Dry cleaning and trucking water - Car-wash businesses cope with crisis

Sheldon Williams, Gleaner Writer

The accustomed hustle and bustle characteristic of an active car wash was near to non-existent last Thursday, as Automotives visited a number of popular businesses across the Corporate Area.

Customers seemed to have stayed away following the water restriction order announced by Water Minister Robert Pickersgill, through the National Water Commission. With Jamaica currently experiencing a severe drought, a ban has been placed on washing vehicles with hoses, watering lawns and filling swimming pools, among other high water-usage activities deemed non-essential.

At the car washes, there were no vehicles lined up, no hoses spurting water, or shirtless car washers dipping their hands into buckets filled with soap, retrieving a sponge to apply to a vehicle's exterior. However, the car washes Automotives visited were open for business, some operators having stored water to continue operating their businesses, while others resorted to trucking water.

There is also another approach to the crisis. Lorna Forde, general manager at Andre's Auto Centre on Osbourne Road,

explained that the company is currently offering only dry cleaning, as they comply with the water restriction.

"It really doesn't create a severe
problem for us, because we are trying to dry-clean vehicles before we
send them back out," she said. "We are taking the time out to say to our
clients that, under normal circumstances, when they come through our
doors they would have a wash and even an internal
clean.

"As it is now, we vacuum and we are doing a
wipe down. We are not doing anything like pressure washing,
undercarriage washing or engine washing, or even washing the vehicles.
We are literally using buckets of water to wipe down the vehicles,"
Forde said.

With this strategy, carrying in water is
not a part of the plans. "At this point in time we will not be trucking
water ... . They are still getting a relatively clean car, but it is
just that it is not pressure-washed," she added.

She
said under the current circumstances they are not cleaning larger
vehicles. "Certainly, for the big vehicles like trucks and things, we
are not even touching those because it is impossible to wipe them down,"
she said. Forde added that they have also discontinued using water on
upholstery and car mats, resorting to using a chemical
instead.

"We would take out the seats and wash the
seats and the floor mats and such, but we have found something to use on
the upholstery rather than washing," Forde
explained.

Ryan Anderson, general manager of Gold Star
Car Care on Paradise Street, across from the Manley Meadows housing
scheme in downtown Kingston, bemoaned the downturn in business. "We are
not seeing the customers. One and two pass and actually think that we
are closed because of the restriction," he
explained.

Anderson said he has resorted to trucking
water twice per week to fill the 250-gallon tank that serves his
business. When Automotives visited Gold Star Car
Care, only one employee was on duty, using a vacuum cleaner on the
upholstery of the only car which had been brought in at that
time.

Dana Brown, supervisor at Weepet Cars on Collins
Green Avenue, said water is trucked in. "Our customers come same way.
Most of the times they come not expecting us to have water, but we tell
them we truck water. We truck based on how many vehicles we have," she
said.

The cost of water delivery is not passed on to
the customers.

A representative from a government
ministry, who did not wish to be named, admitted that persons who work
there have been using the condensation from an air-conditioning unit to
wash their vehicles, as "we have a large enough
unit".

Photos by Jermaine
Barnaby/Photographer