Mobile detailing business

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Kingo

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Hi Mike,

New to the forum but have been reading your articles all morning, what a wealth of knowledge and experience :) so thank you for that. :)

My question is pretty straight forward:

I see a lot of people running mobile detailing businesses, of which I am considering doing the same as renting an industrial Unit can obviously be quite expensive.

However it has always been common knowledge to me to not polish in direct sunlight, and every video I have watched has said this is a seriously massive no no when it comes to machine polishing!

So basically I was just wondering are people polishing outside or are they using some sort of gazebo type thing to create shade? Or is polishing in the sun not nowhere near as bad as people are saying?

Also are people asking there customers to borrow a socket to plug there polisher in to the mains electric or is there some sort of power pack available? Likewise with a hose pipe! Just seems like it would be unprofessional to do this?

I look forward to hearing from you thank you for your time :)

Kingo
 
I think it depends on the products you use and your environment. Most use a pop up canopy to provide shade. Relatively inexpensive. Serves as an advertising piece if you sew in a banner as well. For mobile guys asking for water outlet and electrical connection isn't unprofessional. You should have your own hose and extension cords. Here is certain parts of CA regulations sometimes force you to do waterless washes which is actually my preferred method if the car isn't too dirty. I transport water in either 2 ir 5 gallon buckets then insert my towels into the bucket as needed. I like this method better because I never know how many towels I'll wind up using on a car.

Just one opinion but I hope it helps.
 
There are products you can use that doesn't require you to be out of direct sunlight. The problems with canopies are that they are never the optimum size and the sun is rarely directly over head so you aren't going to keep the shaded area directly over the car. You could always try to offset it, but if you are doing a mobile business, you are going to decrease your customer base by just doing it at customer's houses. The biggest benefit to doing mobile is that you can do details in parking lots while people are working. This means they aren't taking any time out of their day. But you can't setup a canopy perfectly between cars. The worst part, which has happened to my friend when he had someone detail his car, is that even the slightest amount of wind can pick it up and badly damage the customer's car. The retailer had to fork out money to pay for body work on my buddy's car after the leg drug up the side and across the roof.
 
I read the idea to use a full bucket of water attached to bungie cords to weigh down your canopy and keep it from moving.
 
Kingo said:
Hi Mike,

New to the forum but have been reading your articles all morning, what a wealth of knowledge and experience :) so thank you for that. :)

My question is pretty straight forward:

I see a lot of people running mobile detailing businesses, of which I am considering doing the same as renting an industrial Unit can obviously be quite expensive.

However it has always been common knowledge to me to not polish in direct sunlight, and every video I have watched has said this is a seriously massive no no when it comes to machine polishing!

So basically I was just wondering are people polishing outside or are they using some sort of gazebo type thing to create shade? Or is polishing in the sun not nowhere near as bad as people are saying?

Also are people asking there customers to borrow a socket to plug there polisher in to the mains electric or is there some sort of power pack available? Likewise with a hose pipe! Just seems like it would be unprofessional to do this?

I look forward to hearing from you thank you for your time :)

Kingo
Click to expand...
If it were so bad to polish outside I would be out of business.Its not recommend but doable.
 
Thanks for the responses guys this is encouraging news :) really want to start my own business doing this as had enough of working horrible jobs for horrible people! And I love detailing :)
 
Cheers bud there's some good tips to be going on with if he's doing it I. That sun and heat should be fine here in the uk with a bit of time and proper prep :) still slightly nervous tho lol
 
I don't use a canopy. Takes too much time to set up and remove.

There is usually shade available from trees or buildings. When there is none you have to work around the sun's position. There is usually a part of the car that is not gonna be in direct sunlight, so you work on shaded parts as the sun moves. For horizontal panels the easiest is to do them when the sun is behind clouds. It's a challenge but it's doable. Also using distilled water to re-activate your polish is a must when working outside because the product will dry faster because of the wind and heat. So when you see the product start to flash, you just give one spray of distilled water on the pad and you are good to go for an other 2 minutes or so.

It is not ideal but you can make it work. If you are working with a team or a partner, maybe a canopy would be viable. But setting one up alone is gonna be a pain and very time consuming if you want a decent sized one.
 
Thanks for the info I'm sure with the summer ending soon this will help aswell :)
 
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