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  1. #11
    Super Member dcjredline's Avatar
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    Why do you make $100 an hour doing a car but then make almost half of that ($57) an hour for a midsize SUV or Minivan? Maybe that is why you dont feel like you make enough on an SUV like the Porsches you did. By your sedan pricing if a SUV takes you 7 hours you should charge $700 or so. Why discount it then ask US how to make money on SUV's? Very confusing post. Sorry.
    "Dirt likes detergent so much better than the surface that it's attached to, it'll leave that surface to go hang out with the soap"...aim4squirrels

  2. #12
    Super Member Dan Tran's Avatar
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    How to Make Money on SUV's

    Quote Originally Posted by dcjredline View Post
    Why do you make $100 an hour doing a car but then make almost half of that ($57) an hour for a midsize SUV or Minivan? Maybe that is why you dont feel like you make enough on an SUV like the Porsches you did. By your sedan pricing if a SUV takes you 7 hours you should charge $700 or so. Why discount it then ask US how to make money on SUV's? Very confusing post. Sorry.
    This was exactly what I was thinking. Price it on your time and results.

  3. #13
    Super Member Dan Tran's Avatar
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    How to Make Money on SUV's

    Quote Originally Posted by waelwell View Post
    I recently did my first two SUV's. Two Porsche Cayenne's. Ouch. It took me a long time to detail those vehicles and compared to the time I take and what I charge, SUV's look unattractive cars right now. Here's the data.

    I'm currently charging the following for a basic (single step) exterior detail:

    2 or 4 door car $300 ~3 hours
    Midsize SUV or Minivan $400 ~7 hour
    Full size (Suburban or similar) $500 ?

    Yeah, I know my rates are higher than most of yours. Don't worry about that part. My customers are fine with it and I'm not the most expensive in my area.

    Here's my problem. An extra hundred buck buys me an extra 1 - 2 hours to do an SUV over a car. That means I should be doing the SUV's in 5 hours not 7. Raising my prices will put we out of line with my competition. I know I need a Werner platform to work on the top of the SUV's instead of the small step ladder I currently use. But that's not going to trim an hour or more off my time.

    What's your take? Are bigger vehicles just lower margin items?

    Thanks,

    Bill

    Oh yeah, you guys seem to like to see pictures so here you go.
    Attachment 51693
    One pattern that I come across the most, when it comes to pricing is that most people fall into the category of “not the most expensive in the area.”

    What is wrong with pricing correctly and as a result...actually happen to be the most expensive in your area?

    SUVs are no joke. You should take time to do it correctly and be compensated for your time. Not trying to make “low margin” work by working faster. Business is a game of margin. Work smarter not harder.

    Take interiors for example, for an SUV, I charge a minimum of $280. As a side note I used to charge a minimum of $560 (SUV) for a one-step paint correction then realized fast that I was banking in more per hour just with interiors at my standards of a true one-step.

    Logically, $560 for any job sounds good right? But like I said, SUVs are no joke. You wake up sore the next morning. For several more reasons I don’t do jobs just for the sake of $560 when I can book interiors faster and make $700+ in the same amount of time I can crank out a one-step (SUV).

    So now I charge $800 minimum for a single stage paint correction just for a small/mod-size car alone. And quite frankly, I kept my margin up even on SUVs. In some cases I make more margin on SUVs than most cars. Again, because it needs to be priced correctly.

    I hope this is useful.

  4. #14
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    This is a 4 year old thread. I'm curios if the OP is still chARGING THOSE RATES AND STILL TAKING THAT AMOUNT OF TIME. Sorry for the CAPS

  5. #15
    Mike Phillips
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    Quote Originally Posted by Billy Baldone View Post

    This is a 4 year old thread.

    The first thing I "try" to do anytime I >click< on a thread is first look at the post date for the first post.

    There's nothing wrong with bringing back threads from the graveyard because often time there's always great information to be discussed and shared.

    Could be OP has moved on to something else or is still chugging away at it.




  6. #16
    Mike Phillips
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    FWIW

    I sent the OP and e-mail with the link to this thread and asked him if he could update us as to where he's at with detailing.




  7. Likes TTQ B4U, PaulMys liked this post
  8. #17
    Super Member Dan Tran's Avatar
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    I can’t believe I fell victim to an old thread. Oops. Fortunately, anyone looking into this well into the future will hopefully find it beneficial to their (current & future) business.

  9. Likes TTQ B4U liked this post
  10. #18
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    LOL on the old thread. I genuinely would love an update

  11. #19
    Super Member sudsmobile's Avatar
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    If it was taking him 7 hours to do essentially a wash, clay and sealant on a mid size SUV as a pro I'm guessing he's no longer in the game.

  12. Likes TTQ B4U liked this post
  13. #20
    Super Member TTQ B4U's Avatar
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    Re: How to Make Money on SUV's

    Quote Originally Posted by sudsmobile View Post
    If it was taking him 7 hours to do essentially a wash, clay and sealant on a mid size SUV as a pro I'm guessing he's no longer in the game.

    On a small SUV 2 Row SUV like an escape or Rogue I budget about 6hrs. On a larger 3 row one like an Explorer or Pilot I budget about 7.5hrs. It rarely take me that long though. The budgets for time are there as a guide for me. The goal for me is to at very minimum make $50hr but I'm usually well past that and am in the $80 to $100+ per hour. Sometimes we get vehicles that are much easier to finish than others. Thankfully most are easier. I may tend to make more on the easier to correct stuff and on the tougher jobs like a German SUV, I push coatings because the efforts to correct hard paint not only work me harder but may take me a little longer depending on a number of factors. However, I can then recoup my profitability by doing a coating as they are relatively easy and I can do them quickly. I probably should re-do my time budgets which only I see and base them more on my actual earnings per hour as that 2 Row SUV likely only takes me 3-4hrs vs the 6 but I'm so set in how I have my formulas set up that it's what I still use after all this time.
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