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If you own a mobile car washing or truck washing company and are considering your sales goals for the year you may wish to check into rental agencies as potential new clientele. Why you ask? Well because rental agencies do pay their bills on time and they have unending amounts of things, which need cleaning all the time.

To find potential customers, get a clip board and then go to the phone book and look up car rental agencies and truck rentals and start making a list and then go online to those companies websites and do a little historical research before going in to make the sale. It helps to know the history of the company before attempting to get them as a client. Let’s take an example such as doing business with Budget Rent-a-Car or Rent-a-Truck. You see, Budget Group Inc. is a huge rental company with revenues in 2000 of nearly 2.5 billion. Budget Group is part of Ryder TRS.

They work in about 120 countries and have about 3200 rental locations. Budget was formed in 1958. Ryder has been renting trucks since 1942 and now has over 3300 locations of truck rentals. They have two-way and one-way rentals like U-Haul. Budget Rent-A-Car was acquired by Ford in 1997 and in 1998 Budget bought the rental fleet of Ryder TRS. Different from Ryder Leasing, but still connected with multi-use locations and synergy driven businesses.

Budget has 500 franchised offices, which are owned and operated by 200 independent franchisees. Budget’s current president was also once a franchisee for Budget’s Truck Rental Business. Budget Car Sales Division are also franchised. Budget dealers sell fleet vehicles new and used, leases, special purchase vehicles and their former rental cars. Some Budget lots are huge but most are around 60-100 vehicles, but they can order anything you want.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:43 AM  0 Comments

If you own a mobile car washing company you should consider cleaning van-pool vans, as they are usually parked at nights and all weekend long in park and ride lots. Perfect customers, which will not screw up your schedule at all and good paying customers as well. Many of these van pool companies own 100’s of vans and will often help you do the selling or give you lists of their clients, as it helps them to have these vans cleaned.

Let's take the Enterprise Van Pool Program for instance. You see the Enterprise Van Pool Program is a month-to-month rental and it comes with insurance, roadside assistance, emergency drive home program, and service and maintenance for one price. One driver takes the van home and can use it for a certain number of miles taking kids to soccer practice, etc.

Also they get two washes a month as part of the deal and are allotted $10.00 for each wash. We have found when washing these vans we give the driver a receipt and he may give us an extra tip. We usually wash on the corporation’s lot where the drivers work and this leads us to the contract to wash all the employees’ cars too. Typically 7-15 people ride in a van so they get dirty inside, but most have plastic flooring or low shag type carpet which is relatively easy to clean.

Sometimes the driver will want to put the wash on their fuel card or Enterprise credit card, which works like a Visa or Voyager card. Most of these costs are deductible against their tax return as incentives to car pool. So the driver wins, the traffic in town goes down and many people can ride for about $75.00 per month in a van-pool and have no stress on the freeway. Contact Enterprise to see if they have a van-pool program in your area and find out if you can wash for them. It is an easy sale. If you own a mobile car wash business or auto detailing company you might consider all this in 2006 if you are wishing to increase your clientele.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:42 AM  0 Comments

The mobile truck washing companies typically wash fleets of vehicles, yet we have always found that most truck washing companies skip the niche of Rental Trucks for larger fleets and in doing so this leaves the niche fairly wide open for the mobile truck washing entrepreneur who is looking to boost accounts and increase sales.

Budget, like Hertz and Enterprise, also has truck divisions that sell their used trucks and vans. Some of the Budget Rent-A-Truck Divisions are quite large and have many units to sell. Trucks do not sell as fast as cars and therefore you get to wash them more times on the lots before they sell. Especially until the used truck market gets back to normal. It was down 55% from 2000 to 2005. Currently business is still under performing on the used truck rental sector, but the rental yards are indeed good places to wash at.

Then there is also the rental car sales too; Enterprise Car Sales seem to be quite abundant and tend to have as many as 6-8 Car Sales lots in large metro areas such as Houston, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta, Orlando, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, and St Louis type cities. Also large in sales for used cars are Ugly Duckling in TX, FL, CA, AZ. Hertz with 7000 car rental agency office also has over 600,000 cars a year to sell. All in all mobile car washers and mobile truck washers must consider this viable niche if they are serious in increasing their account base and sales volumes, so consider all this in 2006.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:42 AM  0 Comments

The transportation sector is under a bit of stress with high fuel prices. Does this mean there are less trucks on the road and thus less trucks to be washed? Actually, no there are not less trucks on the road, actually large truck fleets are making more money by adding fuel costs into customer pricing.

