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  1. #1
    McKee's 37 Product Support
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    Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    We're thankful for all the professional detailers that contribute to our forum on a daily basis by sharing knowledge, tips, and tricks for everything car care and detailing.

    Post a picture of your detail shop or mobile detail rig and a brief story about how you got started and you will be entered to win an Autogeek bag filled with swag!

    Here's an example of what we're looking for. This shop belongs to Robert DiterLizzi of Impressions Fine Automotive Detailing





    10 winners will be selected on October 13rd!

  2. #2
    McKee's 37 Product Support
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    Ready...set...go!

  3. #3
    Super Member refreshauto's Avatar
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    Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    Needs to be painted and banners hung up, but this is the shop. I got started when my 2006 Acura was destroyed by a detailer. I then started researching detailing and buffing and found Mikes Detailing Boot Camp. After taking the class I started with it part time until I went full time earlier this year.

    Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!-imageuploadedbyagonline1474484231-746872-jpg

    Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!-imageuploadedbyagonline1474484249-881287-jpg

    Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!-imageuploadedbyagonline1474484260-215105-jpg

    Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!-imageuploadedbyagonline1474484270-249768-jpg

  4. #4
    Super Member zmcgovern45's Avatar
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    Bear with me, here comes an abbreviated life story...

    I've been a detailing enthusiast since before I could drive... my story is probably similar to many others on here in that my dad was and still is a car guy. He liked to keep his vehicles clean, and it was a weekly thing to pull them out onto the driveway for their regular washing. Once a year or so, they would be clayed and polished with his porter cable machine. I always enjoyed helping, and carried on the routine when I got my first car when I was 16. Most will tell you it was always the cleanest car in the school parking lot... keeping in mind I had no idea what swirl marks were, what the 2 bucket method was, etc etc. (ignorance is bliss!!)

    Fast forward to college when the internet was really booming and forums were becoming a normal source of information... I stumbled upon the Autogeek forum and my life was changed forever. I quickly began to realize that the products and tools I had been using all along were capable of so much more. From this day on, my bank account would never be the same... I spent days at a time scouring through Show N Shine threads and other informational articles to soak up as much info as I could. This was all put into practice on my own car as well as vehicles of family and friends.

    After college I moved a few hours away from home to begin my engineering career. My girlfriend (now wife) was still pursuing her masters degree, so I was all alone with nothing to do. I happened to find a group of local car enthusiasts on a forum, and one day found someone asking for recommendations on a place for paint correction work. I volunteered to help out, but was caught off guard when they asked how much I charged. I had never considered pursuing detailing as any sort of job, but in the end I asked for a small amount of money to cover my product cost, and spent the weekend polishing some paint without losing any money. To me, it was great! Since I am a photography enthusiast and was well versed in the Autogeek write up format, I documented the process and shared my work on the same local forum where I originally found my first customer. The post received a lot of attention, and all of the sudden I had several people who were asking to drop their cars off with me........ and a business was born.



    The rest of the story is much more current, and if you've been following our work here on the forum over the years, it may seem familiar, so I will summarize it drastically...

    I began working out of the garage at my apartment. I worked on weekends mostly, and would do everything from your basic detailing to more advanced paint correction work. This went on for a little over a year until we bought our house....




    I then worked at our house for a couple of years. By now my services were in high enough demand that I could completely eliminate the basic detailing work and focus solely on paint correction & nano coating work. I would wash cars in the drive way, and work in the garage. My neighbors enjoyed looking at the fancy cars every weekend, but the space was cramped, and the lack of climate control was a real burden with the midwest weather.




    At the end of 2015 I was given the opportunity to move into a warehouse space near my home that was owned by some existing clients of mine (realtors). They had used the space for personal storage, but were willing to allow me to rent it out for business use. It was too good of a deal to pass up, so I packed up everything detailing related that I owned and moved into our new shop.



    We were busy right from the start, and didn't even have time to clean the place up for a while (notice the clutter all over from the previous resident's remaining storage!)




    It has been a wild ride the past 5 years, to say the least... transforming a hobby into a full blown addiction has had its ups and down, but I don't regret any part of it. I am still a full time engineer and part time detailer, and I now have a few part time helpers (close friends of mine) who help me get through our workload each year. While I don't have any plans to make detailing a full time career, it is something I am extremely passionate about and am looking forward to continuing to grow both my business and knowledge, while also passing along as much information to other detailers as I can. Hopefully at least one of you has found my posts on this forum, other forums, and the DI AAP Blog to be helpful!

