Revising my price plans. Need your opinion.

[RangerDetails]

Hull is now a rich area? Wow, things have changed over there. I used to live near the military building in Hull. I know that with Ottawa being over crowded, a lot of people with money moved to this side of the river but I had no idea it had changed that much.

In terms of clients, what you want is people with expensive cars. When you pay 100,000$ or more for your car, you are more concerned about treating it right than saving a few bucks for a wash. Pretty much all of my clients have german cars (BMW, Mercedes, Audis, Volkswagens). If you don't do polishing, it will be very very hard for you to make money. I suggest you invest in a reasonably priced DA polisher like the Griot's Garage 6 inch polisher and some pads. Just add all-in-one polishes to your list of services and you can double or triple what you make on a detail. AIOs are easy to do, they produce great results for daily drivers and they are excellent value for your customers.

As for people being cheap, I find that everyone is cheap but most people are willing to pay for what they believe is good value. Of course it will be very hard to sell a 500$ details to someone with a beat up 2000 Honda civic, but if someone can afford a nice car and they understand that a polish will make their car look like new and also have decent protection, you will be able to get those clients. Also, these are the people that may become regular clients. So that should be your target market.

Well, old Hull is still pretty messed up but the rest is very neat now.

I do own a PC but don't have much experience with it. I will attend a class at CG Canada in June about polishing. Not the best class around but the cheapest I could find for my budget right now. Will get a AIO polish. Probably HD Speed. That is if I can find it in Canada somewhere.

[RangerDetails]

Here are some of the times it takes me to do each step:

Wheels (cleaning only) about 10-15 minutes per wheel depending how bad they are. I start by pressure washing all 4 then one by one: spraying an APC+soap over the wheel well, tire and rim. I then clean the wheel well then the rim and finally the tire. I pressure rinse and look at the result. If a lot of brake dust is still present on the rim, I spray meg wheel brightener and wash again. So just that step can take up to an hour. Now if you only charge peanuts you can't afford to do that, so it depends on your package and how clean you want the wheels to be.

Second step is washing. I pressure wash the whole car to remove most of the dirt. Then I proceed with a 2 bucket wash. Pressure rinse. This doesn't take that long. Probably 30 minutes... never really timed it.

If I have to decontaminate, that is more tricky. I use nano sponges to do it. Depending on how bad the contamination is it can take 30 minutes or it can take 2 hours. I have had a car this year where I could not remove all the contaminants. I worked for 2 hours on it and called it done but there was still some left. So it's a service where you want to charge more just in case. If you use traditional clay, it will take you at least an hour, clay is very slow compared to a nano sponge. Also if you drop you clay, that's 15$ down the drain cause you can't use it again. So for those 2 reasons I don't use that anymore.

Drying the car takes about 15 minutes. I use a metrovac sidekick to blow all the crevices then dry with a microfiber towel. If you do a cheap wash, you can use a spray wax in this step to wax the car while drying it. So this could be a go way to increase profits.

If you decide to go with a traditional sealant like Powerlock, about 30 minutes to apply and 15 minutes to remove. This varies depending on the size of the car. Trucks and SUVs are pretty bad because you have to use a platform to do the roof and that is a lot of wasted time.

While the sealant is drying on the car you can do the exhaust and dress the wheel wells, tires and put some spray wax on the rims. This should take about 20-30 minutes total.

Windows will usually need a cleaning with a window cleaner and a window cloth. I also spray wax them as well. I try to upsell all my clients of Aquapel. This is a great product I charge 25$ to do it and the applicator costs me 6$, so 19$ profit for 15 mins of work.

If you were to do a polishing as I suggested, you can add 3 to 5 hours to that total. So this is why it can make you so much money.

So wash+decon+sealant for me is 4 hours to 5 hours of work. I am very meticulous so everything takes time. You could also do it car wash style and be done in half that time but that is not what I want to offer.

You also need to take into account setup time and packing time. For me that's about 15 mins for each. I have a ton of equipment so if you have minimum gears, it might be faster for you.

That is a very detailed write up. Thanks.

[RangerDetails]

Lastly, your price is too low at 20$ per hour. When you consider all your expenses and extra time used you will barely break 10$ per hour in actual profit. I suggest you start at least at 30$/hour.

Your website is not listed in your signature, I would love to see it. Can you give me the URL?