What about competition during a squeeze to save costs and streamline the sector, more money for fuel means less money for other expenses right? But the larger trucking companies generally sign up with Blue Beacon for $30.00 washes with a corporate discount and they have 90 plus truck washes plus their side brand Hand Wash Charley's.

Now then the smaller trucking companies, which have long-term contracts cannot react to the increased fuel prices as fast like a FedEx, Swift, JB Hunt and they are really hurting. Small Trucking Companies and Independent Truck Drivers do not have the economies of scale to allow them to raise their prices and if they do they can lose contracts and if they don’t they can go bankrupt due to the increases in costs. Either way they lose and typically the Independents are the highest paying truck wash customers you see? Independents are more apt to be the best customers for $55-70 Truck washes, taking pride in their ride.

There are more trucks on the roads, but also extreme pressure to keep quarterly profits up. And economic hick-up and you could find issues with load levels and pull-backs. Right now we are in a major transportation up swing and running redline, so is this a good time to set up a bunch of truck washes? Well, it depends if one can roll with the punches and market to the larger trucking companies who want faster washes to keep the trucks moving down the highway and low prices to meet their budget commands. Please consider all this in 2006.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:41 AM  0 Comments

One of the great on-the-road ironies is that while you're sitting comfortably in your seat driving along, the seat itself is going through a huge amount of abuse. From dirty clothes to wet swimsuits, slobbering pets, kids eating in the backseat and the harsh sunlight shining in, there are a lot of potential options out there to ruin or wear out your great looking seats. And if something horrible has happened to your interior you could be looking at a very expensive re-upholstery.

One proactive solution to all of these problems is to find yourself some good custom seat covers for your Chevy. Protecting your seats with a snug fitting seat cover will take away the worry of staining your car seats or being embarrassed by ripped, tattered and unkempt upholstery. Not only will you be taking care of your seats now, but they will look great too!

There are a couple things that you want to know before you start shopping your Chevy seat covers.

The first thing to figure out is the type of seat that you have in your vehicle. For Chevy trucks there are only a couple of options. The front seat application usually fits into one of these descriptions: Low Back Buckets w/ Adjustable Headrests, Low Back Buckets w/ Seatbelt Through Seat, High Back Buckets, 40/20/40 Split Bench, or 60/40 Split Bench.

For any type of bucket seat, make sure you know if you have adjustable/removable headrests. Also, note the number of armrests on each seat if there are any and if the armrests are attached to the seat on the outside, or inset to fold up into the seat.

The 40/20/40 and 60/40 benches can also come with Pull Out Arm/Consoles. Make sure that you note this when ordering to be sure that you receive the correct custom pattern to fit your seat.

The rear seat applications are generally going to be one of three types: 60/40 Split Benches, 50/50 Split Benches, or a Solid Bench.

Once you have all of this information, you're ready to move on to the next decision which is "What type of covers do I need?". Now you need to decide what it is that is your main concern when protecting your seat covers.

Are you using your truck for industry work and moving a lot of tools and guys in muddy work boots around? If that's the case I suggest looking into either OEM or Vinyl seat covers. These are the most popular type of covers for industry vehicles, with many fleet & maintenance managers buying custom fit OEM or Vinyl seat covers to help maintain the vehicle's resale value.

Or, are you more worried about the wet kids jumping in after a swim or spilling drinks on the drive? In this case, you might be more interested in a waterproof Neoprene seat cover. Or maybe for a bit more fun look into Hawaiian seat covers.

# posted by Medical Information : 1:48 AM  0 Comments

With fuel prices at $3.00 per gallon for over the road truck diesel and the potential eventuality of a Showdown with Iran and a hard hitting 2006 Atlantic Tropical Hurricane Season does it really make sense to start a Truck Wash in 2006? Is this a good time to invest in the truck wash business and what is the Independent Truck Wash Business Outlook for 2006?

Well one could say that diesel prices are a key factor in the consideration of whether or not this is the best year to start a truck wash business. It would in fact depend on your marketing strategy. With costs so high in the trucking sector, especially for Independent Truck Drivers and Smaller Trucking Companies who are generally the highest paying customers for services, one could say it is not the best year at all.

