Dealership Detailer hourly rate??

T.O.C. said:
I work for the largest dealership in the area. they pay me $16.00 an hour flat rate. I get paid 5 hrs. for cars and 6 for trucks/van and suv's. if I need more time for a vehicle they are usually willing to pay it.I also get paid hourly for any wet sanding. I average 3 vehicles a day. In this economy I cant complain.

I also work for a private shop 3 days a week. I get paid 14.00 hr. and 10% comission. which comes out to a minimum of 27.00 an hour. we also do dealership cars frequently we charge 100 per car and 120 for over sized vehicles. we call them lipstick details. they are very basic details. we don't do underhoods or buff. cars are wash,clayed,polished with D151. interiors are vac'ed,extracted. wiped down and all effort put into removing all stains and marks.
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T.O.C, Are you a salesman of any kind? I am horrible at sales so I am a bit concerned at working for any kind of detailing job they may require me to sell my service.

I mean I am confident in my skills but I am not great at getting the customer to pay for the service.

That's one of the hurdles I feel would be tough to get passed if I start up my business. I have tried selling for dummies and some other audio books while I detail cars but to be honest I am not really finding them helpful.
 
Flip said:
T.O.C, Are you a salesman of any kind? I am horrible at sales so I am a bit concerned at working for any kind of detailing job they may require me to sell my service.

I mean I am confident in my skills but I am not great at getting the customer to pay for the service.

That's one of the hurdles I feel would be tough to get passed if I start up my business. I have tried selling for dummies and some other audio books while I detail cars but to be honest I am not really finding them helpful.
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I am in no way a salesman. but for the most part our services sell themselves. If a customer is walking through our door then they are looking for our service. when you do a walk around with the potential customer always ask them what their concerns are.and be honest with them. most customers think we have a magic wand that we just wave around and make their car look like it just drove off the show room floor. and after the customer has finished thats when you say hey while I have the car would you like me to take care of this or that for you. and again be honest with them,and be honest with yourself. if you have never done a headlight restoration don't sell this customer a perfect headlight restoration. remember you have to be able to deliver what you promise.

as far as my situation with the private shop. I have worked for the owner on and off for 17 years. he knows that I can make more on my own, so we came up with the percentage program. and my situation is a little different than most. I don't have to sell it to collect it. If I perform the service I get the percentage regardless of who sold it.
 
David Fermani said:
I don't mean to sound too arrogant but when I had my shop doing "hack" dealer work, we managed to produce $500K /yr in revenue. My wife drove a new Mercedes, I had a new Vette, my $300K house was paid for and both my kid's guaranteed college funds were pre-paid. Don't discredit dealer work unless you've experienced it full force. It's a very lucrative business in any part of the country. Yeah, you might make only $70-$90 per car, but when you do 20, 30 or 40 cars a day it adds up real fast.
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i will be moving south soon if u have connects or need help let me know....i can block all the way to LSP ....mint everytime....THANKS
 
Depends on the dealership! I know Toyota paid their detailers very good and had schools they can get certified in processes. They in sourced. I know some high end dealerships that outsource the labor in their location (contract detail company) and that company would pay $100-80 per car to the detailer (laborer). Not bad.. then you have midlevel ones paying about $40-45 per car to the detailer. Not bad either if your fast. Some not picky about quality and other are picky like they sell high end cars. Don't forget you can rack up money for new car fresh ups/removal of plastics and such, deliveries, auction cars.. which is a quick way to make a few bucks too which can rack up.

The thing is this.. if the dealership cars about their car's the higher they tend to pay the detailers.. whether per the car or hourly. You want to be able to do a full detail in 2-3 hours. Some cars and butter already.. and obviously you get the crappers. Its about time management/skill/process/quality and of course speed. You have to know how to cut corners and what corners to cut. Remembers it's not hobby/showroom detailing.. it's volume detailing. The purpose of a detailer's existence in these places is to get those cars lot ready. The purpose of those cars is to sell them.
 
David Fermani said:
I don't mean to sound too arrogant but when I had my shop doing "hack" dealer work, we managed to produce $500K /yr in revenue. My wife drove a new Mercedes, I had a new Vette, my $300K house was paid for and both my kid's guaranteed college funds were pre-paid. Don't discredit dealer work unless you've experienced it full force. It's a very lucrative business in any part of the country. Yeah, you might make only $70-$90 per car, but when you do 20, 30 or 40 cars a day it adds up real fast.
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How can you possibly detail 40 cars in a day? If you do a 12 hours shift with no breaks that means you need to finish each car in 20 minutes with no turn around time, so more likelly 15 minutes per car.

