers.

Washing a car by hand is definitely hard work, so a new automatic car wash machine has been popular in Japan recently. It’s called a brushless car wash. It uses extremely high pressure water, strong blowers and forming cleanser. During the car wash, no one touches the car including the machine. After the automatic brushless car wash has finished, owners wipe and polish their car as they like.

The second reason is weather. During the dry season, we don’t have rain in California. Once we wash our car, we can keep our car clean at least 2 weeks, so we don’t need to wash our car very often. I don’t feel that it’s expensive to pay about $20 for a car wash every 2 weeks.

In Japan, they have rain frequently throughout the entire year. It’s hard to keep cars clean for a long time. I guess many people can’t afford to have their car washed regularly. In order to keep their car clean for a reasonable cost, they have to wash out the car by themselves or use a self-service automatic car wash.

I think the car-care business is closely related to climate and culture. I haven’t seen the same kind of store in Hawaii. It’s one of the interesting business models in California.

By the way, I’m very curious what kind of work the car wash staff doing during the rainy season in California.