However with larger trucking companies and record-breaking quarters in profits due to being able to better pass these costs onto their customers one could say this is the best year to be in the truck washing business. After all the economy is at a peak and water is still cheap too and there are more trucks on the road than ever before as well of course.

Nevertheless the marketing strategy is to be considered as well and price points are a key for those larger companies trying to keep profits up and the Independents and smaller companies hanging by a thread trying to stay in business with their few lucrative routes. I hope you will consider all these factors and think on this in 2006.

# posted by Medical Information : 1:47 AM  0 Comments

Choosing a truck wash location is not too difficult, however there are certain things that must be considered; for instance the amount of competition in the area and the number of trucks along that route. With the higher costs in fuel these days one would be pleased to know that most trucking company dispatchers will not allow their trucks to go out of the way very far for a truck wash due to the additional costs.

Consider that a truck gets 4-5 miles per gallon and fuel is $3.00 per gallon, so if one drives 20 miles out of the way to get a truck wash, they just paid over $24.00 round trip additional for that truck wash and that is without considering the potential eventuality of the driver being paid by the hour or possibly running over his allotted time on the job with the new hour rules. In the case of an independent truck driver you can understand that it is his or her own money and they also will not be willing to drive too much out of their way these days for a truck wash either.

More and more dispatchers are choosing truck washes which have no wait times and can wash the trucks in 30 minutes or less and some larger trucking companies are wishing to make sure that the drivers only wash the cab 2-times per month and the trailers get washed at their terminals which happen to have mechanical drive thrus. And the truck wash industry is a competitive endeavor these days as well.

But once you pick a good location you can beat the competition with speed and quality. Many truck drivers call the number one truck wash chain “Streakin Beacin” due to the poor wash quality that they perceive they have gotten. So you see truck routing, truck traffic counts and competition are all factors to consider in choosing the right truck wash location.

# posted by Medical Information : 1:47 AM  0 Comments

If you were going to go into the truck wash business in the Great State of Texas, where would you go? Well you would want to be along a major freeway and understand the truck routing, short cuts and 2-lane highways most often used. Texas is a big state indeed, but the truck and transportation flows are somewhat predictable and thus once this is taken into consideration, finding a good location is not so difficult really.

One potential future truck wash owner asks; “The closest truck wash is about 30 miles away on I-10 in Texas, which would be a major detour for the trucks heading through the region that our highway goes. So there isn't much direct competition for our immediate area, which is why we are researching this.”

Indeed and this is good thinking on your part. However the most important thing is truck traffic counts and is your potential location right on the highway? For instance the Truck Wash in the Center of Houston is a dive and the new one they built along I-10 is a good location, but they lose the traffic from the 59 to Cleveland, Livingston and Lufkin coming from Mexico over the border and the traffic to and from Dallas to Houston as they are now on the Eastside and during peak traffic not only is that a number of miles it is a lot of time out of the saddle you see?

Additionally let’s take the 4 truck washes in San Antonio. All are within 3.5 miles of each other and they cannibal each others sales, although there is a huge number of trucks on I-10 through San Antone indeed. But what if a Truck Driver is routed to take a short cut before Seguin, TX on his way to Austin or lets back up to a West Bound truck who opts for the 71 Bypass cutting off even more miles you see. In this case a truck wash which is not along his route will not get the business being that far out of the way considering the $3.00 per gallon diesel prices. These types of considerations must be made when determining where to put in a truck wash location. So, think on this in 2006.

# posted by Medical Information : 1:46 AM  0 Comments

Independent Truck Drivers and small trucking companies have always been known to be part of Americana, yet in the past decade and a half we see fewer and fewer truck drivers on the roads these days. Why? Well because of high costs, BS over regulation and competition from Corporate Giant Trucking Companies with huge economies of scale to work from.

Even more in 2006 we are about ready to see another round of consolidation as the CFO of UPS has announced a major acquisition, which could either be another large trucking company or even a railroad? A railroad would allow UPS to move more truck trailers by rail cheaper “piggy back” style between terminals and help them shave costs due to high oil prices and fuel bills.