I am new at this and I am slow but it takes me 30 minutes just to wash the car. There is something I definatelly don't understand in your statement.
 
And don't be fooled by guys who run limousine companies and put out ads for car detailers. When you get there they want you to produce the conveyor belt affect...I actually heard a few times "you didn't have to make it that clean.""It's only an airport run"but when I look back in retrospect it was my fault because my mind reading skills weren't up to par. But I $12 an hour you're not supposed to know what a "judgment call" is....just clean the car with a huck towel and a bottle of Windex kid!

I will say that I met a bunch of cool guys who drove the cars they loved it when I went the extra mile and would always be open to new quick ways to detail or correct a spill etc. on the run...
 
Calendyr said:
How can you possibly detail 40 cars in a day? If you do a 12 hours shift with no breaks that means you need to finish each car in 20 minutes with no turn around time, so more likelly 15 minutes per car.

I am new at this and I am slow but it takes me 30 minutes just to wash the car. There is something I definatelly don't understand in your statement.
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I believe he must have had several employees at his shop
 
Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
Hey David,

Sounds like you have the makings for a great how-to article on making money detailing for dealerships!


:xyxthumbs:
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That would be a good and/or different than normal read for sure.:dunno:


On that CARMAX thing.
I used to tow cars for all three Atlanta CARMAX locations, southside being my exclusive dealership and a buddy handled the service work for the other two. Those guys (their cleanup shop) have to frigging hammer it, all day, every day! I wouldn't do that for the love of money! (And at the time I thought if you didn't work 12 hours a day something was wrong with you. It's just what I did, worked 11 years without taking a week off!)

We'd do our normal insurance and dealership (service) work during the day. Then pull CARMAX inventory (new cars as well as used) at night. Plus twice a week we'd have to go out and pull auction cars out to all three locations. The thing is, their South Atlanta location wasn't originally doing their "recon" work, all that was happening at their N.E. location. It was 37 miles door to door between those lots and they'd pay $35 per car. Didn't make any difference, new or used, up or down, it was the same. What DID make it work was that you'd get 27 new minivans that needed to be at the "recon center" location and then you'd have 23 "recon-ed" vehicles up there to bring back. Moving 3 each way (rollback with a 41' triple axle trailer) THAT was the ONLY way to make any money, $210 round trip. Before the trailer, $70 each way was a money pit. (Especially as that would have normally been a $125 single car flatbed tow.)

OTOH the new car manager would call almost without fail.... at 4:15 on a Friday afternoon wanting a SINGLE vehicle from another lot and wanted it there by 6:00 for delivery, (which with Atlanta traffic was all but impossible). Pfffftttt!!!!!!

I also did towing for all 3 of the Atlanta MB dealerships (one I had an exclusive contract on). The lead detailer at one, moved to the other. This guy was GOOD, and even he didn't get but $125~150 for 'non' dealership work. And that wasn't your typical 2 hour detail, that was a 4~6 hour 2~3 guys on it job. Given, this was 10~15 years ago, but even then there were quite a bit of their vehicles busting $110K (or more), especially as they were the only authorized Rolls/Bentley dealership in town. I know he worked 55~60 hours on a short week, had half a dozen guys working under him and surely wasn't getting rich doing it. He was (still is) a great guy though. :)​
 
I work at a 4 franchise New car dealer in PA.. I ve worked there for 15 years now. I'm kinda like the head guy there.. I make 13 per hour Flat Rate.. After Flat Rate , I average about 18 per hour.. I will probably end up at around $45K -- $50K for the year.. Each Used car pays anywhere from 4- 8 hours depending on the severity.. Every car gets complete paint correction/touch up also.. They usually don't make a fuss if you need more time.. Basically you detail the car and write them a bill for the work done.. Detail manager Ok's or denies the time .. I never have an issue.. I also do other stuff such as pin stripes/graphics/repaint wheels/New car preps.. etc..
 
Thanks Mike.. Glad to be a part of the detailing community..
 
A few years ago, at the ripe age of 16 (before I really knew what I could do to a car), I applied at the local Ford place. They ended up offering me a job but I didn't like the (low) quality of their operation, so I worked for a few years at the family business. Now, a few years later, with a much higher standard and extreme OCD, I'm doing my own thing, trying to use that to pay my way through school.
 
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