How long does it take you to detail?

So, I've just started detailing, I did my second car today. For both cars, I had less than 4 hours to do the detail, and I always felt pressed for time near the end. I know I'll eventually get more efficient but I want to know what a reasonable amount of time for what I'm doing is. Today, I spent about 3.5-4 hours on a Ford Flex. The car is only about 2 years old, but the interior had never been cleaned. The owner liked coffee so there were spots where that had made a mess on the plastics. He also has 2 young kids, so the usual dirt all over the plastic, carpet, and pretty much everything, and there were these weird bits of grass that were very difficult to get out of the back carpet. The exterior had never been washed either. So I did an extensive vacuuming, wipedown with APC, and dressed with poorboy's natural look (first time with this product, I liked it:thumb I also cleaned the glass. Exterior foamed and then hand washed, exterior plastics dressed. I know 4 hours was too long for that detail but I'm still learning. It's the interior on this car (and a lot of the cars I'll be detailing) that takes forever, because these people carry children around everywhere, so EVERYTHING on the inside takes a beating and requires cleaning. About how long would it take you to detail? Are there any tricks that you have found save lots of time? Sorry for the long post...

Thanks,

Clark

 

You've asked the million dollar question. There really is no set time as to how long it will take to do a detail "Properly" :hmph:

Every car is different and so will your time limits. Expeirence will save you some time, but there is no substitute for doing the job "Properly" :meditation:

 

4 hours is a long time for just a "basic" detail with no polishing involved. I would say 2.5h-3h max for a car like this.

Heres my breakdown: 1hour wash- door jambs, wheels, and panels, 10min (wax application), go to interior: Vacuum front, got to exterior: remove wax (10 min), finish vacuuming and removing stains with APC, "should" take 1- 1.5h, then the finishing touches: dress tires, wax wheels, interior dressing, air freshener, exterior plastic dressed (30min-1hour)

It all depends how fast paced you are. Using my guideline is me speed which is pretty slow if you ask me

It all depends on how much the customer paid for. If they paid for a full interior and exterior job at my set price, then I will take my time to do things nicely, but if a person pays for an exterior detail with a one step polish, no matter how bad the paint is, I have to move on since I was paid to do one step.

EDIT: Ohh, it was a flex... those are huge. You need to make them pay extra for large vehicles like that.

 

If the interior was dirty, it wouldn't surprise me that it took 4 hours. I did a Navigator yesterday that took 3.5 hours for a basic wash and vacuum. If it takes 4 hours then it takes 4 hours. Its not right unless its clean.

 

It's the interior that took the longest. I had the outside finished up in about an hour, no trouble. But the farther I got into the interior the more I found that had to be cleaned...stuff that took 2 or 3 passes with a vacuum to get up, and dirt all over ALL the interior plastics...and that car has a LOT of plastic inside. Small children get crumbs EVERYWHERE. It was also my first go at dressing an interior, so I was taking my time there.

My parents went out to eat with the family who owns that car later that night, they were not expecting it to be that well done at all, and were really impressed.

 

I never dress interiors for that reason. I make sure everything is spotless and leave it at that.

 

You have a good point...and that interior looked pretty good anyway, the car was only 2 years old. I might save the dressing for my own personal cars or people who are paying extra for me to wax it or something like that...or really bad interiors.

 

yup if you charge correctly you can have all the time you want

we usually keep most cars for the day to make sure everything is okay, for jobs that require paint correction we usually do 2 plus days.

 

Anywhere between 3 and 20 hours, usually

 

I don't make much on the cars I do...I'm only 16, so of course I can't charge as much as a pro would. I only charged $35 for my first 2 cars but I was paid $45 and $40, respectively. I think I may raise my rates a bit though...but hopefully I can get a bunch of details in this summer. My first client has this MASSIVE email list and offered to send out an email to everyone about my service with a testimonial...

 

35 for a simple wash and wax? or just wash?

 

damn in my opinion if the interior is that dirty, we move to doing an interior detail w/basic exterior wash. about $100. i dont remove stains and all that on a basic wash. we do a great job and do a lot of extras, but my time is valuable and wont work for free.

if the OP charged only $35 and took 4 hours to finish, he basically made $8.75. now take into account, travel, supplies and all the other misc things and he might have made $5.00 an hour. not really worth it even at 16 years old.

dont get your customers used to paying such low rates or you will get screwed in the long run. i know several people here that are doing $8.00 basic washes and bitching people wont pay more. why would some one pay more?? better quality? more convenience? you have to show your customers the benefit of your service. with out showing the benefits, you might as well forget it. we used to call it ABC-advantage, benefit, close.

 

I charge $35 for full interior detail and exterior wash. I'm going to raise my prices, I'm just giving my neighbors and friends deals because they've done stuff for me, so I figure this is a good way to pay them back. For people I don't know I'll probably charge around $50-60ish...that's still cheaper than I'd like but no one would pay a ton more than that for a teenager to detail their car, even though I'm using the same stuff that a professional detailer would use. What do y'all charge for a full interior detail and wash, I'm trying to get some ideas here. The only thing I don't do is stain removal...

 

yeah, it all depends. some cars take longer due to size, amount of dirt, or what the customer wants!

 

The thing is, I dunno if anyone would actually pay $50 or $60 to have a teenager detail their car. I'm doing it the right way, but they don't know the difference. Most of the cars I'm detailing are the soccer-mom runabout, nothing special. I'm thinking $45 would be the most anyone's willing to pay... but I dunno. I'll have to see, because I actually want to make good money doing this; this is my only job.

 

Full interior detail including shampooing upholstery and cleaning /conditioning leather starts at $250. Thats nothing on the outside. It takes a long time to do an interior properly so I charge for it. I only do two or three a year. People don't want to pay for it so I direct them to some one cheaper.

 

I always spend way too long... like 20+ hours... but I also seem to always do hammered cars lol...

 

The thing is, I really take pride in doing my interiors, and it's my favorite part of the car. There's only so much you can do for the outside of an abused car without polishing skills and materials, but with some APC, dressing, a shopvac, microfibre, and elbow grease (that's a weird phrase), I can make a trashed interior look great. Since what I do on the outside is just a basic wash, I try to do a great job on the interior. But if I made $45 on every detail, I'd be happy with it. Especially this summer, when I don't have anything better to do. And I'd rather make less money doing something I enjoy than making more money working in, say, fast food. I also watch people's pets while they're away, and everyone around here pays pretty good, so I also have money from that.

 

You gotta do what makes you happy. I would still up your rates a bit though.

 

Then you get a steamer and you think holy crap my interior were terrible before this...