Collier Carwash has a new tenant—and some fancy new cleaning equipment never seen in Thorold.
“It’s a Touchless Automatic,” explains manager Brian Owens. “In Thorold, I believe it is the first one. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t get better. All of the feedback we got was that the cars were coming out amazing.”
The new car wash system uses sensors to clean a vehicle without ever making direct contact. Owens hopes the technology will give the car wash on Collier Road a new lease on life.
“This one just needed some TLC, which is why we took it over,” Owens says. “I’ve been in the car wash business for about 15 years now. I own one in Grimsby and I just took over one in St. Catharines.”
Owens thinks it’s important to take good care of your car.
“A car depreciates so It’s really important to keep your car clean, used or new,” he says. “Make sure to keep the salt out of it and it keeps the value of your vehicle higher.”
According to Owens, the amount of times you should clean your car depends on the season.
“You’re probably going to want to keep that clean a couple times a week,” says Owens. “In the summertime it could be a little bit less, because you’re not using your car maybe as much and the roads aren’t as dirty. With the coin bays it’s good because you can hose it down yourself, so it’s not very expensive to keep that asset in good condition.”
Last week, to celebrate the re-opening of the car wash, Owens offered his costumers free use of the Touchless Automatic system.
“The old [car wash] was in rough shape and it lived a good life so there were a lot of costumers that had lost confidence,” he says. “We wanted to let them know that there was a brand new piece of equipment in there, and to just come and give it a try. At one point we had 16 cars waiting. Everyone was happy. Now hopefully they’ll come back.”
Owens says the launch of the Touchless Automatic car wash system is just the beginning of his plans for the facility at 157 Collier Road.
“Ideally, we’re looking to grow in the Niagara region,” he says. “The next step here is we are going to be doing all of the self-serve coin bays and putting in all brand new equipment in those. Three months from now they’re going to look significantly different.”
