Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

[Mike Phillips]

Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

Received an e-mail from Susan who is organizing a car wash for 1500 cars as a fundraiser for the High School Band. I suggested she post your question to the forum and our friendly forum members would offer some help and suggestions but apparently the software on her computer prevents her from registering. So below is her question,

Hi -

I am organizing a fundraiser car wash for our High School Band Program. We need enough soap to wash 1500 cars. How can I find out how many cars a 128oz jug of Meguiars Gold Class Car Wash (from Costco) will wash? I assume it needs diluting.

Thanks,

Susan Williamson

So how about MOL Members? Can one of you Math experts juggle some numbers? There's always other soap options to that are available via PBE stores versus Costco.


Thanks!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I've organized a few car washes over the years and one thing for sure, when you have a lot of teenagers involved you want to develop a real simple system for mixing the car wash solution.

For example, copy the Dixie Cup idea in this thread so that you don't have people just pouring car wash from the car wash jug directly into the bucket because there's no way to measure with this system, (lack of system), and people tend to pour too much soap in thinking if a little is good, more must be better.

How to quickly, easily and accurately mix your car wash solution



You know, when it comes to washing our cars, we know most people don't measure their car wash soap because they don't have a system to measure the car wash solution for their wash water bucket.

So what most people do is fill their bucket with water and then remove the lid from their car wash solution and start pouring car wash into their bucket of water like this,

Glug, glug, glug glug glub...

Their system relies on the Guesstimation Technique.

Am I right?

(Yeah I'm right)

Most serious enthusiasts use a 3-5 gallon bucket of water for their car wash solution, with most people using some type of 5-Gallon bucket with anywhere from 4 gallons of water to 5 gallons of water in the bucket.

Just a guess but probably pretty accurate as far as serious enthusiasts are concerned.


The KISS system
Everyone's always talking about the KISS philosophy, well here it is applied to washing your car. This is a Bubba-proof method of measuring your, Car Wash Solution to Water ratio using inexpensive common household items you probably already own and have lying around the house.


First, you need to read the directions for the car wash solution you use and find out what the manufacture recommends for product usage. In this example, we're using Meguiar's Gold Class Car Wash and Shampoo and according to the back label, they recommend using,

1 ounce of car wash solution per gallon of water.




Old Style Math
This means if you're going to fill a 5-Gallon bucket with approximately 5 gallons of water you're going to want to add 5 ounces of car wash.

Developing a Repeatable Routine
The idea with mundane simple tasks is to make it easy on yourself to do the task quickly and easily without any obstacles or hassles. So what you need is a system approach.

The Dixie Cup Method
To make things fast and easy each time you want to wash one of your cars or one of your customer's cars, and to insure you don't use to little or too much car wash soap, use a Dixie cup or some similar plastic cup to pour your car wash soap into and measure out just the right amount of soap.

What to do
Use an ordinary kitchen measuring cup to measure out 5 ounces of water, and then pour this water into a 16 ounce Dixie cup.

Next, carefully marked the inside of the cup in a couple of places where the water level filled to with a permanent black marker and then pour the water out and finish drawing a line around the inside of the cup to match the marks you made.






This will enable you to simply pour the car wash solution out of the car wash bottle and into the Dixie cup until it fills to the mark you've made inside the cup.




Quick, simple and accurate.


Next, simply pour the car wash solution to the water... note the bucket is contains about 4.5 gallons of water.




Because car wash solutions like the Gold Class Car Wash and Shampoo are very thick in their consistency, in order to remove all of the car wash out of the cup and into your bucket of water so as not to waste any car wash and to leave your Dixie cup rinsed, clean, (not coated with car wash solution), and ready to put away, dip the Dixie cup into the bucket of water and swish it around.




Then after swishing it around, pour the water/soap solution back into the bucket...

[MrCLRider]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I would say 50

[Ivan Rajic]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I would say best way to measure quickly would be your idea of a plastic cup Mike... instead of measuring 'exactly' for every cup though, I would just have 2-3 people estimate the line from one to the next, using the same cups obviously... as for how much, considering 5 gallon buckets and 4 gallons of water per each bucket, it means 4oz. per bucket... I would say 1 bucket/4 gallons of solution can do 2 cars but if they're not using two bucket method (which they won't be probably) or at least rinsing the sponge/mitt after washing, it might be best to go with 2-3 gallons per bucket and use that on just one car, then repeat...

2 oz./bucket= 1 car, so a gallon of Meg's GC can wash 64 cars, which means for 1500 cars she'll need 24 gallons roughly...

3 oz./bucket/car= 42 cars= needs 36 gallons.

