The Union of Car Services named three reasons for the shortage of car washes in Moscow

Industrial zones have disappeared in Moscow, and along with them, car washes. There is simply nowhere to open stations, despite the abundance of cars. The owners of this business complain about high taxes and expenses; the outlets are closing one after another. Motor magazine looked into whether Muscovites will drive dirty cars in the near future.

The car washes available in the capital operate at high loads, and robotic self-service points simply cannot cope with the flow of traffic – they periodically run out of detergents and water. As a result, washing a car takes drivers about an hour instead of 10-15 minutes; this problem is especially acute on weekends, reported the Baza Telegram channel.

In the capital, according to Avtostat Info analysts interviewed by journalists, there are 6 thousand car washes of all types – this is approximately 23% of the total number of points in Russia. However, they are not enough for the city’s four million vehicle fleet.

However, now the situation with washing stations could be much worse. Entrepreneur Nikolai Duba, who owned a car wash business, claims that there are about 4.6 thousand car washes in the Russian capital, which is approximately 20% of the total number of stations in the country.

“60% of car wash closures are associated with the wrong choice of location, underestimating the costs of equipment and its maintenance, and errors in calculating payback,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.

Ilya Plisov, a member of the board of the Union of Car Services, told Motor magazine that service companies specializing in car repairs have to maintain a car wash only in order to repair clean cars and provide a favorable impression to customers. And for the normal functioning of car washes as a separate business in large cities of Russia, there are three groups of obstacles.

“For the car wash to be profitable, as well as the service, you need cheap rent – 1-1.5 thousand rubles per square meter per month. There are fewer and fewer such places – the areas are being built up, and there are no car washes or car services there. It’s as if cities are being built without taking into account the fact that cars will drive through them,” Plisov noted in an interview with Motor.

Also, according to him, car washes are strictly checked for compliance with environmental standards. The problem is that the water at a car wash has to be locally purified and reused, and the cost of installing purification filters, ensuring storage and settling of water is very high, as is the price of chemical reagents.

“According to current regulations, you must use the same water at a car wash, and you can only pour it down the drain once a quarter. The demands are fair, but they completely contradict attempts to make money from this business. Many people violate this requirement,” a member of the board of the Union of Automotive Services gave an example.

In addition, the work of car washes is affected by staff shortages, including due to the outflow of migrants, he added. As part of a car service, a car wash is either a source of loss or works “to zero,” Plisov clarified.

The owner of a self-service car wash, Nikita Smirnov, in a conversation with Motor magazine, called the washing business very popular: on weekends, long lines line up in front of his car wash – 5-6 cars for each post.

“Seeing such a stir, many, including me, have a desire to open new points. To do this, you need to find a suitable place. This is the biggest problem. Due to active residential development, the most promising areas are being converted into apartment buildings. There remain industrial zones and garage cooperatives, but they are also gradually being built up,” said Smirnov.

The relatively free areas remain in the city outskirts, but it is unprofitable to run a car wash there, since customers do not want to go to the outskirts of the city on bad roads to wash their car. The business representative also acknowledges the problem of staff shortages for traditional car washes.

“Young people who could work as washers went into taxis or couriers. It’s hard work—dirty, time-consuming, and not very healthy. We could buy 2-3 garages and open a car wash, but there would be no one to work there. A self-service car wash requires completely different areas. As a result, I look at the city map and see that there are entire microdistricts where there is simply no place to wash a car, but I can’t go there – there is nowhere to build a car wash,” concluded Smirnov.