What do you clear hourly after expenses?

[InfiniteDetail]

After having detailed maybe a half a dozen cars now for money with AudionutMike, I'm just wondering what you seasoned pro's are netting per hour.

We typically come in at $10/hr or less. Either we're not charging enough or we are working too slow or both.

We could work a little faster, but we don't waste a lot of time either.

A typical 1 step buff with claying and washing the windows will take us 8 man-hrs. Is that normal or are we just working too slow?


Thanks!

[seth1066]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

After having detailed maybe a half a dozen cars now for money with AudionutMike, I'm just wondering what you seasoned pro's are netting per hour.

We typically come in at $10/hr or less. Either we're not charging enough or we are working too slow or both.

We could work a little faster, but we don't waste a lot of time either.

A typical 1 step buff with claying and washing the windows will take us 8 man-hrs. Is that normal or are we just working too slow?


Thanks!

Let's try it this way... What do you charge for the job? I'm assuming it's clay followed by M66 or D151?

[CAShine]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

I would not consider myself a seasoned pro, but I would like to give my input as part-time pro. I have not done an analysis of the cost per vehicle, but I take in around $23/hr taking approximately 8 hours to do the work. That would be a full service detail including waxing. Hope this helps.

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

Let's try it this way... What do you charge for the job? I'm assuming it's clay followed by M66 or D151?

For example, our last job was a Suburban that was in pretty rough shape with lots of carpet stains and the paint required compounding with 105 followed by 83/80/nxt.

We charged $300 and put in 38 man-hrs. Granted, about 13 of those hours were training teenagers, so let's say 30 solid man-hrs.

Admittedly we undercharged for a vehicle of this size. We're still trying to get a feel for competitive pricing. What would you have charged?

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

I would not consider myself a seasoned pro, but I would like to give my input as part-time pro. I have not done an analysis of the cost per vehicle, but I take in around $23/hr taking approximately 8 hours to do the work. That would be a full service detail including waxing. Hope this helps.

Does that also include defect removal? How many passes over the paint are you making?

[Sal329]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

I do not do this professinally I have had people see my 14 yr old car go from blah to shiney lol. My 99 Accord went from scratched to looking new again. I have had some people from work and people from local forums ask me to detail their cars.
I start with $125 for basic detail, one step (thank you Meguiars for comming out with D151 and another thanks to Blue Zero for the sample), wheels/tires cleaned sealed and tires shined, windows cleaned, interior vacuum, wiped down and dressed, this is starting price for a midsize car, Full size car +10 SUV +25... Add a second coat of wax/sealant +10
$225 gets 2 step polish, clay, shampoo carpets, and rest as above $225 is starting price depending on size and conditon of car
Paint correction is $65 an hour
I have done 1 $225 job and a lot more $125 jobs. People around here want a clean car and do not want to pay for it lol so the $125 works well for both parties. I listen to what the customer wants. Some want the attention on the interior and the outside clean. Others want shiney wheels and tires lol it all depends on the person.
At the end I can make about $20 an hour, hope to learn the rotary and maybe I can shed an hour off the detail

[Blackford]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

Obviously I didn't see the condition of the suburban and I am not a seasoned pro, but 30 hours seems like a long time. I personally won't work for less than $15/hr. Anything less just doesn't seem worth my time. As for the time, I recently detailed a Fullsize crewcab truck which was black with a lot of swirl marks. The work included wash, clay, M105, M80, M21, M26, tires, wheels, windows, trim, and engine compartment and that took me about 10 hours. I used my G100 DA polisher, not a rotarty so I could not get all the defects out completely but, I certainly tried my best. I think you might need to stream line your time. A suburban doesn't sound like a show car to me, so maybe you are spending more time on it than necessary Just my suggestion of course, I am not trying to knock your work.

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

I do not do this professinally I have had people see my 14 yr old car go from blah to shiney lol. My 99 Accord went from scratched to looking new again. I have had some people from work and people from local forums ask me to detail their cars.
I start with $125 for basic detail, one step (thank you Meguiars for comming out with D151 and another thanks to Blue Zero for the sample), wheels/tires cleaned sealed and tires shined, windows cleaned, interior vacuum, wiped down and dressed, this is starting price for a midsize car, Full size car +10 SUV +25... Add a second coat of wax/sealant +10
$225 gets 2 step polish, clay, shampoo carpets, and rest as above $225 is starting price depending on size and conditon of car
Paint correction is $65 an hour
I have done 1 $225 job and a lot more $125 jobs. People around here want a clean car and do not want to pay for it lol so the $125 works well for both parties. I listen to what the customer wants. Some want the attention on the interior and the outside clean. Others want shiney wheels and tires lol it all depends on the person.
At the end I can make about $20 an hour, hope to learn the rotary and maybe I can shed an hour off the detail

I think maybe our problem may be that we're taking on cars that need "Extreme Makeovers" and are charging for basic service only. We love doing it so we usually end up going "above and beyond" just because we are perfectionists. I guess that's fine as long as this is a part-time side gig. If we ever get really serious, we'll have to just do the work that they paid for I guess.

