KALONA

When Brett Arends bought a package of car washes in Tipton, Blue Grass, Wilton, and Kalona from the previous owner in October 2023, he planned to update them all. What he didn’t plan on was a total breakdown of the Kalona car wash in January.

The auto wash gave out, a line broke in the truck wash, the boiler quit, and a number of water lines ruptured. Keeping the car wash open until he could get renovations underway was no longer an option.

“We’ve got to just put everything on ice,” Arends said when we spoke to him at the end of February. “We have cones in front of all of the bays right now and the equipment’s ordered,” he said, but “We probably have about two months’ worth of tear-out and put back together. [Then] we should hopefully be up and running again.”

With a little luck, the new and improved car wash will be back online sometime in April.

Once renovated, the car wash will have “essentially the same setup,” only better. A Mark VII rollover wash will be installed, and waxes, ceramic coats, and triple foam will all be newly available.

“It should be almost brand new everything in there,” Arends said. “We’re hoping to really make the place nice.”