So, as some of you know I've taken up a "side-job" of detailing cars for extra money to get caught up on bills. Things are going pretty well. I only charge $80 or so for inside and out. A little more for SUV's and vans of course.

So, why am I making a thread to tell everyone that? Well, Monday night/Tuesday morning I will be detailing a 600hp $60,000 CTS-V. I WILL get before and after pics! But here's an idea of what it looks like:






But here are also some of the cars that I have detailed:

 

nice
Now make my sig with the kpa boost gauge!

 

swirl city on the balt, get a buffer

nice job in the interior and engine bay.

im just picky about the paint

 

yeah those swirls were pretty bad. I got a few of them to go away. I haven't used wax on any car I've done. Yet. Tomorrow I have a van i'm waxing. Don't have a buffer, but this is just a side job.

 

for sure an, it is a side job for me too. check out my thread about detailing i have a couple cars that ive done in there. check out autopia.org for ore info, the swirls wont go away by hand you NEED a machine if you want to make any money

 

Waxing without a buffer is more than an 80$ side job! It's a stupid amount of work and it will just never look as satisfying as you would like..

The Balt looked good for no wax and black paint.

 

You guys hear they are coming out with a CTS coupe? sweet car

 

the cts-v is pure sex.... my uncles got the xlr-v and that thing has some horses under the hood

 

Thanks! I mean, I tell everyone that it's not a $300 detail job, but I can make it look like one. So far everyones been happy with it. It's going to be a nice $400 weekend for me

 

No offense,but without removing the swirls,it won't ''look'' like a 300 dollar job.Get yourself a Porter Cable and watch some how to videos,it gets easier and easier to do.I have a friend's black
G35 I'm doing in October,if I were charging it would be about 300. It will take me about 10 hours.I do like your underhood details though,how do you do that?

 

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But here are also some of the cars that I have detailed:



you need to spend a little more time with the polisher from what i can see. the rest of the cars look good but the black in the direct sun or with the camera flash shows the halograms.

are you using a rotary?

 

best way ive found to detail the underside of the hood, is get some brushes of all shapes and sizes....i have a few 1" round brushes, a tire brush and then the daytona rim brushes(i have one regular and mini dedicated to the engine only)..... i saturate one section at a and work at it while keepin it moist. pressure wash it off with a light pressure rinse.

i use normally meguiars super degreaser diluted 4:1 but you can go to 10:1 then i use meguiars hyper dressing reduced wither 1:1(pimp juice lol) or 10:1(satin)to dress it to the customers spec. its always good to have multiple shades of dressings because i use the same ones for everything. so i have all 4 mixed. satin, semi gloss, gloss and natural.

 

Again, I have not used ANY wax on these cars. No buffer either, but the carwash I use has nanowax in it. I eventually will buy a buffer and learn how to use on again, as well as learning how to claybar.

I do have quick detailer and i just used Turtle Wax's Synthetic wax. I love how easy it is to use. The next car I do it to, I will get pictures!

 

Actually, on my g/f's car (the Mazda 3) I just used the same sponge and car wash I just washe dthe car with, and just scrubbed for a few minutes. Took a towel to it, then sprayed some trim protectant on it. Looks good huh?

 

oh boy, buy seperate sponges please. that engine bay dirt and grease is just sticking in that sponge so you can swirl up somones paint next tie you wash their car.

 

i might have to hit you up one weekend to do mine

 

sounds good. Balts inside and out take me about 3 or 4 hrs. I have a price list you can check out to see what ya want.

 

if your not waxing or clay baring these your charging a bit i charge 50 inside and out which includes quick detail but if waxing and clay bar is involved its about 120 .... iv also done this on the side...i no most places will do up to 300 for the same job

 

$80 bucks for a detail? assuming ur not talking any paint correction just your clean the **** out of it, vacuum n such right. Thats a good deal then, i was gonna say if u did any paint correction u better start charging more lmao! I do it for more money for dealers at my job and they dont wanna pay ****. theyll just go to the next guy lol. Problem with trying to make money on details is material cost, ur labor hours, vs. the price u gotta charge that people are willing to pay. You gotta constantly buy cleaning materials and rags etc, and u need to spend hours of ur day working hard on it, and u gotta be cheap enough so people will want u to do it.

Honestly detailing is a shitty way to make money ya know. But the satisfaction of ur work and the before and after makes it worth it. Hate when u go above and beyond for some and they dont even realize. Just this week i detailed, full compound and polish of the car, handwax, bought paint, jacked up the car and powerwashed and blacked out the wheel wells, repainted her sideskirts from black plastic to gloss, headlight restoration. And she got the car back and didnt realize half of it lol. her husband was pumped though


edit: and whats up with everyone and the porter cables? Rotary buffers. Makita is the ****. Get this porter cable **** outta here. Give me a a piece of 2,000 grit, a makita, a white 3m pad, black 3m bad, compound and polish and stand back. I learned alot these past few months at my job, my boss is the **** at polishin a car right and getting those swirls out. he walked me through it and its not hard but super time consuming and easy to want to speed it up and move faster when u get tired of doing it and **** it up

 

i charge $60 canadian for a full interior clean and $120 for a full polish. but i only do local. i also detail for a living

 

retail detailing is where the money is. but its hard to make a living off of it unless u advertise and have the constant business. But in the retail world thats hard. I mean how many of ur friends cars can u detail before u run out and need to find more work. And good full car RETAIL detailing is 300-400 bucks. Thats inside the car and out, and paint correction, scratch repair, touchup where it needs it. Most people that detail for a living do wholesale work for dealers. Constant reliable business and you dont need to advertise and you can get your occasional retail customer that you make money off of. Pretty much exactly how my job operates. We have an account with the local automatic car wash, for a full wash, inside and out, where they vacuum it, clean the rims, clean inside windows and interior panels, and put it through the automatic car wash for $8. We do that, then just go over the door jambs and then just concentrate mainly on the outside of the car and the paint correction and touchup. Thats how you do it right there sonnn. But we dont really make much money if ANY on details at my job. We pretty much just do them to offer them to the customers as well as the other things we do just so we have more things to offer. The cost of materials, plus what he pays me an hour while im doing the car, comes out pretty close to what he has to charge for the job.

 

ya thats how my shop is as well, except we have our own car wash and everything you need for proper polishing. mind you my boss is an idiot and thinks he's king **** at detailing when really he isn't. we finally just got a proper cutting pad (white 3m pad) as well as proper cutting compound and polish. as well the guys at my work like to reuse clay after they drop it and wonder why vehicles get scratched after they clay. well duhhhhh lol.

and we charge for a basic outside clean and full interior clean we charge $200. which in my opinion is too little for how perfect they want the damn things and only give us 2 hours to do it. hell it takes us an hour to vacuum and shampoo the damn things.

 

wax wont take care of swirls.....you didnt say no buffer was used. atleast not that i read.

 

porter cable is idiot proof. guys that have never used a rotary should NEVER touch one without the proper practice. dual action polishers are great for everything BUT correction. can it be done yes....does it take a long ass time...yes. you for the most part need a rotary for correction. regardless though 3m fails when it comes to making small pads. i use 3m's wool pads for correction but then i switch over to lake country for all the polishing. i use mostly a rotary BUT I DO USE A 7424xp for finishing polish....also wax application with a 7424 xp is far more even and faster then hand application

 

A majority of cars have swirls and light scratches that the Porter cable can take care of,but yes for really bad and deeper scratched cars,absolutely you need a good polisher.But for a novice a polisher can be a weapon of paint destruction.