dealership contracts

What would you put in them besides price? what kind of guarantees, negotiation terms, ect would you put in a contract?

 

I've never seen a dealership that would do this. Besides, if they wanted to break the contract all they would have to do is say you were a hack :duh:

 

Any more specifics?

There's a big difference between doing mass washing for a toyota dealership and paint correction for a Ferrari dealership, which one do you mean? BTW, I would shoot David Fermani a PM about it, I'm not sure if he does it but he's always saying that the real money in detailing is through doing mass detailing, he seems to know a decent bit about it.

 

Car dealerships don't sign contracts. If you want to do business for them, you gotta do what then want it, for the price they want, and have it done by yesterday. Best of luck.


John

 

O.K., I just spit chocalate milk onto my monitor. No fun :giggle:

 

Bryan..I have probably done 5 or 6 jobs for the local Infiniti dealer. He only calls me for their rough stuff. He tries to beat me up a bit on price but he's pretty good. I have always amazed them with what I do so he doesn't argue too much any more. (I got a lot of referrals from him as well). I do the work, leave a hand written bill explaining what I did and list the year, model and VIN of the car. I get a cheque in the mail in about a week or so usually. Nothing like having more than one source for work!!

 

its mostly for resale prep of used cars, wash, wax, interior and engine cleanup, polishing is extra

 

for my local ford dealership here's what i do.


Interior Shampoo (carpets and seats including vacuum)
Exterior Wash (tires, wheel wells, body)
Complete dress (interior dash, tires)
Engine Bay clean (wash and degrease engine bay)
All Windows and door jambs.

All for $80....getting ripped off but at the same time they refer me to ALL their customers. Also getting a letter of recommendation from them and a referral to another Ford dealership in the city.

They keep me busy at times...I get anywhere from 3-7 cars per week from them alone!

Waseem

 

I seriously doubt you'll have success getting a dealer to sign a contract for your services, but who knows with this economy? What is most prevalent is verbal agreements based on certain workflows that can be negotiated. Try probing the dealer to see how many vehicles they'll be willing to send you monthly. This way you can baseline your agreement on that.

 

good stuff. dealership work is great for the slow times to fill in the gaps in your schedule. I need to find me some bulk work like that. I'm not sure they will sign a contract but maybe you can talk things over with them and type some general stuff out such as:

Approx quantity of vehicles they might send you (per week or per month)
What is to be done to these vehicles (wash, wax, etc)
Approx amount to be paid per vehicle

and extra services are available for a additional fee

have him look it over and keep a copy for yourself and give him a copy . . . . . . that way you are both on the same page about things and it's more of a general guidelines type thing rather then trying to get them to sign a contract.

 

I look at dealers more like free lance work where id expect to break even on my time and money AT THE MOST. The only benifit (And it more than makes up for the loss in time and money) is the fact that they only happen to deal with anything from a body shop to the customers themselves. Talking and dealing with that many people their definately going to run into alot that may need detailing services. The question is, will they remember your name when that conversation arises?

 

haha so funny yet so true...:chips:

 

If you're only breaking even doing dealer work, I'm afraid you're doing something wrong. It's probably the most profitable form of detailing if you know what you're doing.

 

Some high volume shops make great money doing dealership work, I know I used to work for one. My idea for the contract was to put expectations on the table so there was little conflict down the road. I heard Mr Fermani made good money doing high volume so I respect his opinion.

 

I totally agree. In 18 years I have never done dealership work other than for a friend that had a small lot. I think dealer work CAN fill a need like in the winter months when retail work dries up but I wouldn't want to depend on or build my business on it. You can't even call that kind of work detailing.

Could you elaborate on this. Dealers out here are paying around $125 for a full detail. Thats a wash, wax, interior detail incl shampoo and engine shampoo. You'd have to do that in in less than 3 hours to be even slightly profitable if you are running your business out of a shop.

 

About 2-3 years ago, i looked into what a dealership would pay to have a car detailed for the lot, and the going rate was around 100-125 bucks. Not sure how much profit is left after that, so i never considered doing it. Actually detailing for friends,etc., has been very good to me, most people have given me tips, don't think a dealership would do that, so, you do what works for you i guess.

 

Just because every swirl isn't getting removed and expensive waxes aren't being used doesn't discredit this as Detailing? The detailing industry as a whole doesn't revolve around this expectation. It's a niche and if you can excell in it more power to you. Not all areas support this level of perfection IMHO.

Ist off, you're shop has to be set up/geared to do high volume work. Your processes need to be whittled down to reduce the actual touch time for the technician to produce max production to pacify the customer's expectations. We had 2 people who prepped cars, final QC and deliveries and then 6 detailers. We charged $70-90 for a complete detail for dealers and also did quite a bit of retail work for ~$200. We had no problem doing 25-35 cars per day(which included complete details, interiors and new car preps), 5-6 days a week for 15 large car dealerships. We were located in the Metro Detroit area encompassing 85% of the market share, maintained 100% of our dealer clients through several owner and management transitions and retained several of the original people hired day 1 of the 10 years opperation. We usually operated around 50-60% total overhead. It can be done. I know several others that operate at and above these capacities successfully. I wish I could have be able to get $125! Still having a hard time breaking the 3 figure barrier.

 

I applaud your ability to run that operation at that level for so many years. Turning out that many cars on a daily basis is a feat in itself, let alone doing it profitably. The term "detailing", IMO should however be reserved for jobs that involve a little more than "pacifying the clients expectations". In the UK, the kind of work done at dealerships etc is referred to as "valeting" whereas "detailing" is a moniker reserved for more in depth work. Unfortunately it is a system that should be adopted in North America as well as there are too many people calling themselves detailers when the work being done falls far short and gives the detailing industry a black eye as a whole. I take a lot of pride in the work I do, but still don't consider any job that the average guy could do, "detailing". Just my 2 cents.

 

the debate of cleaning vs detailing will probably go on forever. I agree with ken that true detailing, which can encompass more that just polishing and wetsanding, (leather/vinyl repair, ppf, tinting, paint repair, redying, windshield repair, wheel refinishing, ect ect.) As a business, car cleaning, more along the high volume lines can be very profitable and shouldn't be looked down upon. There are very good car cleaning shops out there that pump out mass volumes. There aren't a tonne in Canada but in the bigger cities in the states there are quite a few. Systems like the Detail Plus line, are geared toward high volume and cost a lot of money to implement, $75000+ for equipment. The same ethics hold true, whether your cleaning or detailing, doing a poor job will put you out of business quickly. Dealerships are some of the pickiest customers when it comes to car appearance (mostly cleanliness) not so much with the polishing.

 

I may be doing something wrong, dunno. but i havent dealt with many dealers over all, the ones i have dealt with were ok, but most wanted it for the amount i was practically paying to use supplies...