do you really treat "every car like a showcar"?

C

ClimberGuy4

New member
I just got into detailing as a weekend business to raise money for my car. I always spend as much time as possible when I do my parents' cars i.e. spending over an hour just getting the wheels and tires perfect. However, when I see that some of you guys can wash the wheels, tires, body, windows, then wax in under 35 minutes, I wonder if I'm maybe going about things the wrong way. For example, if you were detailing a car with wheels that allowed you to get everything clean (like 5 spoke), would you take the time to do it? The sport package wheels on the X5 allow me to do this, so I bust out the mf gloves and manage to get my whole hand across the inside of the wheel. Am I expected to do this for a customer's car when my ad says "clean wheels"? I've only ever detailed as a hobby, so I have trouble saying to myself "I'm only being paid to do so and so, therefore it doesn't have to be perfect". I'd feel better if any of the pros would chime in as to what lengths they go to for a certain service. Thanks.
 
I'm going to be honest and say Yes, I do treat every car like a show car. I mean, ermm... :D



I depends on the customer. People don't notice as much as you do. I try to do my best but remember, with practice you will get faster and still be able to do a quality job! Make sure you do the job your getting paid for and providing the service they expected. If they expected hacker, then go hacker. If they expected their car to be showroom perfect, then you have to follow through. Make sure when you look at a job you try to estimate in your head how long it will take you and charge accordinly (sp?).



Some speed stuff is also the chemicals, etc. we use. I know my carpet extractor took a lot of time off the time it takes me to do full carpet cleaning. Same with my rotary. It really speeds up oxidation removal, heavy cobweb swirl removal, etc.



Another thing is they system you use. When you do a car you should be organized. Unorganization will take time away from your detail. Trust me on that! I'm still learning about being organized with my work.
 
I too am doing the weekend thing. Raising money for my church, though (eventually for myself the way I'm spending my money). Since it's just a weekend/hobby kind of thing for me I usually go all out, like 2 hours for a wash/vac/wax and 4-5 for everything for me.

You can get a vibe on how clean the owner wants his/her car pretty easy from the questions the owner asks and condition that the car is kept.
 
I know they don't notice as much, but it just doesn't feel *right* to leave brake dust gunk on the inside of a wheel, or miss a spot on the engine hoses, etc. You're right about organization though, I was going to post a thread similar to the "little tricks you've learned" one, so that everyone could benefit from whatever people may do to speed things up. I'm in the process of looking for a detailing cart so that everything is close by. I'd like to cut down on time making trips to get supplies from the house, so that I can spend more on the car.
 
I usually look at how the customers car is when they drop it off.



If its a mud-spattered, uncared for POS, then your going to spend alot of time just getting it presentable.

On the plus side, theyre unlikely to be particularly picky if you havnt 'put all the stereo knobs to the left'....



If, however, when they drop it off it hardly needs a wash, then go for the extra-fine details to catch their eye.

Clean both sides of the shift lever quadrant (park and 1st), get the grease outta the little splines on the windshield washer control, wash out the ashtray etc.



Make sure it smells nice inside (amazing what a difference that makes to them).



It usually balances out so all customers are happy and you spend an equal amount of time on each vehicle.





Thats my way of looking at it.
 
subterfuge said:
I know they don't notice as much, but it just doesn't feel *right* to leave brake dust gunk on the inside of a wheel
Click to expand...



There is a difference from a 100.00 detail to a 350.00 dollar detail. Detail the whole car like that and you'll only complete one detail for the entire day and the customer will more than likely not even notice .......... nor care.



If the guys comes to you with a 250,000 Lambo that is already near perfect then make the extra effort to do the small odd things but when a never detailed 1990 Camary comes in any wants the cheapest complete detail then detail accordingly.
 
well I do but most of the cars I do are on the nicer side. I choose to do the nicer ones because I can choose my cars I detail. Nice thing about just doing this as a side job ;) And yes I have turned people away because detailing there cars was a waste of time to me, Sounds harsh but I do this because I like nice cars, not because I have to...
 
