A MobyDick wheel washing system for Winterthur

The city of Winterthur looks back on a long tradition as a location for international mechanical engineering companies. For more than 60 years Winterthur is also the headquarters of FRUTIGER Company AG, worldwide known manufacturer of MobyDick wheel washing systems.

Founded in 1957 in Zurich the founder of the company Edwin Frutiger moved the headquarters of FRUTIGER Company AG already in 1958 to Winterthur. In the following years the company concentrated mainly on the distribution of construction machinery. In 1985 FRUTIGER developed the first modern wheel washing system in Europe in Winterthur and installed it at a Swiss customer. The innovation at that time was very well received and within shortest time 50 installations were already in use in Switzerland and southern Germany. However, a product that was simply called a “wheel washing system” was hardly a brand that was suitable for professional marketing. The special brand name “MobyDick” was found by the current CEO Urs Frutiger while playing with his daughter thanks to one of her toys, the splashing rubber whale.

In December 1995 FRUTIGER achieved the worldwide breakthrough with the first drive-through system for wheel washing. This world novelty, which for the first time made it possible to clean tyres, underbody and chassis in less than a minute, led to a strongly growing demand in the following years. A worldwide expansion into all important markets followed. Today, the company has its own ISO-certified production plants in the Czech Republic and China as well as further branches in the USA, India and all major European countries. FRUTIGER is still strongly connected with the location Winterthur. Thus all new developments, prototype constructions and project management are still carried out mainly at the headquarters.

Clean and safe roads

Particularly pleasing was a vote of confidence by the Winterthur authorities, who recently purchased a MobyDick wheel washing system for the city’s own landfill. Only a few kilometres away from the FRUTIGER headquarters, the waste materials of commercial and industrial companies as well as private persons from Winterthur and surroundings are received and disposed of professionally. As a responsible operator, safety and cleanliness around the landfill has always been of great importance to the city of Winterthur.

At the end of 2019, the operator opted for a MobyDick KIT Plus 800B wheel washing system with a 50m3 recycling tank. The procurement of this wheel washing system was based on an individual concept, which was developed by FRUTIGER under consideration of all important parameters such as space conditions, truck frequencies as well as the contamination of vehicles and roads. The modern system is able to wash each truck wheel intensively during two rotations from the bottom and the side with a high number of nozzles and up to 10’000 litres of water per minute. The generous MobyDick water recycling concept allows in this case to dispense with flocculants and still guarantees a high water quality at all times. The plant was delivered in spring 2020 and installed and handed over by FRUTIGER technicians. Since then all trucks leaving the landfill are cleaned reliably and uncomplicatedly from adhering dirt on wheels and chassis. Thanks to the wet wheels, the dust development in and around the landfill could also be reduced effectively.

In addition to the wheel washing systems FRUTIGER has also been offering leading solutions in the field of demucking (cleaning of heavily soiled construction machinery) and dust control systems for several years.