Steam carwash arrives on Saipan

Ed Genobaten is a hands-on owner as he helps service cars, especially if one of his staff is sick or is doing other errands. (Jon Perez)

For more than 10 years, crunching numbers was Ed Genobaten’s daily grind. He calculated taxes and did other auditing practices as an accountant. This year, the Cagayan de Oro City native decided to go out of his comfort zone and opened up a carwash business.

It was the right timing, since there is an increasing demand for a carwash shop as shown by more cars traveling on our roads. Genobaten’s shop could be the fifth carwash business on Saipan but instead of having the usual pressurized water technique, he brought to the island AutoSteam.

Genobaten had been working as an accountant since he earned his college degree and passing the licensure exams in the Philippines. He opened up TAXPRO, a business that deals mostly on tax advice, in 2014 after working at the Mariana Resort & Spa and at H&R Block.

He started another business after he slowly earned back what he invested. There’s only one problem—he has no idea what he could bring to Saipan that hasn’t yet been offered here. “You don’t want to offer the same food if you’re going to open up a restaurant. You must bring something new.”

He came up with the carwash shop after seeing one across his office in Chalan Laulau. “It would be nice for customers to have a place where they can relax, have coffee, bring their gadgets and surf the Internet or watch TV while waiting for their car being cleaned.”

“But I don’t want to offer the same service so I went online and did my research. That’s when I saw a steam car wash and I said to myself, ‘this is a service that would help car owners on Saipan,’” added Genobaten.

EG AutoSteam, as the name says, cleans vehicles using steam instead of the usual pressurized water. Since his shop opened last Sept. 24, they had already serviced more than 200 cars, averaging at least eight cars during weekdays and 16 to 18 every weekends. It takes an average of 30 minutes to clean one car.

Genobaten said steam wash is more economical and environment friendly. “You only use one gallon of water for a sedan, unlike in pressurized carwash shops where thousands of gallons are used for the whole day. We also don’t use chemicals in cleaning your car—chemicals that may damage the paint of your car and make the color fade faster.”

Aside from maintaining the color of your car, the steam wash technique also allows you to clean the engine and the air-conditioning vents. Plus, the traditional pressurized carwash only cleans the body of your car and vacuuming the interior.

“Cleaning the car engine, you can’t do that using pressurized water. And you have to avoid spraying water in other parts that must not be wet. The steam also disinfects the interior and removes odor,” said Genobaten.

Prices are almost the same with the other carwash shops with the basic service for a sedan at $20 while an SUV (five seats), van or two-door pickup truck costs $25. An SUV or van that seats seven persons or a four-door pickup is $30.

“But sometimes customers voluntarily pay more, especially if it took us longer to clean their car. We also have a service checklist to ensure customer satisfaction. We list our customers’ contact numbers so if they left something, we’ll just call them and return their item,” said Genobaten.

EG AutoSteam is located iright across Sunny Wholesale on Middle Road, Chalan Laulau. For more information, call Genobaten at 2860506 or 7890506.