Gonna take a lot of high dollar jobs off the market. Go to any big box store and DYI. Mass market will respond.
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Gonna take a lot of high dollar jobs off the market. Go to any big box store and DYI. Mass market will respond.
Excuse my spelling errors.
There will always be customers willing to have the coating installed by a detailer instead of doing it themselves. In my area, this goes for all kinds of services. People don’t want to lift a finger and do anything. And here I am getting exercise and saving some bucks by DIY
There will still be a market for detailers, just will become much more limited.
Around here I’m pretty sure very few consumers even know what a coating is. I bet the new car washes popping up around here are going to offer their version of them.
Um...we`ve had cheap car products on TV for decades, British guys with lighter fluid never put detailers out of business. Be sure to order before midnight tonight.
The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) detailing individual understands little what true vehicle detailing involves. Even fewer are willing to make the sizable capital investment (IE, spend a lot of money) on the equipment, let alone detailing products, to properly detail a vehicle. To me, that is the biggest hindrance to any DIYer`s. Add to that the frustration when something doesn`t turn out right or more damage is done because of plain ignorance (WHAT?, I didn`t know you are not suppose to use heavy-duty chrome cleaner on clear-coated chromed rims. Yup that would be me, Captain Obvious! Live and learn....Or why are my instrument gauge plastic lens all scratched up; all I did was clean them with paper toweling and Windex. Hummmmm...).
I also think that there is this idea that detailing is not THAT complicated, nor does it require any skill sets, like anyone can do it. And in some ways it is, but like anything, there is a right and a wrong way to do things (and, of course, there is Captain Obvious`s way!). That`s one of the beauties of this forum; it allows the average DIYer to learn about detailing products, equipment, and methodologies using and apply them to various detailing tasks on a vehicle. And yes, it takes practice and due diligence (AKA repetition and time) with a modicum of some physical abilities to master those methodologies and techniques.
What REALLY gets me is that the newbie DYI detailer EXPECTS their first-attempts at detailing their vehicle to look like those in the Click-and-Brag section or that it should be Concourse d`Elegance ready for the local car show, and that is the frustrating part to many DIYer`s when it does not, despite their "best all-day efforts".
I say this with tongue-in-cheek because I make it sound like DIYers should never try and that detailing IS difficult to master. Let me say this cliche: If it were easy ,EVERYONE would be doing it. How good you, whether a newbie DIYer or a seasoned professional detailer, want to be is up to you. (Too much "preaching" by me again, Gearhead_1?)
BACK to the TV commercials that are putting professional detailers out of business:
Are those the commercials for Cerakote detailing products for under $20 that Walmart and AutoZone carry??
Hey, that "new car wash popping up" is starting to get attention in some municipalities because there are SO many of them being built. Some municipalities are trying limit their construction because they are noisy and are close to residential areas.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill D
We`ve got TWO Club Car Washes in the last year built or being built Green Bay metro area. This in the very backyard of the PDQ Manufacturing who make tunnel car wash headquartered in the Green By area and have 4 car wash places. Add to that that almost every gas station of any size has a tunnel wash associated with it (Kwik-Trip being the major one in the upper Midwest, and there are 14 of them in the Green Bay Metro area), and yes, there are a lot of car washes places. But then again, there are a LOT of cars on the road as well.
I suppose offering coating services is just an extension of their business.
Some of the commercial vehicle sign painting/advertising places here in Green Bay offer vehicle Protective Plastic Wraps (PPF) services as an extension of their vinyl wrap advertising graphics.
No one in any of the neighborhoods near me, far and wide, washes their car themselves ( not that they would know how). They all must go to one of these car washes. I had a neighbor once tell me which car wash he thinks is good. I politely told him I don’t want any marring on my paint. The look of confusion on his face in response was priceless.
He’s the same neighbor who at one point later on hired a mobile “detailer” to detail his car. Like so many of them, the techniques of this guy were hard for me to watch. I don’t think the car came out much better than how it was originally.
I’m so proud that I’m a passionate detailing enthusiast and I owe my continued improvement to these forums.
I couldn`t have said it better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill D
I`ve never seen another person anywhere I`ve driven in my area washing their own car, let alone doing anything more involved. The interest by the average motorist to spend any time pampering their vehicle themselves simply doesn`t exist. Car washes are sprouting up around my area like mushrooms and I`m pretty sure they outnumber gas stations at this point by a factor of 2:1. At any one of them you`ll see vehicles ranging from a barely road worthy. clapped out beater to a six-digit SUV/car. They are the great equalizer.
I`ll happily continue to do my own work and improve my skills as time goes by.
To this point, our carwashes have not been required to use recycled water. I`m sure that day is coming. I`ve read much on how this is safely used, yeah, right.
When it`s cold, I take a 5-gallon bucket full of my stuff along with a blower and towels down to the touchless carwash to wash it. This is mainly to keep winter, salts, and whatnot off. I`ll use the handheld pressure washer to tackle most of the wash, fender wells, and wheels and then take it through the touchless drive-through. If and when they start recycling water at the one I go to, I`ll stop.
We`ve got 3 new brush-type washes within 3 miles of my home within the past year. People don`t wash their own cars anymore.
I remember as a kid, my friends parents having stuff like Auri and Liquid Lustre sitting on shelves, either used once or never. The lastest products of the day.
