OPTI-COAT detailers in or close to NYC?

S

socarecon

New member
Are you losing money by not doing reconditioning/repair work? Until recently, I did recon only and moved to detailing to pull in extra cash, sometimes detailing brings in more than recon and not to mention getting more recon jobs from the detailing! Why not diversify and offer all or some recon to your custs. Like most, you could sub out the work and still put extra cash in your pocket.



Looking at recon from easiest to learn:

(1) windshield chip repair - as one trainer said I can teach a monkey to learn ws repair - true - with practice and proper training 1 week to master. $40.00 min. per repair/ 10 to 30 minutes repair time

(2) interior repair - leather, fabric,vinyl. lots of practic to master all. I love doing leather repair, it is the easiest to master and the easiest to correct any mistakes. $75.00 - $125.00 per seat/ 30 minutes to 2 hours repair time (leather repair).

(3&4) dents and paint repair - sub out only it will take you 1 plus years to master giving it 110% of your time. However, paint chip/scratch repair is a very good money maker and now that there is the glue dent puller, one can pull out small door dings without any experince, as I have been told and read pdr fourms. Lots of positive feed back. Both can be mastered in a very short time. $$$ whatever the market will allow.

(5) sprayed on truck beliners the biggest money maker of them all - I currently do not do this yet but soon will, the profit for 3 or 4 hours of work $250.00 on up. The start up cost from $2500.00 to $25,000 for a protable system. Also other things can be sprayed - decks, garage floors etc. bringing in even more money.



To get any kits for the above check the net, then practice, practice, practice, then practice some more. And best of luck - alais known as "easy money" lates
 
That is actually exactly the kind of business that I am going to start within the year. I'm purchasing a franchise that does exactly that. There is a lot of money to be made in that area. Shining up a car is one thing, but even though my car shines like a diamond, I can still see those door dings a mile away. Learning how to do paintless dent removal would be a great thing. Also pin striping and chrome or gold plating emblems. And window tinting. And interior repair. There is just an entire world out there beyond exterior perfection. :up
 
yep, although I would stay away from a franchise, Why give your profits to someone other than yourself? A dealership would be good keeping 100% of the profits. In my service town another franchisee was just placed in the same area as another franchisee from the same franchiser "ouch" and to top it off he will have to remove the franchise name from his van! Due to another service company having the name 10 years prior, his answer " he had been already told" forget a franchise. A franchiser cannot guarantee you any work. Just my 2 cents, I would sub out before going that route, as your profit would be the same.
 
I agree with you there. This franchise is a good deal though. I keep 90% of it. The 10% they keep is partially for the chemicals and supplies they send me without billing me for them and also my advertising costs. They also handle all the billing issues and everything. It seems to be a really great deal. Once I get used to it all I might just break away and do my own thing.
 
sounds to good to be true and that useally means it is.

just be careful dont get yourself into something you cant get out of.



sean
 
wooow 90% is fantastic, go for it! But remember what happened to the franchisee in my area. I would check out how many franchisee's they can put in one area. Usually it's done by population and in some cases as in the rencon biz, auto dealers or both. Something that should checked into as well as name etc. before you take the big leap! congrats if you do.
 
It is a pretty solid company. Ever heard of M.A.R.S. International? They have been around nearly 20 years doing this kind of thing. Its a name that a lot of dealerships recognize so the business is fairly easy to come by. I've gone out with some local Mars employees and they have told me that they make around $2000 a week. That is pretty good if you ask me. :D You are right about how long the average job takes. I watched him do a number of things to one car and the total bill was like 300 dollars or something and I swear he didn't work on it for more than an hour and a half or so. It just had several things that took skill to fix but didn't take much time. www.marsinternational.com is their website. The upfront investment is the only part I'm working on right now. My business partner in another business we own has offered to front me the money. I'm just waiting on a few other things first. I can't wait.
 
are they a bad thing? I would imagine that if there aren't any other businesses like that in the area then I would be pretty safe running one.
 
There is nothing wrong mars itself. I would find out how many other mars franchises that they will sell in one area and if there are any now. 2 - how long you have to hold onto the franchise (usually 5 years). 3 - if you'll have to use their name. 4 - can you service in other counties. And other questions that you may think of. In 97 I looked into a mars, (at that time it was dealership no franchise fees) not a franchise. But didn't want to purchase their product only and they could not gurantee any work, they were in oklahoma at that time and didn't want to travel that far for training.