4 oz/bucket/car= 32 cars= needs 47

So 24-47 gallons total, meaning about $250-500(ish)


EDIT: Obviously it would be better to use 4oz/bucket to do 2 cars, which would equal the 2oz/bucket price, but the compromise is between time and quality... if they do 4oz/bucket on 2 cars, quality will suffer on the 2nd car, but they'll save time not having to refill after every car...

[Carfire]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

It is about 25 cars with one 128 oz. (5 oz per gallon, new bucket for each car) Jug of car wash. So then you divide 1500 by 25 cars to find out how many Gallon jugs you will need. Which come out to 60!!

Good Luck with the Wash, I hope this helps.

[TerryAdams]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

Bottom line of a "School Fundraising Carwash": Profit. Quality of the washed cars isn't that big of a concern(ie. SWIRL CITY).

For my two Daughter's band Bi-annual car washes: About 200 car and 2 gallons of the cheapest car wash the band teacher can find. I would buy Meguiar's Hyper wash, if I was in charge. Best deal in town: 5 Gallons at ADS for $95(5 gallons of HW equals about 20 gallons of any other car soap)!

Put ONE person in charge of changing the soap buckets at a regular interval! I watched many times as the buckets would just get retopped off with a little soap and filled to the top with water(Grit city at the bottom, where the "washing" rags would sit)!

As for the volume of water being used: At very least, use nozzles on all the hoses!!!

As for drying: Buy some water blades or Chamois'. You go thru too many towels too FAST. Towels just don't dry quick enough on the school fences.

As for any of the Volunteers that CARE about the cars finish: Tell yourself, "It's all for the good of the students", as your swirling up the car.


I would mention ONR, but, bottom line is PROFITS!

[Murr1525]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

Yeah, are we assuming one bucket of soap per car?

Can probably go a bit more than that really.

[AeroCleanse]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I'd skip the Gold Class stuff an buy some Hyper Wash if I was running a car wash for that many cars.

[Bostonsfavson]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I realize this is a Meguiar's forum and all, but in this case, I think ONR would be the hands-down best way to do this. It would be much cheaper, quicker, better for the cars and better for the environment (less run-off, less water used).

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I realize this is a Meguiar's forum and all, but in this case, I think ONR would be the hands-down best way to do this. It would be much cheaper, quicker, better for the cars and better for the environment (less run-off, less water used).

I've coordinated a number of large car washes in my life and it's best to use the KISS method. Keep it Simple Simon.

Usually for high school kids that probably are not all car enthusiasts, let alone detailing enthusiasts, it's usually better to keep it real simple.

Most people understand a wash bucket with soapy water, a mitt and a water hose... no extra education needed for what they're going to do with these things...



p.s.

You can talk about any other car detailing products you like including ONR

[Bostonsfavson]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I've coordinated a number of large car washes in my life and it's best to use the KISS method. Keep it Simple Simon.

Usually for high school kids that probably are not all car enthusiasts, let alone detailing enthusiasts, it's usually better to keep it real simple.

Most people understand a wash bucket with soapy water, a mitt and a water hose... no extra education needed for what they're going to do with these things...



p.s.

You can talk about any other car detailing products you like including ONR

Good to know about the openness here. I know ONR is a bit "different" but it's not too complicated, even for amateur high schoolers.

My thinking, and maybe I'm off base here, is that the potential for damage is much smaller with ONR in untrained hands. I just envision grit-filled towels and soap drying on paint in the hot sun with a traditional bucket wash

Of course, I'm looking at this whole thing through the eyes of an OCD car detailing nut job, so maybe my perspective is a bit skewed

[Slicked]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

This fund raiser sounds fun, can I get join in? I hope it does not rain .

Well I'd go with Hyper Wash here. If there was ever a time for Hyper Wash, this would be it!

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

I go with 60 gallons. There will probably be some spillage along the way.

[Mr Miyagi]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

First, I'm not very good with numbers..thats why I went into accounting...
Second. How about a shout out to Susan for having her collective poop together to ask about how much quality product to use! Most 'organizers' would just buy the cheapest stuff they could..including dish soap or laundry soap.
Third. I agree with Hyper-wash..One oz to 5 gallons. can't beat it!

[Nappers]

Re: Math Experts - A little help for the High School Band?

Hmmm, I'm on nights and sometimes my math is incorrect, I'm in main housing with 65 inmates and have a terrible headache....I'll give it a shot!

1500 cars

/= divided by

128oz (gallon) / 4oz =32 cars. (not full to top of 5 gallon bucket)

1500 cars / 32 cars per gallon= 46.87 gallons.

50 gallons rounded up for that extra bloop some give should be enough eh?

Aaron

Hyperwash may be more economical unless most of the soap is donated....