charter bus detail questions

[Guest]

I may soon be doing details/washes on 8 charter buses for a company that rents for proms weddings, etc and i have a few questions.

well actually one question- how much?

these buses are big party buses. there are eight of them. washing them will include washing the outside, wheels etc. vacuuming the seats, mopping the floor, and cleaning the interior windows. and draining the bathroom tank and refilling it with fresh water.

a detail would probably just be an application of cleaner wax.

the guy has all the equipment for me-hoses, brushes, soaps etc.

how much should i be getting to just wash a bus and how much to detail one?

i asked him if he wanted to go by way of a contract rate or salary, and he said whichever i wanted.

ive done plenty of details before but ive never had a corporate account like this and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.


thanks in advance.

[RaskyR1]

Re: charter bus detail questions

I'd maybe get some of the new D151 for the exterior.

Sounds like a LOT of work. I'd maybe multiply the hourly rate you'd like to make by the amount of hours it takes you. See if he'd be open to negotiating a rate based on how long the first one takes you...

Rasky

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: charter bus detail questions

Sounds like a LOT of work. I'd maybe multiply the hourly rate you'd like to make by the amount of hours it takes you. See if he'd be open to negotiating a rate based on how long the first one takes you...

Rasky

Sounds like a good idea.

Superior Shine did a fleet of school buses - maybe he could give you an idea in terms of time, at least for the exterior.

[Mr Mustang]

Re: charter bus detail questions

or see about hourly for the first one, and then talk to him about the rest.

I usually find that it takes me longer to detail a vehicle the first time than subsequent times.

[joebennz]

Re: charter bus detail questions

rasky r1 - i got some prc...works great but dusts like mad

kerrinjeff - yea the only problem is that i will be doing it myself. iirc Superior Shine had a litttle detailing militia to tackle that contact

Mr Mustang- i think we have a winner!! lol that sounds like a good plan.

I spoke with my friends father who used to have a powerwashing businesse for trucks and buses and he said for those big buses I should charge 30 for exterior and 30 for interior, so maybe 50 a bus since he has 8 of them. i think i will do the first one and go from there. thanks for your help

[archie2135]

Re: charter bus detail questions

think about it. if you do one bus a day by yourself you will only make 50 per day. if i were doing a big project like this i would charge an hourly rate of about 30-40 per hour. then if your hours stack up to over 100 hours or something give him a discount.

[RaskyR1]

Re: charter bus detail questions

rasky r1 - i got some prc...works great but dusts like mad

kerrinjeff - yea the only problem is that i will be doing it myself. iirc Superior Shine had a litttle detailing militia to tackle that contact

Mr Mustang- i think we have a winner!! lol that sounds like a good plan.

I spoke with my friends father who used to have a powerwashing businesse for trucks and buses and he said for those big buses I should charge 30 for exterior and 30 for interior, so maybe 50 a bus since he has 8 of them. i think i will do the first one and go from there. thanks for your help

Really? I didn't notice any dusting at all. Of coarse I've only used it on one car so far, which was a black single stage, but I had amazing results. I guess I'll have to try it on some different paint but I did a demo this last weekend for about 15-20 people and even let them try it out. They were all VERY impressed.

[Mr Mustang]

Re: charter bus detail questions

maybe 50 for just washing them down, but even with the large windows in those buses, an application of even cleaner wax will take quite a while. At least on the bright side, they have lots of big flat surfaces

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: charter bus detail questions

I think you are going on the cheap side. If the whole job takes 10 hours. at even 50 bucks each, interior and exterior thats only 10 per hour. Seems awful low to me.

[joebennz]

Re: charter bus detail questions

I think you are going on the cheap side. If the whole job takes 10 hours. at even 50 bucks each, interior and exterior thats only 10 per hour. Seems awful low to me.

i definately dont think that washing one bus is going to take me 10 hours. i think that one bus would take 2 or 3 at the most. waxing is another story tho.

rasky- i used prc on a lexus gx and a camry hybrid. the lexus was outside in partial shade and the dusting was so bad i had to go over the whole car in last touch twice. the camry was done in the garage and i had to go over it with a mf to get it all off. it was like 85 degrees out last saturday when i did them. results spoke for themselves tho. its much easier to wipe off the dust that wipe off polish lol

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: charter bus detail questions

That was what I was getting at. If you get 50 bucks for doing the exterior including waxing. Then you get 50 bucks for the interior. Thats 100 bucks. Say 3 hours to wash, 3 hours at least to wax. Then 2-3 hours to do interior. Thats 8-9 hours. That breaks down to somewhere between 11.00-12.50 per hour. Thats what I was trying to get at. Sorry if my previous post was not clear.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: charter bus detail questions

Joe aka Superior Shine has detailed a number of school buses in the past and his experience with this type of work will be invaluable to you, I'll shoot him an e-mail and ask him to chime in....

[joebennz]

Re: charter bus detail questions

Joe aka Superior Shine has detailed a number of school buses in the past and his experience with this type of work will be invaluable to you, I'll shoot him an e-mail and ask him to chime in....

ok great, that would be very helpful

[Superior Shine]

Re: charter bus detail questions

Never did a charter bus.

School buses are very different from charter buses.

My RV experience maybe beneficial to you though.


We charge $4 per foot to wash, $10 -$12 to wax, $15-$20 to polish and wax. All these prices are for exterior only.

Do one and track your time then charge your labor rate x time for the remaining buses.

[RaskyR1]

Re: charter bus detail questions

i definately dont think that washing one bus is going to take me 10 hours. i think that one bus would take 2 or 3 at the most. waxing is another story tho.

rasky- i used prc on a lexus gx and a camry hybrid. the lexus was outside in partial shade and the dusting was so bad i had to go over the whole car in last touch twice. the camry was done in the garage and i had to go over it with a mf to get it all off. it was like 85 degrees out last saturday when i did them. results spoke for themselves tho. its much easier to wipe off the dust that wipe off polish lol

So I tried out the D151 again last night but this time it was on my TSX, which I believe has a tinted clear. I did see a small amount of dusting this time around so it added a few minutes to the clean up, but wiped off with ease. My paint looks awesome too.