Parts of a Car Wash – Tunnel Equipment Labeled

All 10 parts on the diagram

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Entrance half 5

Correlator An alignment platform. It lines the car's wheels up with the conveyor.
Conveyor The moving track that carries the car through the tunnel.
Presoak arch The first arch sprays the car with a cleaning mix called presoak.
Mitter curtain Strips of cloth that hang over the tunnel from a frame.
Top brush One long roll held across the tunnel. It is also called the roof brush.

Exit half 5

Wraparound brushes Tall upright rolls, one at each side of the tunnel.
Rocker panel brushes Short low rolls for the lowest part of the car's sides.
Rinse arch The arch after the brushes. It rinses the car with fresh water.
Wax arch The arch after the rinse. It puts wax on the car.
Dryers (blowers) Blowers at the tunnel's end. Their nozzles dry the car with fast air.

How this list was compiled: Every name checked on 2026-10-01, a name kept only where two independent sources use it: Wikipedia, Car wash, the section on conveyor-driven tunnel car washes, text only, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_wash (conveyor, presoaks applied through arches, mitters, top brush, side brushes and wrap-around brushes, rinse arch, wax, dryers and blowers); a French-English lexicon of car wash terms published in 1984, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40243513_1516 (conveyor, correlator or alignment platform, top brush, wrap-around brush, rocker panel brush, side brush, guide rail, flooder arch, final rinse arch, wax arch, blower, friction curtain); a book on how things work, read through archive.org's full-text search, https://archive.org/details/marshallbrainsmo00brai (correlator, pre-soak, mitter curtain, rinse arch, wax arch, dryer); and three equipment makers' product pages, https://motorcitywashworks.com/ (arches, conveyors and correlators, wrap arounds, top wheel, mitter, drying systems), https://tommycarwash.com/equipment/ (mitter curtain, rocker and wrap brushes, blowers and dryers, arches) and https://www.avwequipment.com/products/ (conveyor, mitter, top brush, rocker brush, dryers). Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-10-01 from plain geometry; no maker's equipment, sign or mark, nothing traced. Licence: own work

How it works

These are the parts of a car wash of the tunnel kind, where a conveyor carries the car past each machine in turn. The first drawing is the entrance half of the tunnel and the second the exit half.

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In the order the car meets them

The car rolls over the correlator, which lines its wheels up, and onto the conveyor. The presoak arch sprays it first. Then come the cloth machines: the hanging strips of the mitter curtain, the top brush across the tunnel, the tall wraparound brushes and the low rocker panel brushes. Two more arches follow, the rinse arch and then the wax arch, and the dryers stand at the exit. The three arches look alike; tell them apart by where they stand.

Not every tunnel has every machine, and the order changes from one car wash to the next.
Makers shorten the names: wraps for the wraparound brushes, rockers for the rocker panel brushes, mitter for the curtain.

Questions and answers

What are the parts of a car wash called?

In a tunnel car wash: the correlator and conveyor on the floor, the presoak arch, the mitter curtain, the top brush, the wraparound brushes, the rocker panel brushes, the rinse arch, the wax arch and the dryers.

What are the hanging cloth strips in a car wash called?

A mitter curtain, or mitters. Strips or sheets of cloth are hung from a frame over the tunnel so that they pass over the car.

What is a correlator in a car wash?

The low platform of rollers at the entrance, also called an alignment platform. It lines the car's wheels up with the conveyor.

What does the presoak arch do?

It starts the wash. The arch sprays the car with cleaning chemicals called presoaks before the cloth and brushes reach it.