With the number of independent truck drivers dwindling and their demand for a quality truck wash including drying the cab, polished aluminum and chrome, without using Hydrofluoric Acid on the truck can a small truck wash survive on this type of customer? And can a small truck wash pay the additional labor required for that level of service with fewer and fewer independent truck drivers who are looking for better and better prices these days? One potential future truck wash owner asks;

“Do you think if our market is mostly independents, that it would still be a poor time to start the business?”

Not necessarily, as a lot depends on reputation you see. But there are higher labor costs and therefore you need to charge more money for the quality wash they are looking for. So a completely automatic type truck wash will not work for this type of customer and it would be foolish to have anything but a hand wash type truck wash, with perhaps a trailer mechanized wash assist. So, consider all this in 2006.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:07 AM  0 Comments

Covering truck and sports utility vehicle seats will make it easier to carry any cargo without damaging the interiors of the automobile. Seat covers with enable you to Preserve the new-car look without buying a new vehicle. While there are some covers that fit both bucket and bench seats, there are some others that are meant for only bench seats.

Padding is an important aspect in the selection of a perfect truck seat cover, as this will add to the durability of the covers even after repeated contact with objects. Lightweight, if possible, waterproof materials are to be selected for elegant and long-lasting covers. An alternative for waterproof fabric would be any breathable material that will absorb water and dry out quickly and prevent rusting of truck parts. Keeping your truck clean and spotless will help in avoiding scratches from dirt particles, while the covers are put on the seats.

Seat covers for truck interiors are made of canvas or cotton or even waterproof polyester. Wet Okole’s waterproof seat cover is something that is favored by a large number of truck owners for its obvious ability to withstand rough weather.

The Custom Ford Truck covers made by seatcovers.net can fit even split-bench seats of 40/20, 70/30, 50/50 and more. Their machine-washable fabric has a sophisticated look that adds value to the vehicle.

The denim covers for trucks and SUVs that are usually custom-made, last longer than most of the other fabrics used to make seat covers. Made with polyester-cotton, these covers are then stitched together using a nylon overlapping seam. They become softer with each washing and are easily slipped onto the seats. These extremely comfortable seat covers are manufactured by Superior Car Care. Meanwhile, Saddleman.com has universal truck seat covers that fit almost all truck models on American roads and fit bucket and bench seats; prices range from $25 to $85.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:06 AM  0 Comments

If you own a truck or an suv you will want to add a few things to your vehicle to make it seem different than all the others ones out there on the street. If you want to add something special to your vehicle, your truck or suv consider adding nerf bars to it. You will find that nerf bars are going to include the step sides to get up in the vehicle, it will include bars that are mounted on the front or on the back of the vehicle, and it could include bars that are mounted in the bed of the truck or on the back of an suv. Nerf bars are going to be made of tubes, most often some type of metal, but they can be made of plastic, of aluminum or even chrome. Nerf bars are going to mount on the vehicle into the holes that are provided when you purchased the vehicle. Some people who are mechanics, will drill their own holes into the vehicle, on the bumper, along the bottom of the vehicle or in the bed of a truck and mount nerf bars as they like them. Nerf bars are often thought of to increase the safety of the vehicle but that is not really true. Nerf bars are all about creating a look, a feeling and for completing the overall appeal of the suv or truck.

Sometimes people are going to refer to nerf bars as sports bars. Sports bars are just that, they are put on the sports truck or suv to give it an overall appeal of a sport looking vehicle. The sport vehicle is one that will run races, that will be competitive in looks or in appeal. Some people prefer a sports vehicle, one that includes the use of nerf bars to tie in their bikes, their gear, their surf board and even those fishing pools or those other things that are used out in the woods when camping.

A nerf bar can be purchased online or offline. In the online retailers, you will find that all you have to do is put in the type of vehicle that you own and the year of vehicle that you own, and the nerf bars that will fit your vehicle will pop up. You will not have to ask about specific measurements or such, as many nerf bars are measured, built and designed around certain types of vehicles.

To order online, choose your type of vehicle, and then you can see what types of nerf bars are made for your vehicle, car, truck, or suv. You can find one that is prepainted, one that is chrome or plastic or you can find one that is made of metal that you can decorate or paint yourself. Your truck or suv will take on a complete different look with your installing of a nerf bar. Purchase online, and it will be delivered directly to your home or mechanics and then you can have it installed at your leisure or in your spare time.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:06 AM  0 Comments