Back from the Brink
Oregon operators jumpstart abandoned wash

By Julie Riddle

Becky and Joe Reding

When Joe Reding and his wife, Becky, made the decision to purchase a carwash four years ago, they had their work cut out for them.

Car'l B. Klean, a full-service carwash located in Oregon's capital city of Salem, opened in 1989 under another husband-and-wife team. Five years later, it was sold to an absentee owner who allowed it to fall into disrepair. But it turned out to be just what the Redings were looking for.

"We had a feeler out for an opportunity, and we got a lead on this one," Joe says. "So I talked to the original owner and actually worked out a deal with him."

That tip came from Joe's brother, Clem, a two-wash operator who lives in a nearby city. Joe says he learned much of what he knows of the carwashing business from his brother.

"He bought a full-serve wash and then he built an exterior conveyor, so in talking with him and dealing with him I learned about what he was doing. He had those washes for a number of years before we got this one," Joe says. "So I had a basic background from him in terms of the carwash."

But before the Redings could even think about opening the doors of the new Car'l B. Klean, they needed to put in some serious elbow grease.

"The equipment that was in here originally was pretty good...but it had gotten really run down and hadn't been maintained, so a lot of it was broken," Joe says. "Not knowing what skeletons were in the closet, I decided to pull it all out and we put in a new Peco system."

Car'l B. Klean now has a 90-foot conveyor. The rest of the wash, which sits on three-quarters of an acre and includes a 1,000-square-foot gift shop and café with an outside patio, was also in need of revamping.

"The gift shop had one card rack and two pinball machines," Joe says. "When we bought it originally, I did a lot of walkthroughs and was crunching numbers trying to figure out what we should do...It was just bare, with a dirty floor; everything was just filthy."

Becky heads up the renovated gift shop, which now includes a wide variety of greeting cards, gift items, candles and stuffed animals. Running the gift shop was a job Joe gladly handed over to her.

"She has a knack for picking out the cards and gifts the customers like. We're careful about pricing, almost everything is under $20 or $25, and we have a large card selection. I told her I had no creative flair in that regard, so she would have to try and make that work, and boy, she just took off flying."

Today the gift shop takes in about $130,000 to $140,000 a year.

Like the gift shop, the carwash tunnel was filthy, Joe says. They cleaned and painted it, giving it a whole new look. After practically "overhauling" the site, the Redings were able to open their doors for business.

Cleaning up their name

Changing the community's perception of the carwash wasn't easy, according to Joe.

"It hasn't happened overnight. It's been a slow and steady process, because the place had a pretty bad reputation when we bought it."

They decided to keep the original name, Car'l B. Klean, since it had been in the community so long and people knew the name.

"Even though it was rundown, it might have been harder to replace the name and get people used to it than keep the existing one and try to impress people," Joe says.

Much of the clientele Car'l B. Klean serves is upscale, a factor Joe says helped them finalize their decision to buy the wash in the first place. The carwash is located in the south part of Salem, home to many affluent residents. The nearest competitor is on the north side of town. In all, Salem has a population of roughly 125,000 people.

"One of the reasons I decided on the carwash system we've got is that we do a lot of high-end cars--Mercedes, BMWs. Most of what we see is all newer, high-end vehicles. That's the kind of the clientele that we queue on," he says.

Car'l B. Klean's wash packages range in price from $5.95 for the exterior basic to $21.95 for the platinum, which is the best- selling package.

Learning the business

While their knowledge of the carwashing business may have been somewhat limited, the Redings' previous business experience proved to be helpful. Joe was a franchise dealer for Chevron, and had been in the service-station business for about 18 years.

"I had an automotive repair shop, a towing company and a bookkeeping and tax-consulting business. We kind of had all of those going at one time at one point, so we were pretty busy," he says.

The Redings' found their niche in carwashing after an unexpected family event.

"We found out my wife was pregnant with twins," he says. "We decided that we ought to do a lifestyle readjustment and so it was a good opportunity to sell the other businesses off. We did that over a period of a couple of years."

Joe admits that he had a lot to learn about the carwash industry.

"Other than the research I did before we bought this place--number-crunching and the retailer/customer side of things--it was a steep learning curve. I think I learned a lot through my relationship with our equipment manager and with our chemical guy," he says. "I really leaned heavily on them as I learned more. I still have a lot to learn. I still depend heavily on those guys, but like anything else, you kind of absorb it over a period of time."

One of the biggest problems Joe has had to deal with is educating his customers on what his wash can and cannot do.

"We deal in a perception business, and everybody's perception of clean is a little different," Joe says. "We deal within a normal range of clean, because we have some people come in whose cars are falling apart, and people who bring in large SUVs and Suburbans that are dirtier than we'll wash. If they have hanging mud on them, we tell them they have go to clean it off before we'll wash them."

