Auto Dealerships & Service Centers

A dealership is a retail showroom, a workshop and a large expanse of concrete, and each of those three soils differently. The front of the property is judged like retail — harder, in fact, because the product is shiny and anything grubby nearby reads badly against it. The service side generates the heaviest staining of any commercial property except food service. And a dealership is one of the few places where a clean apron is directly and visibly part of the sales pitch.

The showroom approach against a shiny product

A dealership entrance is held to a higher standard than most retail because the whole property is an argument that things here are well looked after. Grime on the glass surrounds and frames, a grey entrance apron and a streaked band on the elevation all undercut that at the point where the customer is standing next to a car being presented as immaculate.

The service drive and the bay aprons

This is the heavy work. The service drive collects tyre marks and drips from every vehicle that arrives. The bay aprons and the concrete just inside the doors take oil, coolant, transmission fluid, brake dust and battery acid, and battery acid leaves a pale etched patch with a rust halo that needs stain treatment rather than washing. Wash-bay surrounds and the customer-facing side of the service entrance are worth doing on their own schedule because they degrade fastest.

Lot concrete and the display area

Display and inventory areas are large, so they get quoted by area and are the piece most often skipped — but the front two rows and the concrete immediately around the display are where the sight lines are, and they are a fraction of the total. Michigan salt is doing the same cumulative damage here as everywhere else, and on a lot with a lot of flatwork the spring wash is the whole maintenance argument.

Working around inventory

The constraint is that the property is full of vehicles that must not get overspray, and moving them is a real cost in staff time. That makes sequencing the work by section, with a small number of vehicles moved at a time, the practical approach — and it makes agreeing the section order before the day worth more here than on almost any other property type.