We previously discussed tips on how to get the driest car ever. The first two steps to get a dry car are:
- Start with a product designed properly to dry a car and not just bead the surface.
- Make sure that your chemical level is optimized
A third step may surprise you. To get a drier car, you can use less drip time and space. You may be thinking, “Don’t you want to let the water drip off the vehicle before you begin drying it in order to reduce the water left on the vehicle before the dryers turn on?” Over the last several years, industry experts have discovered the concept of “flash drying.” This method of drying is resulting in some of the driest cars in the history of carwashing. The theory behind this practice is to add a curtain of water to the car immediately before the drying process begins. If the car has been prepared properly with the correct amount of a highly functional drying agent, the curtain of water will literally wipe itself dry as the blowers push the water off the car. Picture how much easier it is to blow a bead of water vs. a tiny speck of water. The speck is basically glued to the vehicle, but it is easy to blow a bead off the car, leaving a dry surface behind.
If you want to try flash drying at your car wash, here’s how. In a tunnel environment, you need to either move your last rinse arch just before the dryers or move your dryers closer to the last rinse arch. The former is typically the easiest to implement. In an automatic car wash, you will ideally dry the car an instant after and during the final rinse stage. This is typically only possible on automatics designed to be able to support flash drying while rinsing is occurring. It’s hard to believe that a “wetter” car can lead to a “dryer” car, but it’s true! Click here to check out this non-commercial YouTube video and see a simple demonstration of how water can carry off small water beads to reveal a dryer vehicle.
Brent McCurdy is Managing Director of Blendco Systems. Blendco manufactures a full line of detergents and waxes for the professional carwash industry. For more information about Blendco, visit www.blendco.com.
