Detailing a car tomorrow - for money 50 bux

R

Rudamous

New member
So I am going to be detailing a car tomorrow for one of my dad's coworkers. It is a white late 90s mazda 626. I am doing the interior and exterior all the way for only 50 bux. I have no clue why I said I would do it so low, but whatever it has been a long time since I have detailed another persons car so I figure that it would be good for me to not overcharge. It has been a while and I will pick up the car at my dads work at 9 and have to return it by 2:30 so thats 5 hours because I will have travel time. So 10 dollars an hour.



First I will give the interior a go by:

Removing contents and putting into a box.

Removing Mats - Vacuum mats

Vacuum Interior

Then use oxyclean mix to clean full cloth interior and scrub door panels and stuff

Remove Vacuum filter and pick up excess water as good as I can with the shop-vac

Dress the Interior Dash/door Panels - NXT tech protectant

Clean Windows with Stoners IG

Clean Door Jams

Vacuum Trunk

Then Exterior:

Rinse It off very heavily

Wash with Megs Crystal Wash

Dry with California Water Blade/Absorber

Polish With #9

Then Topping with NXT Tech Wax

Nxt Insane shine on Tires

Nxt tech protectant on fender wells



It has been a while so what do you guys think? Will I have enough time, I am going to try to be moving quick and efficently through the interior so I can concentrate hard on the outside.
 
I think you're going to be in a serious time crunch. Interior could take you easily more than 2 hours (to do it thoroughly) even if you move quickly. And that leaves you 3 hours to wash, dry, polish, top, and dress. I've spent about 5 hours doing a wash, dry, and top alone, although I was really anal. So it can be done if you move really quickly, but make sure you've got all the proper tools, all your equipment set out and ready to go, and a good game plan. Not claying will save you lots of time so you can pull it off! Godspeed!



Edited for clarification.
 
yea man thats sounds like you may be short on time. The interior could easily take longer than 2 hrs depending on precise you are. also, like u said, u havent had experience with others car in a while, so his may be a complete mess. might want to offer to just split up the days, interior one day and exterior the next, just a suggestion if ur tight on time instead of sacrificing quality for time
 
Speed comes with time so if you are bit rusty, time could be a factor.



If you are in "detail shape" and have your process done, then the time will not be a factor IMO.



For $50 I would wash, vac, wipe down dash, WAUD, dress tires, do windows. You are working REALLY cheap.
 
Yea... interiors only *look* easy.. but once you get started, it eats up time like no other. I can spend 4 hours on full interior detail easy. And that's just for the cloth/leather/vinyl parts. Then if you want to do all the painted parts it will take even more time. Good luck with it though.
 
I tend to agree with the others. I think that you are going to be in a serious time crunch depending on how bad this car really is. I think that you are off to a good start by having a good plan and you know that you are going to have to move quickly to get this accomplished on time.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.
 
For a 1st timer in the interior is going be alot of time consuming. I do a mid size model car like a 2002 Maxima, it took me 2.5 hrs.



Do you have any buffer machine like a PC?
 
its an old 626 by what u said...i think the interior is going to be pretty dirty. 5 hours is not enough time to do a thorough detail if you ask me. And do you have a pc or rotary for polishing?if you dont, god help you.
 
I'd skip the #9 for starters, for 50 bucks I would probably pull up with my mobile rig, unpack ,and then pack up again :).



If I had that kind of time crunch, heres a few time savers I'd use



1. Do a half-assed job on the first vacuuming, cause your gonna vacuum the whole thing again anyways after oxiclean mixing it.



2. On the outside, mix the wash about 3X the suggested strength, and dont bother to rinse well first. Then, dry with the water blade, NXT it via polishing pad on PC, and then remove the NXT with a good microfiber. I wouldnt go overboard by using the #9, for 50 bucks its unreasonable to expect polishing, and its white anyways.



DO NOT read me DO NOT use NXT tech protectant. Its damn near tire shine. If you want to stick with megs, use the interior QD for a nice, natural look.



I know this doesn't sound very Autopian, but as a pro, IMHO you get what you pay for. I aim for 30 an hour gross, and I figure I probably use 20-30 bucks worth of chemicals/pads/towels that cannot be reused per detail. For a good full detail, I charge a minimum of 120, with most details in the 150-220 range.
 
themightytimmah said:
I'd skip the #9 for starters, for 50 bucks I would probably pull up with my mobile rig, unpack ,and then pack up again :).



