Start with your traffic, not the brochure
The first thing I ask a customer is not “what machine do you want.” It’s “how many cars do you actually see a day.” Everything else follows from that number.
A gantry (rollover) machine handles roughly 30 to 80 vehicles per shift before the queue gets unpleasant. If you’re under 100 cars a day, a gantry is almost always the right call — lowest purchase price, smallest footprint, easiest to keep running. Most of our export orders for small lots and gas stations are gantry units for exactly this reason.
A tunnel only earns its keep past about 150 to 200 cars a day. Below that you’re paying for conveyor length and staffing you can’t use. I’ve seen operators buy a tunnel for a 90-car site and regret the idle labor cost every month.
What your site physically allows
A gantry fits in roughly 10 by 5 meters of bay plus room to enter and exit. A tunnel needs 20 to 30 meters of linear space and a straight drive-through path. Check the actual lot before you fall in love with a spec sheet — I’ve lost count of customers who picked a tunnel, then found their site needed a wall torn out.
Touchless is a positioning choice, not an upgrade
Touchless machines clean with high-pressure water and chemistry, no brushes touching the paint. They win with customers who worry about scratches, and they’re gentler on the vehicle. The trade-off is wash quality on heavy dirt: caked mud and road salt don’t lift as well as they do under a brush. For commuter traffic with light dust, touchless is fine. Near a construction site or in a farming region, you’ll hear complaints.
Three things people forget to check
- Power supply. Most commercial units want three-phase 380V. In parts of Africa and the Middle East the supply is unstable or single-phase at older sites. Confirm before the machine is on the dock, not after.
- Water inlet pressure. A weak municipal supply starves a high-pressure pump. You may need a buffer tank upstream.
- Drainage and discharge rules. Wash water has to go somewhere, and some cities require oil separation or restricted discharge. This affects both siting and whether you need a recycling loop.
On buying used
Used machines from closed car washes are easy to find. The risk isn’t age, it’s whether the previous owner maintained the brushes and the pump. No service record usually means a pump rebuild within a year. Budget for it.
The short version: match the machine to your actual daily volume and your physical site, then confirm power and water before you sign.