imported_speedingpenguin
New member
As soon as this semester of school ends, I'm going to be leaving my job "detailing" cars at the local Simoniz car wash (I cringe every time I have to wax a car there) and working at a better paying job with a set 4 day schedule (sunday-wednesday)
On my days off, I'm going to try to get a car a day on average to detail. My target customers would be middle/middle-upper class, dealing mostly with Volvo's, BMW's, Audi's, Acuras, Infiniti's, etc., but obviously I'll take whatever I can get.
I've got 3 years of experience detailing cars (My own cars, family's cars, and friends cars), I started out using the 3 step Meguiars products, and have been improving and upgrading every year. Now I've got a PorterCable 7424 and have learned a lot about how to deal with certain situations properly. (scratches, swirls, overspray, water marks, nasty carpet stains, etc.)
By no means am I an expert, but especially after seeing what people will pay at this car wash for such sloppy, half-assed service (waxing right over stubborn bird droppings, bug splatter, road paint, etc., vacuuming just parts of the carpet that you see at first, etc.), I think that my determination to do a good job and my attention to the LITTLE details (wanting to get the dirt/dust/crud out of every little nook, i.e. around the shifter plate or steering wheel emblem, etc.) makes my quality of work a much better way to spend 100+ dollars rather than paying to drive through the car wash and then have someone quickly slap on a layer of wax and not even wipe all of it off completly. I know that the customers appreciate my extra effort because even though I've only been there for a few weeks now I've had a couple of people ask specificly for me and have told me that they were so impressed with the job I did on their own cars that they wanted me to do their husband/wife/mother/fathers car.
I don't plan on charging too too much, but at the same time I don't plan on under-charging my customers either. I am planning on pricing each job individually, but probably around $150-$175 for a complete detail including removing swirls/scratches to the best of my ability. I havn't sat down to really think about the specific details of exactly what I'll charge or what will be involved, but if Simoniz can charge 150 dollars for the hack-job "bumper to bumper" detail they do, I think as long as I can cover my expenses and be making a decent profit while charging roughly the same amount, I might be able to get more business from referals than if I were to charge more and only be able to serve the higher end population.
I've read a lot of the threads on here and searched through the forums as well, but still am not sure exactly what products I should be thinking about using. I don't want to just be using off the shelf Meguiars-level products, but at the same time because I'm not aiming to be doing just show cars I don't want to be using more expensive products than I need to. I want my work to not only look great, but also to last a long time under daily-driven New England conditions.
Could you guys help me figure out what products would be best for my goals? suggestions on what my routine should include? Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks!
On my days off, I'm going to try to get a car a day on average to detail. My target customers would be middle/middle-upper class, dealing mostly with Volvo's, BMW's, Audi's, Acuras, Infiniti's, etc., but obviously I'll take whatever I can get.
I've got 3 years of experience detailing cars (My own cars, family's cars, and friends cars), I started out using the 3 step Meguiars products, and have been improving and upgrading every year. Now I've got a PorterCable 7424 and have learned a lot about how to deal with certain situations properly. (scratches, swirls, overspray, water marks, nasty carpet stains, etc.)
By no means am I an expert, but especially after seeing what people will pay at this car wash for such sloppy, half-assed service (waxing right over stubborn bird droppings, bug splatter, road paint, etc., vacuuming just parts of the carpet that you see at first, etc.), I think that my determination to do a good job and my attention to the LITTLE details (wanting to get the dirt/dust/crud out of every little nook, i.e. around the shifter plate or steering wheel emblem, etc.) makes my quality of work a much better way to spend 100+ dollars rather than paying to drive through the car wash and then have someone quickly slap on a layer of wax and not even wipe all of it off completly. I know that the customers appreciate my extra effort because even though I've only been there for a few weeks now I've had a couple of people ask specificly for me and have told me that they were so impressed with the job I did on their own cars that they wanted me to do their husband/wife/mother/fathers car.
I don't plan on charging too too much, but at the same time I don't plan on under-charging my customers either. I am planning on pricing each job individually, but probably around $150-$175 for a complete detail including removing swirls/scratches to the best of my ability. I havn't sat down to really think about the specific details of exactly what I'll charge or what will be involved, but if Simoniz can charge 150 dollars for the hack-job "bumper to bumper" detail they do, I think as long as I can cover my expenses and be making a decent profit while charging roughly the same amount, I might be able to get more business from referals than if I were to charge more and only be able to serve the higher end population.
I've read a lot of the threads on here and searched through the forums as well, but still am not sure exactly what products I should be thinking about using. I don't want to just be using off the shelf Meguiars-level products, but at the same time because I'm not aiming to be doing just show cars I don't want to be using more expensive products than I need to. I want my work to not only look great, but also to last a long time under daily-driven New England conditions.
Could you guys help me figure out what products would be best for my goals? suggestions on what my routine should include? Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks!
