It’s not the first thing you think of when you think about carwash site maintenance. But your parking lot influences your curb appeal significantly. When clients roll up to your wash facilities, and their first impression is a messy or neglected parking lot, they may doubt if you can clean their vehicle well. And it’s hard for customers to recover from a negative first impression.

You may or may not have many actual parking spaces. But any paved space – driveway, loading or unloading area, vacuum stalls or stations – follows the same rules.

It’s important to prioritize parking lot maintenance and repair to keep it in a pristine and appealing condition. Fortunately, maintaining a clean and inviting car wash parking isn’t that complex. Following the 10 basic techniques explained in this piece, you can easily maintain your street appeal and entice more customers to visit your car wash.

The Importance of Car Wash Parking Lot Upkeep

Besides making great first impressions, here are more reasons to prioritize your wash facility’s parking lot upkeep:

• To provide an excellent customer experience: A clean and orderly parking lot is part of a quality customer experience. It may be purely on an unconscious level, but just like the wash itself, the area around the wash shapes customer perception and affects their satisfaction with your business. This can affect the way they rate your business. Going from 5 stars to 4 or lower because of your lot can be a costly mistake.
  
• Brand reputation: Related to the above, a well-maintained parking lot instills trust and confidence in customers, enhancing your brand’s image and reputation. Likewise, a dirty parking lot can quickly damage your car wash brand. Imagine if a customer took a photo of their newly washed car in the parking lot, but the background is filthy or muddy. It could create a viral meme online and taint your wash’s reputation.
  
• Safety: A well-kept, structured parking lot is safer for customers and employees. There are fewer chances of tripping on wet or muddy surfaces and fewer occurrences of parking lot fender benders as drivers try to evade dirt or water puddles in the parking lot.
  
• Legal compliance: Providing adequate lighting, proper parking layouts, clear signage, and proper drainage in the washing bay does more than enhance your parking lot appeal. It also promotes compliance with local and national car wash safety standards.
   

9 Ways to Manage Car Wash Parking Lot Upkeep

Here are 10 simple ways to keep the parking space in your wash facilities clean and in tip-top shape:

1. Perform Frequent Inspections

This one might seem obvious but isn’t always followed. Aim to inspect your car wash parking regularly, and make it part of your daily maintenance checklist. Inspecting the lot allows you to keep up with litter, stains or other issues. 

• Patrol the parking lot daily, pick up litter and debris and empty the trash bins.
• Install ample trash bins throughout the parking lot to discourage littering.

2. Pressure Washing

Have your staff or cleaning crew pressure wash the parking lot surface at least weekly or bi-weekly to keep the asphalt looking fresh. Ask your staff to promptly clean up oil or fluid spills to prevent them from staining the parking lot’s surface or creating a slipping hazard.

3. Address Potholes, Cracks and Other Damages Immediately

Potholes, cracks, uneven surfaces and other damages on your parking lot’s asphalt pose safety hazards to all personnel and vehicles. For instance, potholes are a tripping hazard and can cause tire punctures and suspension damage. They also blemish the aesthetic appearance of your car wash facility, creating the impression you don’t care about your car wash.

Small problems ignored also tend to become bigger problems over time.

If inside your tunnel, these damages can spread out over time and weaken the structural integrity of your facility. In such cases, the “solve” could become costly and complex. Fixing any damages in their early phases helps you avert extended downtimes and bigger repair and maintenance bills in the long term. 

4. Keep Parking Lines and Signage Clear and Vivid

Well-defined parking lines and signage, including directional arrows, lanes and speed limit signs, enhance the visual appearance of your parking lot. Crisp lines and signage help customers navigate, promote vehicles’ smooth and efficient flow and create a more orderly and safe environment for all patrons. 

5. Ensure Proper Lighting To Enhance Visibility

Adequate lighting may not seem essential to a parking lot’s integrity, but it’s crucial. It can deter unwanted activities on your lot such as theft of carwash property or car vandalism. 

Proper lighting also promotes the security of your lot by allowing security personnel and surveillance cameras to monitor the area effectively. With appropriate lighting, you may even extend car wash hours and attract clients who prefer nighttime vehicle care.

6. Maintain Landscaping to Improve Aesthetics

As part of your parking lot upkeep routine, hire a landscaping service to regularly mow grass, trim bushes and prune the trees around it. Have the service or your staff remove any weeds growing along the parking lot edges to prevent vegetation from becoming unsightly. 

If you haven’t done so as part of your launch, consider working with a professional landscaper to design or improve your site. Proper landscaping adds beauty and charm to the parking lot environment and associated real estate, creating a welcoming atmosphere clients enjoy while waiting for their vehicles to be serviced. 

7. Check Drainage Systems Regularly

When water penetrates asphalt surfaces, it creates pressure during freeze-thaw cycles, leading to potential damage. It also erodes the sub-base material, causing potholes, especially when vehicles drive over the weakened areas. When the water fails to drain off the asphalt surface, it degrades the binder, causing fading and discoloration. Put simply, water is a significant threat to a parking lot’s asphalt surface.

While you cannot avoid water completely regardless of the washing method, establishing proper drainage systems around your parking lot alleviates the damage it can inflict. Additionally, it’s a good prevention measure to assign someone to regularly inspect the drainage systems to identify any signs of clogging. 

During routine drainage system inspection, the crew should check for debris buildup and remove any foreign material that may damage or impede water flow, especially when the rainy season is due.

8. Install Speed Bumps, Mirrors and Signs To Enhance Safety

Parking lot speed bumps encourage drivers to slow down. No one’s a fan of them but they can be especially useful in longer driveways or straightaways if customers tend to drive too fast. This minimizes the risk of accidents and also prevents damage to the asphalt’s surface, such as skid marks or tire wear.

When strategically placed at corners and blind spots, mirrors improve driving visibility for clients, preventing parking lot fender benders that damage customers’ cars and your parking lot’s infrastructure.

Well-placed signs communicate rules and guidelines such as parking regulations, safety warnings, and directional cues. They remind customers not to make common mistakes like perpendicular parking. Avoiding such everyday parking errors sustains the operational efficiency of your car wash.

9. Stay Updated With Local Codes and Regulations

Local codes and regulations typically include requirements for maintaining compliance with upkeep of your wash’s parking lot. Car wash regulations often include guidelines on parking lot design requirements, lighting specifications and provisions for proper drainage.

Staying updated and adhering to pertinent provisions allows you to avoid compliance penalties and enhances the safety, accessibility, and appearance of your wash facility’s parking lot.

Improve Your Car Wash Business Today

Having a car wash parking lot maintenance strategy is just good business. But of course it’s only one small part of a successful operation. For all aspects of your carwash business, we are here to help and serve you better than anyone else in the industry. 

Contact NCS today to talk to a carwash expert regarding equipment, service and parts, marketing or anything else you may need.