I`m not sure it`s any worse now, no one washed their own car back then either. Other than one friend who`s dad was pretty meticulous about his car for a few years, I never really saw people washing their own cars back then.
Somehow I`ve lucked out and had neighbors that are really into it though.
I remember my father using blue corral on his customers cars back in the day.
Then there is this related thread on how the term "ceramic" is market-hyping ceramic sprays that are (supposedly) "just as good as a ceramic coating":
https://www.autopia.org/forums/car-d...hlight=ceramic
(REALLY pay attention to post #22 by Coatings=crack; his post is more-than prophetic for this thread topic!)
Yes ! I also remember Blue Coral !!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by 65chevy
It was still around when I was growing up. I always steered towards meguiar`s though
Remember?!?!?!?! I still have my kit, unused. I`ve been saving it for when I have a good car...since about 1980. A couple years later I worked with a guy who used to wax his car with Blue Poly (I guess that was an early liquid sealant made by Blue Coral), EVERY WEEK. A true Autopian, decades before Autopia. Are you out there, TC?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stokdgs
PS Did I mention the bottle of cleaner is all dried up? And the jar of wax rattles like the wax is shrunk up to the size of a quarter.
Setec:
Did that Blue Poly have a parrot bird on the label?? Not that it matters, but I do remember Blue Poly. Seems to have a "metallic smell" to it and was a light lime-green in color. The metallic smell might have been from the aluminum oxide abrasives in it, because I thought it "cleaned" single stage paints, judging from the paint colors that were transferred to my cotton flour sack clothes I used at that time for wipe-off.
Kind of an early forerunner of an All-In-One (AIO)
I still have an unopened box of Turtle Wax Poly-Shell Kit. Good stuff back in the day. And then DuPont came out with Rain Dance (more good stuff in the day) and after that I found "The Treatment" paint prep cleaner (in a bottle) and carnauba wax (in a tube!), and the Turtle Wax was relegated to the back shelf
We are morphing this thread discussion into old detailing products from the (ancient) past. (Then again, Captain Obvious, aren`t you from the "ancient past"? Just sayin`....)
Um...Lonnie...it wasn`t lime green--it was blue.
1982 Blue Poly Car Wax Sealer "Pat Summerall" TV Commercial - YouTube
Some of that old stuff wasn`t all that bad, the Poly-Shell, Treatment, and Rain Dance included...trim-staining notwithstanding.
Maybe THAT`S why no one is responding to these thread topics; I keep talking about "the old days" and detailing products from those days.
Nothin` relevent to today.
An old, has-been detailer reminiscing and talking (typing out his responses) in his shaky, squeaky, elderly voice, "I remember when...." HUMMMMMM!
(Hey, we gotta blame somebody!.. Quit laughing! Well, those of us that still look at this forum, anyway.)
Lonnie- OK, maybe we *are* just old guys reminiscing about the old days, but I still like these trips down Memory Lane. If nothing else, it helps me remember when I actually *enjoyed* doing this stuff, and it gets me thinking that maybe, just maybe...I will enjoy it again some time. Keeping a vehicle Autopian is a lot easier when you don`t begrudge having to do it.
I still "enjoy" detailing, but the physical demands on myself at my age are just more demanding than I care to admit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Accumulator
Or at least my body says so. And it just takes a little longer.
I know the adage, "Don`t work harder, work smarter." But I don`t like to cut corners or not do detailing tasks to the OCD Captain Obvious level or expectation or standard I have, but alas, I find myself "compromising" on some methods or tasks just because, well, I am tired and simply cannot do things like I did 20 years ago. It is what it is....
50 years ago, when I had both adequate time and energy, I passed on all the late-night infomercial miracle products in favor of the classy ads in the print mags such as Car & Driver and purchased Classic Car Wax and its sister aviation product, Classic Slipstream. Both were Carnauba-based cleaner waxes that took a little work to apply, but lasted nearly forever. If they were still made today, I`d probably never have found PBMG.
Bill
I believe I still have a can of Slipstream. Used to love the Classic car wash. If I`m not mistaken that company hailed from the town where Scottwax lives.Quote:
Originally Posted by Billy Jack
The line from Classic was another consumer-grade one that wasn`t really bad.
Lonnie- While I`m only 64 (not experiencing any physical limitations yet), the New Normal Vision I`ve had since `15 does indeed make Detailing take a Whole. Lot. Longer. And I took forever before...no more "quick maintenance washes" only taking 5 hours, now I gotta commit serious time allotments.
Eh, I usually put Detailing on hold for a few years when raising a new dog anyhow, and will hopefully get back into the swing of this stuff before too long...but I do need to actually *work* at trying to make it enjoyable. Still cogitatin` on how to do that...
You will lose very few customers especially the ones that need paint correction. If you know you know and if they don’t it was not your customer.
As long as cars are made of materials that are in need of specialized cleaning/detailing there will always be a need or demand for individuals who know the ins and outs of caring for and restoring said vehicles. True detailers/entrepreneurs will adapt to a changing market. If they see on the horizon the market going from waxes to polymer sealants then to coatings they will adapt.
Now we have PPF and full wraps which means no more polishing etc BUT the smart detailers are learning to install PPF and still apply coatings to these materials.