South Florida Detailer 6+ yrs

I can`t speak for you and your business but in my opinion you`re way cheap. You can`t get a tunnel wash in my area for less than $25 and that is you driving to them. I`m giving a pretty broad generalization here but any detailer worth their salt at the very least should be worth $40/hr., it`s hard work and depending upon the area perhaps much more. If you`re doing a thorough wash, hand wax, dress the tire`s and clean the interior in less than 2 hours you`re pretty speedy.

I understand the part about no correction but I don`t think you value your time. Setting your price is a double edged sword. Set it too high and no one comes. Set it too low and people wonder what`s wrong with this picture and the same result, no one comes. It`s one thing to have 5 cars lined up in a row and move from one to the next but if you`re going to someone`s home and doing a single car for the prices you have listed, it`s simply not enough.
 
I average about $50/hr. I started at Simoniz 7 years ago, so my methods are pretty quick. A tunnel wash/vac was about $25 including rims and tires. If your car didn`t fit in the tunnel, a hand wash was $35. But they had the volume to create prices like that IMO.

Honestly you`d be surprised about how many people differ in acceptance of prices. Some think I`m too low and I should charge more, while others think the prices are too high. You`d never guess the customers I give preference to lol. Some customers are happy with a $4 gas station wash. I try not to keep those ones around too long.
 
SawgrassRider said:
What do you think the prices should be set at?
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If you can get $50/hr, hour in and hour out and hopefully get a good tip here and there then I should just shut up. That`s much better than most people can do for a part time job. Go get you`re Engineering Degree and save your body.
 
I don`t know your area, but I have to believe you could charge 20 percent more and not lose business. But if your take home is $50 that is fantastic. Throw in a few up charge items like headlight repair and you are set until the old body gives out!
 
GearHead_1 said:
I can`t speak for you and your business but in my opinion you`re way cheap. You can`t get a tunnel wash in my area for less than $25 and that is you driving to them...
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Unbelievable!! WOW. In the various cities I`m at (work, home, gf`s) you find 6$ washes all day long. Most are even "hand car wash" places. The best tunnel wash I found, which also was "hand wash" charged 35 for a wash and wax. They did decent work (just not Autopian).

Geez. Amazing how prices defer so much. I can`t get people to get a simple wash due to those prices. tsk tsk. And I can`t perform a 6$ wash. nope, no way.
 
The definition of a tunnel wash may also be different from place to place. The tunnel washes we have here offer the services that are the equivelant of what the OP describes in his package. We don`t have the type of car washes that you often see in California (10 people running around your car with a towel and a spray bottle), people don`t perform the wash anyplace around here that I can think of short of it being an actual detailer. The Detailers that have a name around here are also mostly brick and mortar with only a couple of exceptions that I`m aware. I`m sure this has much to do with a less dense population than more metropolitan areas.

These tunnel washes include a person standing with long handled brush and some chemicals squirted on the front of the car the mirrors and windshield to begin, a trip down the conveyor with the owner in the vehicle. It`ll get a vehicle fairly clean but you will leave with swirls. Then once it`s gone down the conveyor, the owner drives the vehicle into the vacuum bay wher they vacuum the inside, dress the interior (poorly from what I`ve seen), wash windows on the inside and dress the tire`s.

They can do this in about 30 minutes but if it`s a rocking day it might take closer to an hour. They probably have 30 employees running around pointing fingers to direct you into the appropriate bay. The drivers walk into what I guess could be described as an Internet coffee, soda, treat waiting room that will probably hold about 35 people while their cars are being vacuumed and dressed. For another $30 or so they`ll throw a wax on it with a 10" orbital buffer, they do this back in the same bays as where they vacuum. That`s the tunnel wash that I was trying to describe.
 
GearHead_1 said:
These tunnel washes include a person standing with long handled brush and some chemicals squirted on the front of the car the mirrors and windshield to begin, a trip down the conveyor with the owner in the vehicle. It`ll get a vehicle fairly clean but you will leave with swirls. Then once it`s gone down the conveyor, the owner drives the vehicle into the vacuum bay wher they vacuum the inside, dress the interior (poorly from what I`ve seen), wash windows on the inside and dress the tire`s.

They can do this in about 30 minutes but if it`s a rocking day it might take closer to an hour. They probably have 30 employees running around pointing fingers to direct you into the appropriate bay. The drivers walk into what I guess could be described as an Internet coffee, soda, treat waiting room that will probably hold about 35 people while their cars are being vacuumed and dressed. For another $30 or so they`ll throw a wax on it with a 10" orbital buffer, they do this back in the same bays as where they vacuum. That`s the tunnel wash that I was trying to describe.
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Yep that describes the Simoniz tunnel to the T, except the only difference is the vacuuming comes before the wash and the drivers are not inside the car while it is conveyed through the tunnel. The tunnel always takes the same about of time to clean the car, so the the employees who vacuum and dry are the ones who determine the total time for a wash. Usually a car is in and out within 20 minutes or less. Like stated before, this process induces swirls in the paint, especially with the use of cotton terry towel drying. But these customers are usually driving leased vehicles or just don`t care about swirls.
 
SawgrassRider said:
Yep that describes the Simoniz tunnel to the T, except the only difference is the vacuuming comes before the wash and the drivers are not inside the car while it is conveyed through the tunnel. The tunnel always takes the same about of time to clean the car, so the the employees who vacuum and dry are the ones who determine the total time for a wash. Usually a car is in and out within 20 minutes or less. Like stated before, this process induces swirls in the paint, especially with the use of cotton terry towel drying. But these customers are usually driving leased vehicles or just don`t care about swirls.
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Drove my father and his truck through one of these years ago. Had the lady in front of me knock her car out of neutral and into reverse (reaching for a kid, you know the story). Seeing back up lights come on through all of that hanging wash media is a very disconcerting experience. She started to jump the track. I too hit reverse with no one behind me, going backwards in one of these is not recommended as you need to climb over the tire chocks, it`s very bouncy. Had I not been there that Mercedes sport ute would have been parked in the front of my Dads Ford truck. Between me laying on the horn and backing up we avoided what could have been a real problem. The attendant hit the stop button and got the conveyor shut down and she came to her senses and hit the brakes. She wouldn`t even look at us when we were in the waiting area.
 
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