Be wary of anyone promising returns without knowing your workshop. The result of a DPF washing centre depends on a few figures only you know: how many filters you see, what you charge to wash them and what each cycle costs you. Here is how to line them up.
Revenue
- Price per filter, different for cars, vans and heavy vehicles. For a car DPF the selling price of a wash in Italy is usually between €120 and €180; the customer’s benchmark is the cost of a new filter.
- Labour for removal, refitting and diagnosis, if you offer the full service on the vehicle.
- Trade price, lower, for workshops that send you just the filter.
Variable costs, filter by filter
- Washing products and consumables such as filter cartridges and bags.
- Energy: water heating and drying. To estimate it, multiply power by running hours and by the cost per kWh.
- Water and disposal: the waste collection cost divided by the filters washed in the period.
- Operator time: with an automatic cycle the operator does not stand by the machine, but intake, inspection, connection and reporting still take time.
- Transport, if you collect and return filters for other workshops.
Fixed costs
Machine and adapters, depreciated or paid in instalments, space, maintenance, initial training and some promotion. These are the costs the washing margin has to pay back.
The calculation
Two formulas are enough. Margin per filter = price − variable costs. Filters to break even = investment ÷ margin per filter.
| Item | Per filter |
|---|---|
| Average price of a car filter wash (market €120–180) | €150 |
| Products and consumables | − €8 |
| Energy | − €5 |
| Disposal share | − €7 |
| Operator time (about 40 minutes) | − €25 |
| Margin per filter | €105 |
With a €105 margin it takes about 10 filters to pay back every €1,000 of investment. To find your break-even point, multiply by the cost of your configuration. The same calculation at the two ends of the range: at €120 the margin drops to €75 (about 13 filters per €1,000), at €180 it rises to €135 (about 7–8 filters).
| Filters per week | Margin per month (approx.) |
|---|---|
| 3 | €1,350 |
| 5 | €2,250 |
| 10 | €4,550 |
The levers that move the result
- Trade work: fills the machine on quiet days and lowers the fixed cost per filter.
- Heavy and agricultural vehicles: larger filters and higher unit prices.
- Follow-on work: a clogged filter often has an upstream cause such as EGR, injectors or turbo. Cleaning brings diagnosis and repairs.
- Cycle times: washing and drying in parallel, or handling more filters a day, changes the capacity of the same workshop.
- Water filtration: fewer water changes mean less waste and a lower disposal cost.
The most common mistakes
- Leaving waste disposal out of the price.
- Buying a machine oversized for real volumes, or too small for the filters that will come in.
- Starting with prices too low to “build volume” and never managing to raise them.
- Not documenting the result: without a before/after report every dispute becomes your word against the customer’s.
- Washing the filter without reporting the upstream cause: the filter clogs again and the washing gets the blame.
If you have your figures and want to work out which configuration makes sense, read how to choose the machine or get in touch: we are happy to run the numbers with you.