Thinking about getting into auto detailing

My best friend is a pro detailer. He got trained by this guy. I've met him before also, good guy.

http://www.detailinprogress.com/

I think that Grand View Media, the company that publishes Cleanfax, also publishes a magazine for car detailers. Check with Micah Ogburn or Jeff Cross or someone else at Cleanfax for more info.

Most car carpet is going to be nylon. Fabric upholstery will also be synthetic. So use carpet and upholstery presprays appropriate for those materials. I would use Traffic Slam or Flex for the carpet and Avenge Heavy Duty for the upholstery.

You'll also want to study up on cleaning protected leather which is rather common.

There was a company in our town that had a mobile unit, a mini truckmount, and went to different office buildings each day. Cleaned cars while people worked. They did not have to take the time to go to her location.

We detailed a couple of cars per week at our office. Something for the office manager to work on between phone calls and paper work.

detail king is good ,there in pa. most of those classes are going to try and sell you there equipment.if you think there`s alot of cc chems .theres twice as much for auto detailing. detail plus has some classes. interiors won`t be your problem. exteriors are a little different.

Second time i posted a real long thread to give you info but i messed it up. So I have to retype again. Tired now. You can give a call any time. I will give you all info.561-281-8756

Check out www.autogeek.net

They got videos on selecting buffers, etc.

They also have awesome support if you call them.

Most of the bottles are for consumers on the site but they also make gallons for pros. Check out http://www.autogeek.net/pinnacleprod.html

Pinnacle makes awesome products

Auto detailing is a good business you can easily make profit here buy always try to use good quality auto & mobile car wash machines to provide best detailing results to your clients.

That would be great to expand your business and add auto detailing into the mix. Why not? We offer all the accessories and chemicals one would need for their carpet cleaning and auto detailing business. Good Luck!

Amanda
http://www.discountcleaningproducts.com/Carpet-Extractors-and-Parts-s/1.htm
http://www.discountcleaningproducts.com/Commercial-Chemicals-s/2295.htm

autogeek.. The exterior is the hardest. Swirl marks, burning through the clear coat, buring edges and so on. It is a tough game. Pick up some great equipment. The FLEX DA is a beast and well worth the $310..

As for prices, they probably vary from region to region. I would suggest calling your competition and getting price quotes. Maybe you could also think about not offering some higher end services until your abilities grow. High speed buffing is a valuable skill to learn. It's not that difficult, but with zero knowledge of the process you can do serious damage to a vehicle. Find some junk cars in your town and start practicing. If you do a google search, and i'm sure youtube, I'm quite certain you'll find some detailed introductions.

Auto detailing your going make about $50hr if your lucky compare to $100hr carpeting clean, something to think about. If your washing cars your going have to deal with EPA crap too.

I started a mobile car wash around the 1st of March. I bought a new 5x8 enclosed trailer, 125 gal water tank, wall mounted shop vac, generator and a 13hp honda pressure washer from a pawn shop. Bought a few items from Wal-Mart and the chems and speciality item from Detail King. I handed out about 250 flyers, mostly to banks and Dr offices and right now have about 250 regular customers on a monthly basics. Its now picking up where some new clients are asking me to come to their home to wash/vac their autos and have about 20 regs there. In all I spents arounf 4k on everything to start working. I don't do detailing, only wash and vac and will do headlight restoring and dyeing the trim. The last 2 take a bit long but have a higher profit margin.
I live in eastern NC and used a low price to get stared and build my customer base. I charge $15 for exterior and $30 for exter/inter. basically what they would be charged in they drove to the cw. I just dyed the trim on a yukon and got $250 for my effort, and the customer was happy with how it turned out. It took me 2 hrs to do and had less than $50 in materials.
The only draw back that I have seen so far with this buss in the weather. Even a cloudy day is sometime a hard sell. If thay call for rain you can forget that day and the day before. After it rains are killer days that make up for it. It don't take long to figure out what works and what do as far as chems so if you need any help with those just ask and will be glad to share what I know about each. chris.sutton64@yahoo.com
Good luck

Nice Chris. I have a detail and carpet trailer as well. I love to do the cars. I am sending you an email about the trim. I have an Audi that the people have TRASHED and the trim is jacked!!! good job on the new business...

Let me see if I got this right, you can professionally clean carpet, but you need schooling for car washing and car carpet and upholstery cleaning. Now what about this makes me want to laugh. Really, this is a forum for PROFESSIONAL carpet cleaners, don't make me get midevil!

Check the front page of the forum there Ricky Bobby, there is a thread for auto detailing. Thanks for the azz comments. Keep em for Deron.

Auto Detailing
Got detailing questions? Wet-sanding, cutting and buffing topics. Also learn how to make money detailing cars, trucks,rv's and boats.

Here ya go,,,

Really....midevil???

I think the forum has several topics listed and one of those is "car detailing" So why would a self proclaimed "PROFESSIONAL" carpet cleaner be worried about what is going on in the detailing business enough to go midevil???? Come on guy the point of a forum is for sharing information isn't it?? If it bother's you that much...just stay over at the carpet cleaning section, were you can continue to add useless comments to your post count.

Thanks C.sutton, and I appreciate the email with some tips on my auto detail job for this weekend. $12.95 a bottle for a payment of $225 for all of 25-30 minutes of work..

That is what the forum is for, helping each other... thanks again Sutton.... GO NC...