Local family gives old business new life, offers customers enhanced experience

ESTEVAN — A long-time business in Estevan is seeing a new beginning and is already providing customers with more options for a great experience.

Suds Zone Car Wash (formerly Fast Track Auto Care), located on Fourth Street, received a facelift and functionality makeover lately, and is welcoming the community to its official grand opening, slated for June 14-16.

The changes for the business began when local entrepreneur David Dzeryk, who owns Great Canadian Oil Change in Estevan and has some other local investments, and his family took over the car wash in late 2022. The upgraded car wash is now offering clients a unique option to make their car care experience more time and money-efficient, thanks to the ideas Dzeryk was able to bring to Estevan. 

"There was a number of improvements that we've done to the car wash since taking it over only six months ago," Dzeryk said in the interview with the Mercury. "There were some mechanical changes: we've improved the temperatures throughout the building, we've increased the pressure and we've come up with a new cleaning process called the foaming pre-soak. And that truly makes the carwash touchless, and it completely eliminates the need for having to use a brush on your car."

Foaming pre-soaking is a combination of products that gets applied to a vehicle, and it goes on like shaving cream, Dzeryk explained. By the time a client makes it around a vehicle applying the foam, it already agitates the dirt at the starting point and then everywhere else and holds it in suspension. It works so well that, "You can see the dirt come right off the vehicle," Dzeryk said.

It took about three months to fine-tune the old car wash, and it's been running at a very productive level ever since, he noted. The feedback has been very good, as the technology is efficient and also unique to the area, so the car count has gone up dramatically.

"There's no car wash certainly here in town and none that I know of in southern Saskatchewan that has this type of product," Dzeryk said. "Originally, this process has been only endorsed in tunnel car washes. When you enter a tunnel car wash, there's this big thick cloud of foam that gets spit onto your car. And it's always been there, but it's never been put into a wand wash application. So, the results of putting it into a wand wash application have been remarkable. It eats away road grime, it gets rid of bugs, and it actually saves you time in the long run."

He's seen a similar technology starting as a trend in the U.S., but never in Canada. Walking into the situation, he knew what he wanted and was looking for ways to get there. So he took all the information he had to Flawless Sales & Services in Estevan and they helped him to get the end results he envisioned for the business. 

Suds Zone Car Wash also provides all other services any other car wash has.

"Clients can still use any process they like. We have all of the options that all car washes have, but they were fine-tuned to be improved over the previous system. In the previous system, they had far too many suppliers. Right now, I carry a family of products that work together. Rather than having one product from one company, another product from another, and they kind of fight each other when they're trying to clean your vehicle, when you have a family of products, they not only work well together but over time, they decrease the amount of time that you spend cleaning your car."

He said that the upgraded facility in general offers an enhanced experience for the customers.

"Our bays are cleaner than our competitors. They're brighter. We have automatic doors, so you don't have to get out of your vehicle to come in. We have indicator lights on the outside of each bay, so you know which bay to line up at that is empty. In the winter, when it's cold, you don't have to open the doors, they just automatically open and close. And we do have a small retail facility in the carwash that allows you to purchase detailing and car cleaning products. We have polishes, cleaners, windshield washer fluid, air fresheners, shammies and a whole plethora of car-related items," Dzeryk said.

He is also currently working on the new payment system, which, once they get it in, will be installed in every bay and will work with any form of tap payments.

The business has six employees including Dzeryk, who splits his time between this and other businesses.

Born in Alberta, Dzeryk has a background in electronics but has been a business owner for many years. He and his wife, who is originally from Manitoba met in Estevan through work and eventually made Estevan home over 15 years ago. 

The Suds Zone Car Wash grand opening days will offer customers many great opportunities and gifts, including free car washes, product discounts, free coffee and donuts, as well as live demos of the improved wash system. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at noon on June 14.

Suds Zone Car Wash is located at 238 Fourth Street. It's open seven days a week including holidays from 8 a.m.-10 p.m.