Buffing Pad Exchange Program

David Fermani

David Fermani

Forza Auto Salon
I've heard about this program for a long time, but I finally stumbled along a body shop that participates in it. I'm in no way advocating this service; just purely sharing my experience. This company Clean Tech will supply you (or your shop) with as many buffing pads that you'd like. They offer alot of the mainstream pads like Buff N Shine & EDGE in foam and wool. They offer different programs ranging from trade-in on dirty pads to selling pads outright. The weird thing is that the trade-in cost is about $5.50 per pad and replacement is ~$7 and up. I think they market themselves to body shops that have a tendency of not cleaning their pads and always wanting a fresh one. The Sales Rep mentioned that as long as the pad is still useable, they'll exchange it. I'd hate to see a foam pad that's been used a couple times by a typical body shop buffer! They also claim that their re-used pads are 100% completely clean and they've never experienced contamination (yeah right).





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Here's a stack of pads waiting to be sent out for cleaning:



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Seems kind of dumb to me. Any competent shop could clean their own pads, why pay someone to do that unless they have some type of dry cleaning type system.
 
wannafbody said:
Seems kind of dumb to me. Any competent shop could clean their own pads, why pay someone to do that unless they have some type of dry cleaning type system.
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For the same reason that companies use uniform services for uniforms, shop rags, floor mats, etc. Sure, any competent company could wash their own stuff, but maybe they want their employees buffing cars or making stuff instead of cleaning pads or shop rags.
 
Productivity is king. At five minutes per pad, that stack would take an hour and 45 minutes to clean. If it costs you $25.00 per hour to pay a detailing employee to do those pads, not only are you losing the 25 bucks per hour, you're losing the revenue that that employee could be bringing in to the shop. So probably more like 150 bucks in total expense. Suddenly outsourcing pad care doesn't look too unreasonable; I doubt it would cost more than 150 bucks to have "Clean Tech" take care of that stack of pads for you.
 
Interesting experience, I didn't even know this existed. Honestly when I read the thread title, I thought somebody wanted to switch pads, and they were trying to gather users to see who needed what, and who could provide that for $$ or swap pads. :P



I still think my idea is a good idea. :laugh:





Anyways, I only clean mine myself. It's a big job, but the peace of mind is worth it, let alone the fact that they're completely clean an I can be sure of it.

I'm sure they do great, but it's all about the personal touch, doing it yourself.
 
Denzil said:
I guess they haven't heard of the UPW or S2KPW.
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At less then 1 min to clean a pad with my system 2k pad washer, not sure how many pads I have cleaned in the last year. My guess would be 150-175 pads cleaned for a price of $125 and some APC.
 
This is really apples to oranges trying to compare an Autopian-detailer who works by himself to a production shop environment. I think it's like trying to compare, the Autopian having t-shirts that say "autopian detailing" and washing them himself vs. a shop full of uniformed people and having a secretary from the office wash the uniforms for the shop, or have one of the "techs" stop their work and wash them instead of having a uniform service supply and wash the uniforms.



Thanks to the OP for illustrating how some shops and services work; I for one never dreamed that there was such a service.
 
I never participated in a plan like this when I had a body shop, so I cant comment on the actual logistics. Inital observations are:



Cleaning a pad isn't a project. I'd beat my polisher if he didnt clean pads after he used them. I'm also not paying him O/T or anything extra to do his job correctly.



Pads, especially wool pads, deteriorate rapidly once wet.



For $5.50 per pad, I'll start my Edge collection again today. Send me 30.



I don't see how the company makes money on the exchange program. Seems like a lot of overhead for something so simple. Uniforms, okay, your client base isn't limited to a specific industry and the routine maintenance of them gets pricey (know any poor dry cleaners, I don't). But $10 wool pads? I think we had a dozen or so wool pads in house and the same number of White and Black 3M foam. We would kill them roughly every 60 days. If you dont slam them into edges and trim, they do last. We also weren't polishing every panel, just repaired and adjacent. (Because David F wouldnt pay us to...)
 
jsatek said:
Pads, especially wool pads, deteriorate rapidly once wet.
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So my dual sided edge wool pads should last longer then 25-35 cars? Mine get wet everytime I clean them with the S2k pad washer. Which is at least 6-8 times on each car.
 
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