It might be better to look into other training programs and get 100% of the profit and not worry if mars will put another mars franchise in your area and giving you more compettion. There will be no guarantee of other service firms working in your area or any guaranteed work from mars itself. The new mars franchisee in ventura ca paid $30,000 for it included 1 month of training and he paid another $5,000 for his trailer inwhich he will have to remove the name mars. All things should be thought out 110%. I hope this helps. Also are you going to do whoresale - auto dealers - or retail where the big money maker is. I don't think after I spent 6 hours detailing and a repair to wait for mars to collect the $$$ and wait who knows how long to collect it from them!
 
It is still something I'm researching. I look at it as a great learning experience. Sort of like taking a job at a dealership detailing and not getting paid what your work is worth. You can take that experience and work for a better detail shop. I'm still looking into mars but so far they have what I want. I would be doing it either in Dallas, Texas or Modesto, California. It sort of depends on a couple things. I think the Modesto market would have less competition but it is definatly something I will research out fully before getting involved in it.



Thanks for the comments on it. I put up a thread a month or so back but nobody really replied. I've been curious to know if anyone had any experience with them or systems like theirs.
 
Moving to a sunnier area where you can work year round, makes sense. Wherever you end up check the auto dealers and find out the pricing and who it is being done by - ask the resale managers. Most will not give you the time of day. Or you might check the yellow pages under autobody repair /pdr / upholstery / windshield chip repair find out the prices wholesale. Most who do wholesale do no advertising at all, all work is done at the dealers for less than 1/2 what can be brought in retail. If they do any retail at all (why it's a untapped market) by word of mouth only. Thus a perfect add on for detail or like myself my mainline of service. I would check the net for other training schools- to look at the whole picture. For dent training check out dent network.com they have lists of training schools inwhich they believe is the best around and have only positive fee back, they donot recieve a fee for this and are unbiased. For the other recon services, surf the net.
 
i sublet out all my pdr work and it works great for me. i make great money on it and the pdr shop gets paid good as well. I am in the process of buying out a custom auto shop. I plan on bring business in from around the county. It might take some time, but being more than a detailer is the way to go
 
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' >

<em class='bbc'>Originally posted by terry young [/i]
<strong class='bbc'>Windshield chip repair ... Interior repair ... Dents and paint repair ... Sprayed on truck beliners[/b]</blockquote>
Is there any kind of documentation, videos or anything out there to tell you what your getting into, the average job, what to expect, what other tools are useful before you go out and spend (from what it seems) thousands of dollars to purchase this equipment?

Depending on what you can do about leather fading/cracking abd possibly scratch removal (big deep scratches) then I would be interested. Alot of people around here would pay the same amount to remove a scratch as they would to have the whole care detailed. From there all I would need to do is polish and wax the entire panel and they would surely come back to have the rest of thier car detailed to match :-)
 
Thats todays million question, there are videos and cds that can help you learn all aspects of the reconditioning service. However, it will take lots of practice and then applying what has been learned to do acceptible repair work. And you are correct about retail restoration bringing in as much cash or more than a detail. Today I did 2 retails, 1 dash repair and 4 door panels on the other car - 3.5 hours work, $165.00. If this would have been at the auto dealers $95.00 to $115.00 although the time would have been far less, the work just needs to be repaired and sellable, in ohter words not perfect as it needs to be when doing retail!

As far as pricing, there were some studies giving by mobile techs a few years back giving both wholesale and retail pricing. If you haven't already, read my recon part 2 on whats going on in the wholesale market. I would not believe "anyone" selling recon systems and how much $$$ that can be made, mainly it's based on the retail market not wholesale market. Most people doing recon stick to dealers due to what was mentioned above.



Many product distributors have free training at their locations, the seminars are very useful. Many of the videos you can purchase are taped from them. I started to learn upholstery / windshield chip repair basics from videos and as I as say and I did practice, practice, practice, and when you think you are perfect practice evev more. My real training and know how came from out in the field over the last four years perfecting my skill - and yes there were many many f-ups, part of the learnig process. So to sum it up, do whats best for you. Check the net for schools and all other products needed to get started if this is your desire . . . best of luck!
 
Hello there forum guru's...

Winter's almost over... as much as i'd like to say that my car has escaped the horrible season we had unscathed, it definitely hasnt. Nothing catastrophic, just heavy swirls at worst.

I'm throwing around the thought of having it polished by a "pro" ala megs 205/105, or similar (i'd do it myself if i had the equipment and a garage).

I figured if i am going to go that route, why not see if i can find someone who has access to this opti-coat stuff i've read so much about??

Anybody in or around NYC who can do this come spring time?

thanks in advance

Scott
 
David at Street Dreams has experience with the Opti-Coat. He has been running some long term test with it over the winter. You should PM him. His work is beyond excellent. Search this forum and you will see what I mean.
 
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