[seth1066]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

For example, our last job was a Suburban that was in pretty rough shape with lots of carpet stains and the paint required compounding with 105 followed by 83/80/nxt.

We charged $300 and put in 38 man-hrs. Granted, about 13 of those hours were training teenagers, so let's say 30 solid man-hrs.

Admittedly we undercharged for a vehicle of this size. We're still trying to get a feel for competitive pricing. What would you have charged?

I'm leaning towards not working more efficiently. Although it looks like you gave the customer a show car finish and a beautiful job, could it have gone from the 105 to the M80 without sacrificing too much quality?

I'm a buyer and do my own hyper details only on a few select units that I think are deserving for a value added situation to make a better profit on the buy/sell.

A volume commercial detail shop for a retail used car would have up to four people simultaneously on the exterior with buffers. They would probably charge $150-$200 on this Suburban, but produce only a "driver" finish doing at most a two step + wax, which they would apply and remove the fastest way possible. This is an example of efficiency not neccessarily quality.

Most of the work we sub gets a one step for a $100. The local ADESA auction does a one step and interior for $85, but they probably have eight buffers running on one car in an assembly line fashion. Sometimes on a nasty car I let the auction do it and use that as a completed rough out to start the real work.

One way the shops I know make money is contracting with dealers. The profit comes from all those late model cars that they can one step quickly and easily and still deliver a passable result. The triple steppers come in more rarely and they still turn a profit, but the percentage is usually far lower than the easy ones. They also will a la carte stuff like wet sanding at $30-$75 a panel. The auction clean up is an extremely high volume assembly line that charges, generally, one price for the the good, the bad and the ugly; at end of month it equates to simply net per car for all of them.

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

Obviously I didn't see the condition of the suburban and I am not a seasoned pro, but 30 hours seems like a long time. I personally won't work for less than $15/hr. Anything less just doesn't seem worth my time. As for the time, I recently detailed a Fullsize crewcab truck which was black with a lot of swirl marks. The work included wash, clay, M105, M80, M21, M26, tires, wheels, windows, trim, and engine compartment and that took me about 10 hours. I used my G100 DA polisher, not a rotarty so I could not get all the defects out completely but, I certainly tried my best. I think you might need to stream line your time. A suburban doesn't sound like a show car to me, so maybe you are spending more time on it than necessary Just my suggestion of course, I am not trying to knock your work.

The Suburban had lots of stains on the interior and took a long time extracting. The size if the interior with cargo bay is huge.

I think you are right about "show car" quality vs. daily driver quality.

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

I'm leaning towards not working more efficiently. Although it looks like you gave the customer a show car finish and a beautiful job, could it have gone from the 105 to the M80 without sacrificing too much quality?

I'm a buyer and do my own hyper details only on a few select units that I think are deserving for a value added situation to make a better profit on the buy/sell.

A volume commercial detail shop for a retail used car would have up to four people simultaneously on the exterior with buffers. They would probably charge $150-$200 on this Suburban, but produce only a "driver" finish doing at most a two step + wax, which they would apply and remove the fastest way possible. This is an example of efficiency not neccessarily quality.

Most of the work we sub gets a one step for a $100. The local ADESA auction does a one step and interior for $85, but they probably have eight buffers running on one car in an assembly line fashion. Sometimes on a nasty car I let the auction do it and use that as a completed rough out to start the real work.

One way the shops I know make money is contracting with dealers. The profit comes from all those late model cars that they can one step quickly and easily and still deliver a passable result. The triple steppers come in more rarely and they still turn a profit, but the percentage is usually far lower than the easy ones. They also will a la carte stuff like wet sanding at $30-$75 a panel. The auction clean up is an extremely high volume assembly line that charges, generally, one price for the the good, the bad and the ugly and at end of month it equates to simply net per car for all of them.

Thanks for your excellent insight! I hadn't considered omitting the 83 step and it seems so obvious now.

The consensus seems to be balancing quality vs. what the customer is paying for..we tend to do alot more than we get paid for. I can see that going from a 3 step to a 2 step will save a good amount of time when it's possible to do so.

[Murr1525]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

Going overboard when the customer doesnt want/wont pay for it is definately a killer.... both time wise, and financially...

[seth1066]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

Thanks for your excellent insight! I hadn't considered omitting the 83 step and it seems so obvious now.

The consensus seems to be balancing quality vs. what the customer is paying for..we tend to do alot more than we get paid for. I can see that going from a 3 step to a 2 step will save a good amount of time when it's possible to do so.

You should be getting some referrals for that excellent work output. You will get some easy late model stuff and it will all be worth it.

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

You should be getting some referrals for that excellent work output. You will get some easy late model stuff and it will all be worth it.

I think you put your finger on it right there - virtually all of our work so far has been "Extreme Makeover" type stuff - really rough condition.

Working on late models would be a treat for us and would be more viable from a business perspective.

[InfiniteDetail]

Re: What do you clear hourly after expenses?

Going overboard when the customer doesnt want/wont pay for it is definately a killer.... both time wise, and financially...

Yeah I'd say that's our biggest issue. We're just starting out so we don't mind doing it to start the referrals rolling in, but as we get more business we'll definitely have to stay within the paycheck so to speak.