Fire truck price!!

[mountainmedic]

Hello all I was just asked by the fire chief in my home town if I would detail and buff and wax the entire fleet in his department. He has 9 fire trucks an ambulance a Tahoe and a blazer. He wants them done once a year with all the diamond plate polished and the truck buffed and waxed. He also wants the inside detailed and note that on the inside door panels is diamond plate and some panels inside is diamond plate. I just started buffing vehicles but since I'm OCD and the quality of my work (pride of my work) he knows it will be right when I'm finished. My question is, I have absolutely no idea where to begin with quoting him a price. Like I said I just started. Please help cause I would hate to lose this contract it would be a lot of work for the winter and potentially more work for the rest of the fire departments in my county. All help is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance.

[KneeDragr]

For stuff that big and extensive, just charge an hourly rate plus materials IMO.

[mwoolfso]

Yeah I second that.... at least in the beginning. In IT services I typically start off with a new client at T&M until I learn the environment and stabilize/standardize how things work. At that point I can go fixed price on certain repeatable things and generate cost savings, economies of scale, predictable budgeting, etc... you know... areas where everyone wins.

[Mike lambert]

Minimum 25 a foot for the exterior, are they out of service while you have them?

[VAS]

I know that 15 years ago they were all painted with imron which is a pretty hard single stage paint. I don't know if that's still the case though.

[brettS4]

Hourly service sounds about right. It's not 'his' money so the chief won't be so concerned with the bottom line. Sounds like he just wants to keep the vehicles looking good for public appearance.

[Firefighter84]

I've done some general detailing on a couple trucks on my fire department to get ready for parades. There is a lot of time involved in these big trucks and usually a lot of diamondplate/chrome as well. I would definitely charge by the hour to start off since it's hard to judge how long it will take you. Once you do the first truck, I would have a talk with the chief and maybe do a class with the whole department on proper washing techniques otherwise you will probably be dealing with swirl city each year. They may be fine with an AIO and some metal polishing each year.

As far as the paint, all our trucks before 2000 are single stage for sure. I haven't taken a buffer to any of our newer trucks so I'm not sure if they are BC or SS.

On a side note, be careful of gold leaf if you do end up compounding the paint. The compounding will remove it or leave it dull. (Our newer trucks have stickers of numbers/logos/gold leaf)

[LSNAutoDetailing]

[QUOTE=brettS4;1408395It's not 'his' money so the chief won't be so concerned with the bottom line.[/QUOTE]

I would think the opposite.... it's tax-payers money, I'd imagine there would be a bid or review of quotes to the lowest bidder for the job?
I would be quite upset to here my FD is hiring top notch detailers charging 4 figure++++ to detail a fire truck.

Kind of like when my town council members decided they all needed new iPads... lots of overturn during the following election!

[GSKR]

At least 250.00 a day.

[rlmccarty2000]

Got to figure in the cost of Advil. Good luck. An hourly rate plus expenses would be what I would quote.