hey all, so I have been doing alot of customer cars this year thanks to the optima. I find it very funny that I have gone from primarily polishing cars nad wowing the customers to simply washing the car with steam, which removes all the tar spots and just makes it look flush, and then waxing the car. I am really making a killing with this. I have gotten feedback though from one of my customers that nobody matches what I do with the exterior, hands down, but I miss areas on the interior sometimes. no always. I was wondering if anyone out there has a list of steps, in order, that they do when hitting the interiors of cars to avoid missing anything. so far the complaints have been that I sometimes miss those little pocket areas on the insides of the doors. they all love what the optima does to the floor matts and the air vents as well as the little areas but I need to make sense of my chaos caused from doing the interior to make sure I do not miss areas like that again. I want to keep them coming back godoman
Sounds like you might need to slowit down a bit. If you are already aware of the pockets you keep missing, then that would be where I would start. If like you say, that there have been a few complaints, you can probally quadruple that number as many ppl tend not to complain. They will either accept your shortcomings or look elsewhere :tiptoe: There really is no substitute for quality, and to provide quality results requires time and a sharp eye for details :hmph:
I vacuum the whole interior first, then I use the vx5000 and steam clean/wipe section by section. It took me 2 hours to clean the inside of the matrix that I just did. Just take your time, maybe you are too comfortable/confident with the optima.
I think that both of you are dead on. the customers that I am doing wash and waxes for are in and out in 2 hours or less. they rave bout the exterior with power lock on it and the wash that the optima does with the towels I use is way better than any soap and water that I use, hands down. I hate the interior though, that is prob why I am cruising through it hoping for it to be over asap. I do the vacum realy good inside and then start steaming everywhere. I find though that the steam throws alot of stuff every where and it just makes more for me to have to wipe up later. I am going to do my normal rutine next car and then I will just use my ez and mf towels from costco to wipe everything down good. this way I am looking closely and using my fingers more than steam to throw it all over the place so that it will drip back down to those areas I just cleaned earlier. thanks godoman
As mentioned above, slow down and and do each panel thoroughly and methodically. If stuff is flying around when you steam, you need to do a better job vacuuming. It will typically take me 4-5 hours to do a relatively dirty interior. I just did a very clean Acura TL yesterday and the interior took 3 hours.
I think you are more on the side of a volume detailer... how fast can you bust out each car... Well I think that is problem #1... I don't think about how fast, I think about how good can I make the car look... it takes a lot of time, and sometimes I lose out on a car... but quality is always number one. A good detail just takes time, no way around it.
It is actually pretty hard to steam wash exterior, apply power lock, then vacuum inside, steam and wipe down whole interior, then wipe down power lock....in just 2 hours. If your partner is there to help you, it is possible. The Ridgid 4070 vacuum is actually not that powerful, so I spend more time vacuuming first. I think tools that save you time can lead you to cut corners and turn your goal into quantity>quality.
I am using the Ridgid WD1450 6 hp vacum which is pretty strong. all of you are right. I need to spend more time on the interior since I am knocking out the exterior so fast. I just did two of my neighbors SUV's to time myself and it only took me 20 minutes to steam clean the exterior of both of them and they were floored out how new the car looks with steam. the interior is my weak side that needs alot of work. godoman
Well, we all have are weak points. Mine is obviously the exterior. I can't even get the tires/wheels cleaned in 20 minutes :help:
