Take a tour at Mr. Bubbles Luxury Auto Spa in Aurora, Illinois, with CAR WASH Magazine.

Car Wash Name
Mr. Bubbles
Aurora, Ill.

Owners
Kyle Evans
Mark Muthler

Year opened: 
Nov. 2022

Number of locations: 
1

Contractor: 
Car Wash Pro Designers

Building size: 
4,995 square feet. If over 5,000 square feet, you have to sprinkler the building, said Nick Spallone, lead designer/developer at Car Wash Pro Designers.

Conveyor length(s):
150-foot tunnel, 130-foot dual conveyor belts

Equipment supplier: 
National Carwash Solutions/McNeil
POS is Micrologic.

Chemical supplier:
Car Wash Pro Designers

Environmentally friendly features:
“We incorporated a pretty good green footprint in this building and with its equipment and supplies,” Spallone said. Variable frequency drives and sensors are used on everything, so when something is not in operation, it is turned off. “We investigated multiple options with Car Wash Pro Designers to help reduce our environmental impact. Sustainability is important to us and important to our customers, too,” said Mark Muthler, co-owner. “In addition to the equipment choices, we opted for LED lighting and, instead of using chemicals, we use marine- and plant-based soaps.”

Unique features: 
“It is one of the very first washes where we were able to integrate a touchless option in a fully automatic express wash,” Spallone said, and using equipment that was not originally designed for this type of arrangement. Plus, there is the option to have either a touchless wash or a friction wash. The customer decides and just presses the appropriate button when entering. 

The touchless option is an adaptation of Petit Auto Wash Equipment’s Accutrac 360-t, which uses high pressure instead of brushes as the car moves along the dual track conveyor belt. The unique part about what was done at Mr. Bubbles is the placement. The 360-t is usually placed toward the center of the tunnel, said James Marshall, national sales manager at Petit. Instead, it was placed at the front of the wash and the tunnel was configured so either a friction or touch-free wash could be selected.

Having a touchless option in an express wash is a bit of a niche market, though it is fast becoming a narrative, Spallone said, because of the number of car owners who prefer a touchless option over a friction wash. Sometimes that is because they have purchased a ceramic coating, the buff-in type that can cost thousands and should last 3-5 years, or have black or matte paint, or would just rather not have anything other than soap and water touching their cars, Spallone said. It is all a matter of giving the customers a choice. “We are listening to the current and that is the direction it is heading,” Spallone said.

Other cool info to share:
We call the building “The Closer” because it looks like a bank, Spallone said. It has a very clean look to it and all equipment is hidden behind the custom-built awnings, he said. “The site is butted up to a residential area, as well, so we wanted to the building’s architecture and grounds to look classy and clean to help with the approval process — which ended up going very smoothly,” said Kyle Evans, co-owner.

Website: 
www.mrbubblesluxuryautospa.com