It's all in the details

Aside from washing cars, the Redings' key focus is developing the detail shop. The shop had previously been rented out to a local detailer. At the time he took the reins of the business, Joe says he was hesitant about getting involved in detailing.

"Not knowing the carwash business, I didn't want to jump in and start doing detailing right off the bat too. I continued to lease for about a year after we opened up so I could learn the carwash business a little better and Becky could get acclimated to the gift shop and just make sure all those ducks were in a row," he says.

A year later, they took over the detail shop. Located in back of the wash, the four-bay detail shop is approximately 20-by- 50 feet and has a manager plus a few employees on staff.

"The detail shop is probably the part of our business that we continue try to grow the most because it has the most potential, and we're slowly doing that," Joe says.

Services offered by appointment only include paintless dent repair, leather, cloth and vinyl repair; rock and chip repair to glass or finish; stain removal and window tinting. Three auto appearance packages are offered: full interior/exterior detail; interior detail and exterior detail.

Joe says limited space forces him to make sure the operation runs efficiently at all times.

"When you put everything together, it's a pretty tight lot," he says. "We have to make it flow pretty well, especially on busy days, so it doesn't get out of control."

Making a statement

Architecturally speaking, Car'l B. Klean stands out with its unique colors and design.

"It's kind of interesting," Joe says. "The café has a half-story above it that is round and kind of looks like a can coming up out of the ground." The buildings are painted in red and white, with striped awnings.

Many of the previous owners' original touches remain.

"The original owner's idea was kind of a '50s retro-type look with pink and a Cadillac jukebox," he says. "We moved away from that theme and upgraded to something a little more modern, although some of the pink accents are still there. It stands out from the street and looks like an unusually shaped building, but it's well-marked and it's easy for someone to tell it's a carwash."

Joe says his landscaping is simple, consisting of trees, shrubs and flowers. They do plantings three times a year.

Security at the wash includes an eight-camera surveillance system. Motion-sensitive cameras on all activity points digitally record all the time. They also have an alarm system on the building itself that is monitored by a 24-hour monitoring company. The systems were installed after burglars broke into the office, They didn't steal anything, but they did do some damage, Joe says.

Employees make the difference

Car'l B. Klean currently employs 32 people, 20 of which are full-time.

"Outside of the original changes we made, my background has always been really strong in customer service," he says. "Everything I've always done has been in retail, so I'm used to dealing with the retail customer and with staff. That's definitely been our biggest impact coming in as owners--providing a high level of customer service."

Potential employees go through two interviews and a computerized personality survey before they can be considered for a job. Once hired, a 30-day probationary period follows.

"We're really picky about who we hire," he says. "Most of our staff has been here since we opened up, so we try to take good care of them and let them know the importance of taking care of our customers so they come back."

Joe says his service writers, who are highly trained and commissioned, use Palm Pilots to write up customer orders. They wear the Palm Pilots on their belts, and each unit has a printer that issues a receipt for the customer and a second receipt for the vehicle. In addition to the paper trail, the order is also sent to the cashier at the point of sale. This system prevents missed tickets and drive-offs, Joe says.

Getting the word out

One of the first challenges the Redings faced after opening for business was changing the reputation the wash had earned under previous ownership. In the first few years, they did couponing and advertised through the newspaper, grocery store register tapes and specialty magazines. Joe also became involved in the local chamber of commerce.

Now that the Redings have re-established the wash, much of the marketing effort has been scaled back.

"We did a lot of it the first couple of years, especially to kind of kickstart things, and saw some good results from that. The last year we've pulled back quite a bit from the couponing side of things," Joe says.

Couponing evolved into a customer-frequency program where they reward their customers with a free full-serve wash after they've been in 10 times. Car'l B. Klean is still active in the community, and is involved with the local chamber of commerce and other community events. They also get a lot of requests from schools to help with fundraisers.

The Redings, who recycle approximately 70 percent of their wash water, are also actively involved in the environmental health of the community. There is a collective effort between the city, county and the DEQ to inform people about environmental issues such as helping people understand that home carwashing is not good for the environment.

In the future

Joe says although renovations and expansions are planned for their current washes, it isn't likely that any new ones will be built. He cites both the couple's commitment to family and their desire to have a top-of-the-line business.

The Redings aren't too concerned about building other locations, but instead want to focus on just one Car'l B. Klean.

"We've kind of decided that this is our niche, and that we'd rather have one business. I don't like doing things half-baked. I've always been an on-site owner...We don't want to stretch ourselves too thin. We really want to enjoy that balance between life and work," Joe says.

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