I leave that up to the customer. If they want it to look like a show car then they need to let me know that. Showcar details take extra long and I need to know what they expect up front. They also need to know what it is that I am going to do so we go over that all before I start. If they just want it washed and waxed then I make sure we get that clear from the start so I don't spend 3 hours polishing out swirls that they don't want to pay for. Every job is different. I don't detail like an assembly line. You have to recognize that you can't do the same things to every car. It just doesn't work that way.
 
I detail by the philosophy of I treat every car regardless of its shape as if it was my own. I baby mine more than anyone I know and I would not do anything to a customers car that I would not do to my own right in front of them.
 
Redcar guy: Actually, it doesn't sound harsh at all, especially because it's what I'm doing. The first car I detailed for money was my neighbor's minivan. I don't ever want to do one again. Therefore, there is a considerable markup for bigger cars and I've only distributed flyers to the people in my neighborhood with cars I would enjoy detailing.

It obviously works because someone just made my day. My first customer is a guy who wants his 911 done tomorrow, and his new z4 done saturday. Best thing is, he just handed me the keys to the porsche to take tomorrow. :D Both are black (there's also a black X5). I don't even have my car yet and people are handing me the keys to theirs. I already love this. (Don't flip out or anything, I did say my neighborhood...he only lives down the street.)
 
Being as exacting as I am, I do tend to treat other cars as if they were my own. I tend to look at the small details and many of my clients notice that. A good example is my Pastor's Concorde. The last time I washed her car, I took her a sample of the water from washing it to show who dirty her car was. After she saw that, she realized that she cannot let her car get like that.
 
Prinz: Nice touch, bring on the scare tactics. I'll have to remember that one. It's good to hear you treat other cars as if they were your own. I think it comes out naturally in me because I can't imagine not doing a full detail, which is what a wash and wax is. I have a serious weakness though: throwing in freebies to make the car look better. Take the porsche I'm doing today. The customer doesn't want to bother having the fabric top cleaned, and I am really going to try hard to refrain from just doing it anyway. It's kind of like dirty wheels or windows in that it reflects poorly on the work that has been done, making everything seem worse.
 
Sometimes, I show them the water that is left over from their carpets being steamed cleaned. It always gets an "oh my god, I had no idea my carpets were so filthy!" It all depends on the customers to me. The other day, I detailed a honda CRV that had never been washed before, rusting, etc. It was bloody painful and it was at least presentable when I returned it.
 
Of course you want to make every car as perfect as possible everytime even when the owner doesn't even notice the difference, but you do and know you did your best job. What I always do go over the car with the owner and ask what areas they are the most concerned about, this gives me an idea of where they are going to be focusing their attention to. I have found that women also focus on the inside and men on the outside.
 
Nobody has ever paid me for a detail before, but I think I can still offer up some advice. What everyone here has said is great. I think maybe I can generalize it more by saying that you should try to find the ground between what the customer is looking for and what they are willing to pay for.



I care about my car a lot, but I don't clean the inside of the wheels when I wash it (though I do plan to start doing that when I rotate them). Even if I did, I'd still be drawing a line somewhere. I mean, there is always more I could do. I could jack the car up and wipe down the undercarraige, I could polish up the exhaust pipes. And even if I did that, there is still more. I could pick out the little stones in the tire treads or q-tip each indiviual wire of each harness that runs through the car. But it would be a total waste of my time because a) it would take me months and b) it would be ruined as soon as I drive to work. There is a certain level of cleanliness each person wants out of their car. They all have a point at which more cleanliness isn't worth the time or worth the money. A person may prefer to just pay less than to have the inside of their wheel cleaned.



I think you need to realize that you just can't make a car perfect. So you need to find out how close to perfect the owner wants their car, and more importantly how much perfection they are willing to pay for.
 
Great responses from everybody. I think I found the answer though. Instead of reading the implicit signals from the client in order to figure out the level of detailing he wants, I've simply separated some of my packages. For example, I now have a "full wheel treatment" which costs more than a wheel clean, but makes them spotless afterwards, inside and out. I charge quite a bit for it, but considering that I use 3 different products for the wheels, tires, and wells, and that it takes quite some time to do, I'm comfortable with it. If the same situation ever arises on another area of the car, I'll do the same. I don't get shafted because I'm not wasting my time on something the customer didn't want or need, and the customer isn't either because, like everything else, the amount he pays dictates what his car will look like when he takes it back. No ambiguity, just the way I like it.
 
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