DO NOT read me DO NOT use NXT tech protectant. Its damn near tire shine. If you want to stick with megs, use the interior QD for a nice, natural look.
Click to expand...



LMAO! Thanks for the tip on the NXT tech protectant. I keep hearing good things about the quick detailer. I can't find it though.
 
I agree with the others, your going to be cutting it very close with time. I'm not that fast at detailing, so usually I try to do an interior one day and an exterior the other day so I don't run out of gas or time halfway through the detail. As others said too, skip the #9, just give him a one step cleaner/wax.

As far as charging, I undersold myself when I first started too. This gets your name floating around and people interested. Once you feel confident in your work then you can gradually increase your prices.
 
I had read about the interior QD so when I was at the store picking up some wheel cleaner and saw it on the shelf, I grabbed it. Not too sure about the smell - it reminds me of an electronics store for some reason - but it didn't stick around too long. And the product did a very nice job. I'd recommend looking harder :)



And what everyone else said. My full interior on an unfamiliar car today took about 4 hours.
 
well thought i'd update. As soon as I got the car to my house it started poring rain and lightning. Started and did interior. Can you say SAND?!? OMG I lifted up her floormat and there was a nice pile sitting there. I took her floormat and shook it outside and 3 mins later there was still sand coming out. Did interior and used heat lamps I had to dry it. Manage to get some stuff done and then went down the road to advance auto parts while the inside was drying since it was still raining in my mom's bmw 3.0 z3 that she left at home since she went out of town for work today...rain=no traction. Anyway I got some of that armor all waud crap, never used it before, figured for what I am getting paid who cares as long as it does decent. Well by the time I get back the rain was stopping so I pulled out the car and went to wash it. That powergel crap kinda sucks so I got the bucket out and started washing. Worst paint ever. There was crap stock ALL over her car. I only get done washing hood and two panels when she calls and said she forgot she had to pick up her kid. Took back her car. She gamme 50 dollars, I did the inside. That is pretty much it...oh well, I told her to give me a call if she wants me to finish up.
 
Oh my... $50 for all of that is a MAJOR steal. I wouldn't do all that for less than $125 on that dirty of a car.... hell I probably wouldn't for less than $150 honestly.
 
What I like to try and do is see the car that I am working on and give an estimate based on what you see. (Im just starting off, and most of my clients are people from my Church so it's kinda easy to see the car) When people tell me that their car is clean, don't listen to them because what may be clean to somebody, may mean a heckuva lot of work for you...:mad:
 
whiteg240 said:
What I like to try and do is see the car that I am working on and give an estimate based on what you see. (Im just starting off, and most of my clients are people from my Church so it's kinda easy to see the car) When people tell me that their car is clean, don't listen to them because what may be clean to somebody, may mean a heckuva lot of work for you...:mad:
Click to expand...



Yup, I ask the customer what condition their vehicle is in, and then figure its 10x worse than they tell me.



I did have a customer today tell me over the phone that her car is so dirty her kids are embarrassed and refuse to ride in it! :shocked



I'm going out this afternoon to look at it and decide if it's a job I want to tackle or not. '97 VW Jetta. White. Yeesh.
 
i do all this for 80 bucks.



Interior:

Vacuum

Clean rugs with prestone and green clean machine

Wipe down with apc

vent cleaning with Q tips and brushes

clean inside windows with IG

If leather, clean and condition

spot clean serious spills and scuffs

Protectant on most surfaces (Dash and moldings)

Vacuum trunk and spot clean rug

Plastx on gauge face if needed

Wipe down on doorjams and top with NXT sometimes



Exterior:

Hose down

Wash with Megs GOld Class

Dry with MF

Spot clean bug/tar areas which i get alot of

Wax with NXT with PC on a finishing pad

A2Z on the wheels

NXt Insane tire shine on the tires

All trim treated with some sort of trim shine (NXT protectant or TS)

Wheel wells cleaned with a ruff brush and treated with trim product.

Sometimes use RainX on the windows





All that for 80 bucks. i feel like a rookie doing the basics like that on the outside but no1 in my town wants polish or gives a flaming crp about swirls or clay, so i stick to what people want. Get the same customers every summer, and they keep recomending up so people save a good amount of money an get what they need. Im just going to start offering a "Pro special"

with everything there plus clay, 83 (depending on condition), 80, and topping with nxt or 26. would probably charge around 150 for that. but thats my summer job lol, kinda sux but its never going to be my main profession. its killing me not being able to work on swirls and holos but what can i do
 
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