    (If you made it to the end, you should win a prize... thanks for reading!)

    -Zach

    Retired Professional Detailer

  5. #5
    Super Member Eric@CherryOnTop's Avatar
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    Zach wins.... :-p
    Cherry on Top Auto Detailing, Fishkill NY

    https://www.facebook.com/CherryOnTopDetailing

  6. #6
    Super Member choijw2's Avatar
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    My interests in detailing started when I was in college.

    During my senior year in college I lived in this area called "Hell Block" because it's where the parties were 24/7, people screaming, partying all night, throwing beer bottles off the street..... And one day, I got up to my car and someone keyed my hood...... big F word....
    I was in college and certainly not had enough luxury to take my car to detailer to remove that big ugly scratch off my hood, in fact, I might not even bothered to fix this if it wasn't for the F word.
    To save myself some money, I picked up a used harbor fright rotary polisher just by paying a shipping cost and picked up a 6.5" cutting pad by cobra with a bottle of meguiar's ultimate compound off local auto store.
    Funny thing, when I received my polisher.... it had 7" backing plate so I ended up using pad that is too small for backing plate as my first attempt to remove scratch.

    Well here goes nothing, I polished my hood with 6.5" pad on 7" backing plate on speed "5" using a ROTARY polisher and you can guess what happened...
    I ruined my paint by burning it. What happened was I watched how to polish with DA on youtube and used same logic with rotary polisher, that's how stupid I was back then. It was painful experience, but it got me motivated to learn more about detailing world and the more I learned more I enjoyed detailing cars, seeing paint works without any defects were pure joy.

    When I first started to detail for money, I tried so hard to get at least one customer per month, but now I am working on beautiful Ducati motorcycles, jet skies, and working on imported right hand drive Japanese cars on regular bases and I can't thank AGO family enough for all those helps I received. Restoring automotive paint work and seeing happy customer makes me feel absolutely grateful. I still got long way to go and still working out of my home garage, but I finally got myself LLC few months ago and looking forward to grow my business in this long journey.
























    Please like my page

    Jae @ ONYX Detail Garage

  7. #7
    Super Member sharpreflection's Avatar
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    I started detailing when I was a senior in high school. I had a 96 firebird and would spend most of my free time detailing it. One day this guy comes to the door and tells me he always drives by and sees me cleaning my car and asks how much I would charge to do his. I have learned so much since then and always continue to learn better my skills. U never had a dedicated detail rigg till last year. I used to detail out of my house or if I did go mobile I would pack everything into my car. I bought this trailer for $450.00 it is not very attractive but has allowed me to become more mobile and convenient for my customers. I hope to upgrade one day but fir now it is just fine. Thanks to all on this forum and Mike Phillips for all the help and tips. And thank you Autogeekfor selling the awesome products you sell which has taken my level of details from ano the level when I found this site

    Detailing in Colorado since 2001

  8. #8
    Super Member Jeremy1976's Avatar
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    I started detailing when I was 7 and I got my first BMX bike. I was always very fussy and when my buddies would drop their bikes in the ground I would set mine up against something. I washed and waxes that bike every week. My dad had some Turtle Wax I used. I worked jobs around the house to save up half. Once I saved up half my parents booted the other half. That taught me work ethic, the value of a dollar, and the appreciation for the things I worked hard for.

    I continued detailing my bikes and vehicles followed suit as soon as I turned 16 and had money saved for a truck.

    My passion has followed me through the years and now I detail professionally part time. My garage is my detail shop and man cave so to speak. It is my relaxation and place of peace detailing and working on vehicles in it.

    My garage/detail shop is kind of like my vehicles. I take great pride in keeping it clean and organized, along with adding amenities to it. This year I got it heated and floor resealed, along with new kobalt cabinets, now cord reel, new LED lighting, mat washing station, and a professional grade steam cleaner, Diamond plating is going up in October.

    I want to give a shout out and thanks to Nick and AG for doing these giveaways. Speaks volumes for them and the company.

    Thanks.






    Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

  9. #9
    Regular Member
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    You're all living my dream lol. Congratulations to you all in the business and those of you that are starting out. I wish you all the best and luck in the world. Hopefully soon, I'll get my opportunity to start myself.

  10. #10
    Super Member Brandon Wetch's Avatar
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    Re: Post Your Detail Shop and WIN!

    Wow this is nice. I got an interesting story as well. I'll take a pic and share my story soon


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. I'm beginning to feel like a Wax Hog, Wax Hog
    -Mr. Slick, Palm Springs' Mobile Detailer

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