Bus & truck wash
Which bus and truck wash fits your depot?
Three formats, and the choice is usually settled by two things: how many vehicles you have to get through, and how long you have to do it in. Start with the format, then the model.
Three formats
The machine moves, the vehicle moves, or a person does.
That is the whole taxonomy. Everything else — brushes or touch-free, how many heights, which chemistry — is decided after it.
The vehicle parks, the machine travels
One bay, one machine, on floor rails. The bus or truck stands still and the gantry runs the length of it. Least civil work, and the format most depots start with.
The machine stands, the vehicle drives
Fixed arches the vehicle passes through at a walking pace. For a yard where the wash cannot become the thing everything queues behind.
No bay, no rails, no foundation
High-pressure and steam machines on wheels, for a yard that has nowhere to put a gantry or a fleet too small to justify one.
How we size it
Four questions, and the third one is the one people forget.
A depot wash is sized by the window it has to work in, not by the size of the fleet. These are the four we ask before quoting anything.
How many, and by when?
Forty buses back at 22:00 and out at 05:30 is a different machine from forty spread across a day. The window sizes the wash, not the headcount.
How dirty do they come back?
Road film off a city bus and clay off a tipper need different chemistry, different pressure and different time under the machine.
What shape are the vehicles?
Flat-sided coaches suit brushes. Mirrors, ladders, tail-lifts and roof equipment are what push a fleet towards touch-free.
What will the bay allow?
Rails need a level floor and a run-off. Drive-through needs length. We check the bay before the machine, because that is the constraint you cannot change later.
The range
Four machines, and what actually separates them
Full specifications live on each model's own page — including the washable envelope, which is sourced per model rather than assumed across the range.
| KKE 403 | KKE 504 | KKE 503 | KKE 501 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Format | Gantry on rails | Gantry on rails | Gantry on rails | Drive-through |
| Cleaning | Brush | Brush | Touch-free high pressure | Brush |
| Vertical brushes | 2 | 2 | None | 2 |
| Roof | Water nozzles; roof brush optional | Roof brush, standard | Contour-following top nozzles | Brush |
| Touch-free duty | — | High-pressure add-on | 130 lpm at 160 bar, two pumps | — |
| Best on | Flat-sided buses and box bodies | Mixed fleets wanting a roof pass | Vehicles with mirrors, ladders and roof kit | Yards that cannot queue |
Questions we get
Before you ask us for a price
Brushes or touch-free — which should a bus fleet buy?
Fit, not quality: we build both and neither is the better machine. Flat-sided vehicles clean beautifully and cheaply under brushes. The moment a fleet carries mirrors, ladders, tail-lifts or roof equipment, touch-free stops being the expensive option and starts being the sensible one.
How much civil work does a gantry need?
Floor rails on a level slab with drainage, and a power and water tie-in. The rails have real tolerances — centres, level and diagonals are all checked at installation — so the slab matters more than the building. We survey the bay before quoting.
Can one machine wash both buses and trucks?
Usually yes, and that is what the gantry range is for. The limit is height and shape rather than vehicle type, which is why the models come in several heights on a common chassis. Tell us the tallest and widest thing you own and we will size to that.
What does it cost to run?
The honest answer is that it depends on the options fitted, and we would rather work it out for your site than publish a figure that fits nobody's. Water recovery is the part that moves it most — a closed loop reuses 80–90% of the wash water.
Do you service what you sell?
Yes, and we will not sell into a market where we have no spares and service answer. Commissioning, spares and an AMC are part of the machine rather than an afterthought.
Tell us about the depot
Start with your window, not your fleet size.
How many vehicles, back by when, and how dirty they arrive. We will come back with the format that fits, what your bay needs, and what recovery would save you.