Fire truck price!!

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mountainmedic

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Hello all I was just asked by the fire chief in my home town if I would detail and buff and wax the entire fleet in his department. He has 9 fire trucks an ambulance a Tahoe and a blazer. He wants them done once a year with all the diamond plate polished and the truck buffed and waxed. He also wants the inside detailed and note that on the inside door panels is diamond plate and some panels inside is diamond plate. I just started buffing vehicles but since I'm OCD and the quality of my work (pride of my work) he knows it will be right when I'm finished. My question is, I have absolutely no idea where to begin with quoting him a price. Like I said I just started. Please help cause I would hate to lose this contract it would be a lot of work for the winter and potentially more work for the rest of the fire departments in my county. All help is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance.
 
For stuff that big and extensive, just charge an hourly rate plus materials IMO.
 
Yeah I second that.... at least in the beginning. In IT services I typically start off with a new client at T&M until I learn the environment and stabilize/standardize how things work. At that point I can go fixed price on certain repeatable things and generate cost savings, economies of scale, predictable budgeting, etc... you know... areas where everyone wins.
 
Minimum 25 a foot for the exterior, are they out of service while you have them?
 
I know that 15 years ago they were all painted with imron which is a pretty hard single stage paint. I don't know if that's still the case though.
 
Hourly service sounds about right. It's not 'his' money so the chief won't be so concerned with the bottom line. Sounds like he just wants to keep the vehicles looking good for public appearance.
 
I've done some general detailing on a couple trucks on my fire department to get ready for parades. There is a lot of time involved in these big trucks and usually a lot of diamondplate/chrome as well. I would definitely charge by the hour to start off since it's hard to judge how long it will take you. Once you do the first truck, I would have a talk with the chief and maybe do a class with the whole department on proper washing techniques otherwise you will probably be dealing with swirl city each year. They may be fine with an AIO and some metal polishing each year.

As far as the paint, all our trucks before 2000 are single stage for sure. I haven't taken a buffer to any of our newer trucks so I'm not sure if they are BC or SS.

On a side note, be careful of gold leaf if you do end up compounding the paint. The compounding will remove it or leave it dull. (Our newer trucks have stickers of numbers/logos/gold leaf)
 
brettS4;1408395It's not 'his' money so the chief won't be so concerned with the bottom line.[/QUOTE said:
I would think the opposite.... it's tax-payers money, I'd imagine there would be a bid or review of quotes to the lowest bidder for the job?
I would be quite upset to here my FD is hiring top notch detailers charging 4 figure++++ to detail a fire truck.

Kind of like when my town council members decided they all needed new iPads... lots of overturn during the following election!
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Got to figure in the cost of Advil. Good luck. An hourly rate plus expenses would be what I would quote.
 
250 a day from 9 to 4 .If your incorporated you may pay a little tax on that .250 a day on a long project with all those vehicles is not unrealistic pay,I would not settle for less than that.
 
Flat 250 a day not hourly,cause you may have to leave early on some days and keep your days at 6 to 8 hrs.make money on time work 6 to 8 or less if all possible job security.
 
paul_g said:
I would think the opposite.... it's tax-payers money, I'd imagine there would be a bid or review of quotes to the lowest bidder for the job?
I would be quite upset to here my FD is hiring top notch detailers charging 4 figure++++ to detail a fire truck.

Kind of like when my town council members decided they all needed new iPads... lots of overturn during the following election!
Click to expand...

Tax payer dollars kinda popped into my head first as well. I'm all for having the trucks look good, but 9 of them a couple other standard vehicles. That dollar amount surely meets a threshold of having to put out a published RFP. I don't think by the hour would cut it, unless it was reduced hourly rates. Flat rate would be best IMHO. With that said, that still doesn't help the OP come up with a number. Good luck OP. Hope it works out for ya.
 
Mike lambert said:
Minimum 25 a foot for the exterior, are they out of service while you have them?
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Yes they will wash them and have them unloaded and ready for me to come in and start buffing them.

KneeDragr said:
For stuff that big and extensive, just charge an hourly rate plus materials IMO.
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Ok so for an hourly rate what would you suggest. Again I am totally new to this but I know there is a lot of work that goes into this and don't even get me started on stinking diamond plate. That stuff was created to keep people with OCD busy for HOURS!!!!

Also what kind of products. I was thinking of HD Speed and topping with Klasse High gloss sealant glaze for the paint.

For diamond plate I was thinking of P21S polishing soap and then buffing with Flitz and then metal sealant.

And then for the Windows I was thinking of Wolf Gang Perfekt Vision Glass Polish.

If this is the wrong products or if something would be better please by all means let me know because I'm lost on this one.

Also thank y'all for being so helpful it's so awesome to be able to bounce ideas off of people with so many more years of experience and knowledge. It makes this a lot easier for this amateur.
 
Is this a time sensitive project?. This is a very tremendous work order for one person to take on,I think to make things flow at a faster rate you will need someone to help you.This is simply not a hourly rate proposition.If so your gonna have to cut your polishing process in half,by using the right materials.what I would do at a hourly rate is to order some megs d 151 and d156 spray wax for the big trucks.figure out a way to conserve time but be productive.we don't know what the trucks look like.you are gonna need so many pads and far as the glass cleaner d120 is a no brainer.you are gonna get beat up on that diamond plate it's gonna eat so much time,I would try to clean it up by hand.with a machine all the polish is gonna cake up around those little patterns.kinda confused by starting a project with no verbal or contractual agreement as far as compensation.with all those vehicles including the inside you can not go hourly.whats hourly 12 to 16 an hour at that per hour you are gonna rethink your pay on the first truck.so make it worth your time energy and effort.
 
paul_g said:
I would think the opposite.... it's tax-payers money, I'd imagine there would be a bid or review of quotes to the lowest bidder for the job?
I would be quite upset to here my FD is hiring top notch detailers charging 4 figure++++ to detail a fire truck.

Kind of like when my town council members decided they all needed new iPads... lots of overturn during the following election!
Click to expand...

When it comes to police and fire dept money it's not quite the same. The fire/police chief has a lot of discretion as to how things are handled and as long as the dollars fall within budgets it doesn't get questioned. These types of 'maintenance costs' are often hidden within budgets under some vague description. Only new construction or equipment expenditures get looked at. Same concept goes for who work gets contracted to. They don't have to bid out maintenance costs since it's generally better to have established relationships that you can trust. Of course there are exceptions to everything and it depends on the attitude of the person in charge.
 
I'm going to guess that this falls in the $5000-$6000 mark before it's all said and done, and takes 4 business weeks for 1 guy.
 
VAS said:
I'm going to guess that this falls in the $5000-$6000 mark before it's all said and done, and takes 4 business weeks for 1 guy.
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I think more time will be required to finish all that work.so I think the man in charge knows that and is only willing to pay by the hour.lets say 16 an hr not nearly enough money even 20 hr won't cut it.Its gotta be 250 a day or it's not worth it.I hope he gets it.
 
I just took 9 trucks + 1 ambulance = 10 x 2 days each = 20 + 1 day each tahoe = 22 days x $250 a day = $5500 Give it a variance of 2 days either way , and you come up with 5000-6000 in about 4 weeks. I've never done a fire truck though, it could take 3+ days each truck. A plane detailer might have a better grasp on this. I'm interested to follow this along to see what it really takes though. Please post pics!
 
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