Hi all. Im doing a demo on a small fleet this Saturday. Will be a 2 man crew washing, with an 8gpm hot water machine, one man on the gun and one with a brush. Any recommended one step soaps that will leave the customer impressed. Also welcome your views on process. Small account of 8 tractors / 8 trailers every Saturday, but if I can land a few more of these would plan to get a better set up for washing fleets at some point over the next few months.
Thanks in advance. Also have no clue why I only have one day of read time, feels like I’m here all the time.
the rubber scrubber thread talks all about 2 stepping without brushing. Some of the resident experts are on that thread a lot.
Regarding read time, if you don’t log in the time doesn’t count. You have to be in the thread reading the posts until the little blue dot disappears for it to count as a read post. Otherwise, if you read a lot like while not logged in, when you log in it will show all the threads with posts you haven’t read with blue dots.
They are blue for me, don’t know what color they are for everyone.
Right but I want to one step, ie, I dont have a two step gun, I’ve got a standard house washing set up, so can down stream one soap and have another guy brushing, then swap jrod tips to rinse
I’m not the one to answer your questions, hit up @Hotshot or @dperez they are the ones.
Having read through almost a whole tenth of the rubber scrubber thread, I think I’m qualified enough to say that you’re gonna need specialized equipment and chems to compete with the other fleet washers. With a residential setup but you’ll be inefficient and slow
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I’ve read the whole thing twice. I understand I would be inefficient. My plan was to see if I can pick up 100 or so trucks which would be enough to underwrite getting a rig just for fleets and then aggressively selling
You don’t know what you don’t know. I’ve went to work for multiple fleet wash companies in my area and nobody knew what they were doing lol. He’ll be fine with a less than ideal rig until he gives it up.
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Let me come out and check out how you do it for 3 days…hell i’ll pay you
I don’t wash fleet anymore. After almost 18 years I got smart and got out of it!
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You can 2 step with down stream injector and 3 way ball valve. Probably won’t have time to get decent soaps though
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Yep @SurfaceTherapy , He’s behind the 8 ball to bad to obtain good soaps buy now, He’s gotta wash tomorrow, Bring lots of brushes @Armadawash
Unless you have a Hydrochem distributor 2 hours away and delivered to my front porch within 5 hours of placing the order. 
Call around @Armadawash You might be surprised what you can find. Where are you located? Maybe others can help.
I still have it stuck in my head that you’ve been bs’ing us over the last year and are still fleet washing in Texas. Time to come clean. Did you really move to the Northwest? Did you sell your fleet washing company? What are you doing now? I’m guessing a grow house. 
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Ok for those interested to know how this turned out. Showed up on the lot at 1130. Put out cones, checked out water supply and talking to owner of the trucks. He parks on a rented gravel lot with other trucking companies. The owner of the lot comes out and asks what we are doing. Says we look very professional and organized. Granted, we put out cones, wore safety vests, eye protection and company hats / shirts and same blue dickies work pants. He said there are about 5 companies that come wash for the different fleet operators but are all very unprofessional looking and unorganized. If we do a good job he’ll kick the other washers off the lot and give us exclusive access to the 140 trucks on this lot and 150 on another lot 5 miles away if we give him a cut.
The fleet owner and owner of the lot then left and it was time to wash. Based on what I read I assumed it would take 20-30 minutes to wash a tractor, it must have taken us right at 20 minutes of spraying because I have an 8 gpm unit and carry 200 gallons of water which we did not empty, but since there was so much on the line so to speak we wiped a lot of the tractor down with towels and rinsed where the soap wasn’t cutting it. Based on the fleet washing videos I saw I assumed it would be pretty straightforward and the film / dirt would melt away, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. I downstreamed some soap I bought from a pressure washing dealer here yesterday and had my helper brush. I have a hot water unit but didn’t use the burner (maybe that would help). In total to about 45 minutes, which isn’t bad given I had no clue what I was doing. I sent pics to the fleet owner and spoke with the lot owner afterward.
Got the fleet of 8 at $55 a tractor, and got exclusive rights to wash on the lot at both lots hopefully at a slightly higher price. Told the owner I need 4 weeks to organize, and build a heavier duty rig (thinking isuzu NPR flat bed as it’s easy to drive but still looks good for my hoa customers which is the core of my business). But need to figure out the washing because it was sh!t show.
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We’re washing a tractor and 53’ trailer plus motor bay in around 30 minutes or less, you need to get efficient and buy good soaps to be competitive. I suggest hydro chem systems in Michigan and start 2 stepping. Talk to Chad Reiffer. And when you get your feet good and wet I’ll set you up with a 2 step system. If you want to chase the one step unicorn I can’t help ya.
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Why use cold water when you have hot capability? Set it at 120 degrees and get better results faster.
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Agreed, and I would also suggest a 5.5 gpm hot machine. Applying soaps with an 8 will kill you in chems and your operator won’t keep up and you’ll use to much water. Now an 8gpm is definitely king for rinsing imo.
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