In my specific region of the US, you're more likely to see something between a small 'automated' facility where your car is pulled along a sort of 'assembly line'[0][1] or a somewhat larger 'DIY' car wash where you might have to do your own start stopping or are practically given a squeegee cleaner, some colo(u)red water that may or may not have cleaner, a mounted pedistal shop vac of some sort, and a race against the clock based on how many quarters you put in.

Or, sometimes a combination of the two.

The setups for the DIY shops are usually fairly cheap IMO (Just looking at what's going on at them and the BOM) and the main thing outside of market saturation is having a good ingress/egress setup (If one sucks to get in and out of, folks won't come back.)

That's not to say that there aren't hand car washes as well, however I only tend to see those where I grew up (not too far from here, mind you,) or when it is some sort of school/church/etc fundraiser.

The weird thing you can run into in some cases, even at the automated shops though, is either weird 'implied consent' about extras by folks on one end or another of the line, or in the case of any of them, 'memberships' that are priced to where you'd really be following that 'one wash a week' rule to get your money's worth.

[0] - Often with a warning that they are not responsible for damage to vehicles older than X years and/or with more than Y miles

[1] - These can be surprisingly small, to the point some gas stations have one on the side and a purchase gives a 5/10c discount per gallon. Which, to the general point of 'pennies on the dollar' they made money on long term.

I think this article is referencing the common trend of drive through automated washes which would make sense if large investors are in the picture. The big automated ones are pushy with their subscriptions which the article also talks about.

These big wash machines are typically staffed by only 2 or 3 people hence the complaints that they don't even create jobs.

That being said, I wish there were more automated washes near me. We find ourselves making excuses to drive by the one we pay a subscription for.

I couldn't imagine ever paying a subscription to a car wash! I barely even pay for Spotify, how often do you go? And how often would you go if you weren't paying a subscription?

Depends...

Reputable shops I more often see do something more like a 'Prepaid' discount where you get X washes (maybe in the next Y months) for Z dollars, and ideally it's something like you get one wash a month at a 10-20 percent discount.

The profit-gouging ones, either do a 'assume 3-4 washes a month to see real benefit' or assume you are washing once a week in their sub... or do all the other 'tricks' above schemes can allow.

It can make sense if you don't have a garage, and there's a lot of pollen and whatnot where you park. If I don't wash my car ~twice a week, it ends up looking pretty funky.

I need to wash my cars at least once a week or they get filthy.

I just don’t understand this attitude. Cars live outside, of course they will have a little dirt on them! Do you wash your house every week as well?

It might almost make sense if you wash your car weekly or more often during winter when they salt the roads.

But I never see anyone using the subscription car wash in town, so who knows? The new ones connected to the gas station see some action.

Not once has the local automated wash suggested a subscription, is that perhaps a regional thing or specific to certain brands?

It's likely just that they haven't done the legwork to properly support it yet, or don't want to be a whitelabel service. Even the little gas station washes by me push subscriptions now. My agency has built out a few of these services in the past and they aren't cheap, even the off-the-shelf ones.

As an aside, the entire experience is awful. "Pay $25/month and get as many $8 washes as you want!" ...but I only get a car wash every 2 months and since you're tracking my license plate, you already know that.

I've often wondered how legit those 'hand car washes' are. Legit or not, I'm sure it is hard work for crappy money.

They're legit, and they make big tips when they work hard.

I have worked as a tipped employee, and I have never heard a tipped employee say “wow that table/person didn’t tip much, I should have worked harder”

s/they work hard/somebody decides to tip which may or may not reflect any effort the worker put in because some people just don’t tip and depending on tips is a shitty way to scrape by/

The comment I was referring to was talking about the UK, where we don't have a tipping culture in the same way the US does.

>They're legit

It is hard to know whethr they are working legally.

Oh, I thought you were talking about the establishments themselves, sorry!

I can confirm they wash your car if you pay them to. Is that legit enough?

I was referring to the parent comment "The official narrative here is modern slavery with undocumented migrants". Some of the people working in these hand car washes may not have the legal right to work in the UK, which makes them ripe for exploitation.

Sorry it's conservative propaganda that illegal immigrants will work for very low wages at crappy jobs?

> It's the same with sex work, with which is harder to separate between conservative propaganda and reality.

No?

I guess they edited their post, because your quote no longer applies?

The quote is from the GP.

I volunteer at a refugee charity. In my experience people given the right to stay will take whatever work they can get, which is often crappy work at low wages due to lack of transferable skills and/or English (e.g. security guard).

Yep the only way you're getting your car manually washed in Australia is by foreigners or teens.

Most casual work was done by teens and middle aged women through history but now it's mostly foreigners.

Anything done by citizens attracts huge markups.