has anyone every sat down and tryed to figure out the cost to detail a vehicle.im not talking about the cost to start up (like tools,buffer,pressure washer etc) im talking about you already have everything and what you use is what you count. ive been told the cost of a detail is only $5 but i find that highly unlikely even with otc products. so i was wondering if anyone out has ever done the math on this. ive tryed to figure it out myself but its starts getting really complicated. i know everyones anwser will be differant but i'll be happy with a ball park. :help:
Depends on the person and the products they use. Everyone values their skills differently, some charge $500 for a complete job, some charge $5000. Its like a hairstylist, you can get a good one for about $10 but you can get one that can do the exact same thing for about $50. Detailing, like many other professions is one where value is based on prestige. Therefore, if you're the best car cleaner in your city, you can charge the most.
I would guess $5 for OTC and $10 or $15 for high end products. Figure out how many cars it takes you to finish a bottle, anywhere from I would guess 20 to 30 uses. If it takes you about 20 cars to finish a bottle of product, and that bottle costs you $20, then it cost you $1 for each car to use that product. Then figure out every other product. but why worry about it right? Just have fun.
As a student in business, this was one of my first questions I asked myself before even getting any supplies. I calculated all the costs from wash, window cleaning, clay, polish, shampoo and everything so that I could properly calculate profit and such. To my surprise a simple wash and wax came to less than $3 depending on the wax used but getting into the polishing it came upwards of $10 but that included interior and dressings and such. This is the reason I believe that many detailers last a year and disappear and others stay forever.
I just do my best to minimize the cost by using Zep APC's and glass cleaner and DG products to seal. Menzerna is the most expensive product I use.
Clay and Menzerna polish is probably the most expensive, it varies a lot. If you have a car that feels like sandpaper and use a full clay bar on it, that's $20 by itself. Generally it's around $15 to $20 for a full correction with a good wax, quick wash and wax is like $2-3.
Tony, I thought in your pm to me you meant labor so sorry... The numbers will vary, but a good rule of thumb is for a mobile set up 8% of your hourly rate and fixed with insurance, utilities etc.... 15% - 18% of your hourly rate. Hope this helps.
But you need to calculate that microfiber towels are not going to last forever and you need to put in a cost for every machine that you use because they are expensive and will not last forever. Do a makita polisher last 100 cars?
Microfibres that are properly maintained will last more than a year easily. My Makita was used for three years and was retired only because I got a Flex. Some guys here have been using the same polisher forever. Its not something you will replace very often. My Cobex wet/dry vac cost $400 about 13 years ago and I finally had to put another motor in it this year. That cost $150. So as far as equipment goes, there is a big up front cost but you probably won't go down that road again for awhile. If you are doing this part time, you'll probably never have to replace your equipment if you buy quality stuff in the beginning.
Thats it right there. Buy quality products, and you will have the security knowing it will last. As far as a Makita goes I think my 9227C has done at least 200 cars, and it has zero issues. Though like anything else you must treat your tools with respect and service them often. I clean my Makita once a month, store my Fein vacuum open so it can dry out, clean the filters often. wash your Microfibres after each detail, Its probably best to order about5 50, so you still have fresh ones to use while you wash the others. Quite simple in the end if you pay cheap, you will pay twice.
Like anything your start up cost are alot but you will earn that back on the long term. Lets say you buy 25 MFs for a total of $100. You estimate each will last apx 50 times (just making up number) Then your "cost" of using those MFs for each wash is apx $2. You add in the product cost, machine wear, water, electricity, insurance, health care, and all other fixed expenses and you then get how much it cost you to detail a car, if you count your time as no value. If you are looking at just disposable products such as chems then it is very cheap it is all the other stuff such as machine wear, rent, utilities, health insurance (if you doing it full time and no other way to get insurance) and other fixed expenses and asset deprecation is what is going to cost 4-5x what your chems cost per wash. You have to choose what you want to look at and what you want to add into the equation. If you are detailing part time and your full time job pays for insurance then you just need to think about utilities and what not. You may not think you are using that much electricity or using very little amount of water per car, but you get to doing 10-20 cars a month it will add a decent amount to your bills. For example, I have a friend who recently started doing some custom painting of small parts, he is amazing with a air brush, so he does parts for bikes and what not. Well he started out in his garage doing it and started seeing a spike in his electricity bill due to having halogen lights on for most of the day while he painted, having to run a compressor and what not. He ended up getting some electricity meters and put them in the outlets to see how much he was using and then had to adjust his pricing to take into account of that as he didnt think it was a big deal when he was only doing a few a week. As he got more and more and started taking up most of his day and all week it started adding up and had to adjust pricing. Edit: Wrote this before going to class, but just remembered that your fixed expenses are just that fixed no matter how many cars you do so the more cars you do obviously the cost is spread out over more numbers of cars and thus reducing per car cost.
