Any vehicle, be that a municipal train, bus, truck, or other kind of fleet vehicle that runs for most hours every day, most of the week, and all of the year will get very dirty very quickly. Dirt, dust, and pollutants left on a vehicle will damage the paint over time, while road salt and bird droppings will cause active corrosion. A regular and efficient cleaning operation will get rid of these damaging substances, and increase the period where the operational benefits will exceed the maintenance burden.
One of the Key Performance indicators of any large vehicle fleet is the ratio between operational readiness and downtime. A washing facility that is planned for optimal use and runs according to planned efficiency will optimize and minimize the cleaning part of the vehicles’ essential maintenance. Conversely, unplanned downtime will impact planning, scheduling, and operations. Besides the costs associated with dirty vehicles, there will also be an impact on user perception.
All fleet vehicles, whether trains, buses, utility vehicles, or corporate will have people pay for it. These could be municipal ratepayers, commuters who buy tickets, or the cost of logistics or deliveries built into the retail price of goods and services. Train and bus commuters expect to travel in clean vehicles while voting ratepayers will object to filthy municipal utility vehicles. No company will allow its branded vehicles to look anything but pristine.
The ability to keep your vehicles clean will carry the dividend of public prescription, in addition to operational savings. Why risk all these benefits by using suboptimal parts in your car wash system?
You would not fit off-brand brake pads or retreaded tires on your vehicles, because you know they will break down or even cause accidents. The same applies to your car cleaning parts. Those machines work hard and they work all the time. Downtime is dead time, and because such cleaning systems have to perform multiple tasks consecutively to complete every vehicle cleaned, a breakdown at any point will most likely put the whole operation out of action.
While most operators are rightly concerned about the quality of the brushes in their system, less obvious components such as a car wash air blower work just as hard and have to be of the highest quality to ensure optimum operational success.
The bottom line is that vehicle washing systems are an excellent investment, as long as they are properly maintained. No matter what vehicles you have in your fleet, as long as you maintain your equipment properly and fit the right quality parts, you will find the return on that investment will benefit your entire enterprise in all the ways discussed above.