carwasher

here is a tip for buffing . the 10 and ten rule. Put a straight line of compound or polish on the vehicle. look at the buff pad like it is a clock. you want the pad to hit the compound at 10:00. also lift the pad ten degrees off the surface of the car. the compound makes it on the pad without blowing all over. 10 and 10

cant see it hurting anything except that you get wax all over your window trim by trying to use an orbital on them. Why not use a product made for glass?

If you already have water spots put some polish on some 000 steel wool and use that to take out the spots.

My electric bill averages $275 a month. You close to that?

something is wrong. extractors suck power, but not like that. A small pump and an electric heater is all that there is. Are you at least filling it with hot water? should be ready to use in less than ten minutes.

add your website

still say a green machine isnt a real extractor. the picture you show doesnt look like a car that was especially dirty. And you left huge vacuum lines, rather than using a brush to smooth everything out. I try to make the car look stock, but I guess that is personal preference.

the thermax is worth $2000 because they last a long time. They are designed to be turned on in the morning and run all day because the pump doesnt have to be on to keep the water hot. The machine I use now - Galaxy 5000 $1600 - runs the pump constantly to keep the watrer hot. Pumps go out often. Thermaxs has a hot water pot to heaqt water and will require less maintenance.

We use plain old water in the tank. No chemicals. I like to think that we are rinsing out the carpets with the extractor.

PS a green machine isnt even close to being an extractor

Making money doing dealer work is based on volume. The theory is that you can make your money by charging less, but doing more cars. It can work, but your pricing is important and there needs to be an understanding that the dealer needs to send you lots of work. If you offer the discount and they only send you a few cars a week than there is no benefit.

How to set pricing:

1. Do a cost analysis. Figure out exactly how much it costs you to do a detail. One way to do this is add all your expenses, including your base salary, for a period of time. Shoould be a minimum of 6 months. Divide this number by the number of vehicles you detailed during this time. This will get you the cost of detailing a vehicle.

You cannot do cost analysis by thinking about one vehicle. It is easy to say that it took 5 hours @ $10 an hour for labor and chemicals cost ten bucks so the detail cost $60. You need to factor everthing in like the cost of doing no cars on a snowy day, insurance, utilities,advertisement, etc.

This gives you a good base so you know how much it actually costs you to do a vehicle.

2. Get a idea how many cars the dealer is going to give you.

3. Time to walk the fine line. Add enough profit to your cost to make a living. If the dealer doesnt like the price - DONT DO THEIR WORK.

Just got off the phone with my main competitor. He did dealer cars for $110 each and he did a ton of them. He bought a 3 car hauler to pick them up. He is broke and going out of business today. His problem is that he was too cheap and even with the volume he couldnt make it.

I only take $20 off our retail price. They get the same great job as a retail customer. One dealer gives me over 20 cars a week and doesnt mind paying because his cars look good and they are done on time. If you can back up your work then you are worth more. Dont get in a price war with other shops. That just hurts everyone.

This is simplified a little but I hope it helps

The sealant that they usr arouond here is called TST. I talked to their rep and he suggested using fallout gel, which is a mild acid that we use sometimes in detailing cars. The sealant does soak into the paint some and it can be hard to even get a pinstripe to stick if the sealant has been freshly applied.

We do work for a group of dealers that love to sell paint sealant. I think it is a bit of a scam but the product that they use is actually pretty good. We make sure that the sealant is applied after we put on PPF. Occasionally the sealant has already been applied before we get the car and it takes a long time prep the car. Regular adhesive remover wont remove the sealant so we wash the front end with fallout gel and then clay it.

If you end up doing work with this dealer make sure they understand that you get to do your work before they seal the car or the process takes longer.

Another note -Ifind it harder to sell PPF at these dealerships because there customers already think that there car is "protected". They charge $400 to seal the car and people are hesitant to spend more then on PPF

WE have a GTO coming in friday. The customer has an hour and ahalf drive so he will be waiting. I have not put PPf on this car before and I dont want him to have to wait any longer than he needs to. I will be cutting <snip> kits.

Anyone do one of these? Any tricks? How long did it take?

Thanks for any input

Go buy some degreaser. Degreaser is the #1 product in detailing. We use tons of it. motors, tires, wheel , wheel wells, door jambs, filthy paint, greasy carpets. Simple green will work if you dont have a detailing supplier. may need to dilute. test small areas 1st.

tires- spray with degreaser, scrub with brush or pressure wash.

what is micromarring?

We use similar stickers that offer 10% off your next detail if you come back within 6 months

maybe you should go work for someone else and get trained. Your questions are very, very basic and you shouldnt be charging someone to detail their car if you dont know any more than them.

Felt like we were working in LA yesterday. Every car that went through the shop had big time power. Started with a bright yellow viper. Then a Ferrari 348 ti. Modified 600 HP corvette Z06. The porsche boxster S is the slowest car of the day. Finished up with a 1972 Plymouth Duster pushing 700 horsepower. thing is crazy. I have to keep a note on the customers file on how to start it. pure race car.

Today was back to normal with volvos, jeeps and a piece of crap toyota van with a quarter million miles on it.

I am giving up one of my biggest secrets here. VW's suck all around. They have the cheapest materials of any car . We buy brushes called curry combs. they are rubber brushes that fit over your hand. origionally designed to brush horses, they work AMAZING at pulling out pet hair. On VW's they can remove the lint that makes the seats look so bad. They are made of rubber and the friction of dragging them across the seats pulls out any hair or lint.

You can buy them online. search for curry combs. should be able to find them for under $2. I sell a lot of them at car shows for $5.

Another VW secret: The crappy black carpet never comes clean. Use a flexible paint to paint them black. Come out brand new.

You not only are using the wrong pad for scratches, you are using the wrong buffer. A DA is usually used for ax application or maybe for polishing. Using a wool pad is awaste of time. The DA is not designed to be powerful enought to get out scratches.For scratches you need to use a high speed buffer.

What do you mean when you say a new car needs "cutting of the finish"?

What kind of post is this? Guess you work for Napa. Very lame. Who gets excited enough about an oil filter to post a message about it? on a detailing site?

Clay magic is made by auto magic and sets the industry standard. Available at Advance auto

I recently bought a 36" graphtec plotter for paint protection film. I would like to do some simple graphics on some stuff around the shop. What kind of software can I use to put my company logo on my shop trucks? What about buying vinyl? Anyone have the time to get me pointed in the right direction