CAR LAUNDRY.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19459, 5 November 1928, Page 6

CAR LAUNDRY.

NEW LONDON GARAGE.

INGENIOUS DEVICES. For some time past American visitors to England have made no secret of the fact that English garages have a great deal to learn from the best establishments of itois kind in the States, "Where, they ask, are the "car laundries"? Why does England still use old-fashioned methods of washing, greasing, and generally servicing a car, which takes so long to carry out? says the "Autocar."

Those who have seen the new service station opened at 258 Balham High road, S.W. 17, have discovered that when our garage owners really get down to tho task, their American confreres have, as frhey would say, "nothing on them." For sheer efficiency, time and labour-saving devices and cleverness of lay-out, this garage must really be unsurpassed, either in England, or, indeed, anywhere else. To start with, the premises do not offend the eye. A large concrete yard, illuminated at night by flood lights and constantly washed down and kepti spotlessly clean, stands a little way back from the main road, and has in front of it a low wall with two wide approaches. All petrol and oil pumps are painted unobtrusively in cream, and at the back of the yard is a comfortable waitingroom.

In a littte engine house at one side of the yard is an air-compressing plant, while, tucked away, is a battery of eight storage tanks, containing the leading brands of oil, fed by pressure to a visible oil fountain in front of the yard. Eight at the back, quite outi of sight, are large workshops, and at one corner of the yard there is a hydraulic ear lift, possibly the only example of its kind in the country. A car is driven straight on to the ramps of this lift, and is then raised some six feet into the air within 15 seconds, so that mechanics can walk about underneath it to perform all dirty work, such as greasing and draining the sump. For these purposes an array of ingenious equipment is used, all operated by air pressure. One of these is a grease gun, capable of exerting any pressure up to 40001b to the square inch, so that the most obstinate nipple has to give way. Then, there is a wonderful device, which, when the engine gearbox or back axle has been drained, forces very thin oil into the unit under terrific pressure, swirling it round and round inside, and forcing all dirty oil or grease from the walls. The apparatus then sucks all this oil and dirt out again, filters it and leaves it fit for use on the next car.

Apart from these instruments there are a vacuum cleaner for upholstery, water hoses for refilling radiators, and air pipes for tyre inflation, the use of the two last-named being free of charge. Embodied in the hydraulic lift is a 25-gallon tank of paraffin, employed to spray-clean tfye filth and dirt from the underparts of the car, and in another part of the establishment there is a very complete washing apparatus, on the latest pressure-feed system, in which water can be used in the form of mist, spray or jet, so that every nook and cranny of the car is made as clean as when new. Apart from all this there are lock, up garages, ' showrooms, workshops where mechanics and tools capable of tackling any job are available 24 hours a day, and a well-equipped stores for spares. Into this garage, about which it is impossible to be too enthusiastic, an owner can drive his car, and, while he sits down in an armchair reading the papers, it can be cleaned and greased, its engine, c?utch, gearbox, and back axle drained, cleaned and replenished, the body washed and polished, its upholstery vacuum-cleaned and its tyres tested and inflated, in very little over half an hour at a charge, apart from the cost of new oil and fuel, of sixteen or seventeen shillings!