I do not have a website yet. I played around with Squarespace but they are not very friendly with Multilanguage websites. Trying to find a better option, although Squarespace's layouts are amazing.

[RangerDetails]

Here is the price list I came up with.
Since I don't have a website yet, I have to promote my prices with a sheet like this. Apologies to most people here, the list is only in French. Working on an english version.

[4u2nvinmtl]

I base my rate at about 20$ an hour. the difference in price for the two package are 40$, so 2 extra hours. I don't think it will take me more than two hours claying and sealing a car. Will it?

Good luck claying my SRT8 in that time. It was caked with tar and iron up to the roof.

If I work really fast it takes me 2-3 hours to clay when it's really bad (like most cars would be), and wax/sealant takes 30-90mintues to apply depending on the car. I did a friend Acura EL in 30mintues but my mom's Ford Fusion takes me an hour because they're more contours. Maybe I just take more time on my own car but it takes me 90mintues to wax or seal my Jeep SRT8 (I do the door jambs and the bottom of the bumper).

I would add 30-60min padding just in case. If you ever feel guilty because you're done sooner you could always offer a discount on their next detail with you (Win/Win).

Also, if you want to make $20 an hour after expenses you should also make some for your business to reinvest into products, marketing, etc. This is the mistake I made when I started my first business, I kept the profits for myself and didn't reinvest much of anything back into it.

[Calendyr]

Well, old Hull is still pretty messed up but the rest is very neat now.

I do own a PC but don't have much experience with it. I will attend a class at CG Canada in June about polishing. Not the best class around but the cheapest I could find for my budget right now. Will get a AIO polish. Probably HD Speed. That is if I can find it in Canada somewhere.

Just go to Youtube, there are a lot of videos on how to use a polisher. A PC cannot damage paint accidently. Even if you want to damage paint with it you will have to work hard at it, so there is really no need to be afraid. I suggest you look up the youtube channel of Junkman2000, he has extensive videos on how to use a polisher and it's free.

[RangerDetails]

Good luck claying my SRT8 in that time. It was caked with tar and iron up to the roof.

If I work really fast it takes me 2-3 hours to clay when it's really bad (like most cars would be), and wax/sealant takes 30-90mintues to apply depending on the car. I did a friend Acura EL in 30mintues but my mom's Ford Fusion takes me an hour because they're more contours. Maybe I just take more time on my own car but it takes me 90mintues to wax or seal my Jeep SRT8 (I do the door jambs and the bottom of the bumper).

I would add 30-60min padding just in case. If you ever feel guilty because you're done sooner you could always offer a discount on their next detail with you (Win/Win).

Also, if you want to make $20 an hour after expenses you should also make some for your business to reinvest into products, marketing, etc. This is the mistake I made when I started my first business, I kept the profits for myself and didn't reinvest much of anything back into it.

Wow I guess I underestimated the time it takes to clay a whole car.
I do reinvest the money I make in more products so I can offer more services and charge more. Thanks for the tips.

[RangerDetails]

Just go to Youtube, there are a lot of videos on how to use a polisher. A PC cannot damage paint accidently. Even if you want to damage paint with it you will have to work hard at it, so there is really no need to be afraid. I suggest you look up the youtube channel of Junkman2000, he has extensive videos on how to use a polisher and it's free.

Actually I watched about every videos on the internet about polishing. No seriously, every one of them haha. I practiced last fall on some cars in a scrap yard but since they are all very beat up, it did not feel satisfying. But I was still afraid of doing someone's car since I don't have any insurance. Although I stumble on a post from Mike Phillips saying to absolutely not be afraid. So I will still attend the class in June to get a hands on things and then start offering polishing services.

[garyg7133]

Say what you want about the scrap yard work, but you absolutely did the right thing there. work your craft and technique on a hunk of junk first. I learned everything I know on my (at the time) brand new pickup. There was a lot of trial ( and some error ) but the truck always looked darned good.

[RangerDetails]

Say what you want about the scrap yard work, but you absolutely did the right thing there. work your craft and technique on a hunk of junk first. I learned everything I know on my (at the time) brand new pickup. There was a lot of trial ( and some error ) but the truck always looked darned good.

I know I did the right thing, I would never try my first times on someone's car. What I meant by "not satisfying" is that the paint on a scraped car will never look shiny and new even after polishing for hours. I can't wait to have that "mirror shine" as my results. Something I will never get on a scraped vehicle.