A little background I used to be in the detailing department at a car dealership 7 years ago. It got me interested in detailing but to me at the time it was just giving a car a nice wash and making it look shiny. I ended up starting a power washing business where I would spray down super dirty semi trucks and trailers and then run a big brush with some abrasive soap and spray it down again and be done with them. Made decent money out of it for a bit but couldn't keep up with the work alone as a side gig and stopped doing it once my equipment was stolen.
About a year or two ago I thought it would be nice to learn some actual detailing and rebuild my business into personal car detailing. I did research and purchased a lot of basic products, mostly all the products you can purchase at a local grocery store (meguiars ultimate, etc.) and was attempting to do everything by free hand.
I did some practicing on damaged parts from a body shop and decided lets try this out seriously, and took my first real customer that wasnt my car or my wifes car.
I knew the lady well I was doing the detailing for but still, she had a 6 month old white dodge challenger RT that she worked hard for and I wanted to provide the absolute best quality I could.
My intentions were to: claybar/polish/wax/wash/bug removal/all the basics for her cars first detail, along with an interior clean.
The interior alone took me 2.5-3hrs, supplies I used was detailing brushes, microfiber towels, shop vac, and again basic meguiars line interior products. This took me way longer than expected. I've detailed my cars interior plenty of times, why is it taking me so long? For one, I wasn't expecting all the pet hair, I didn't ask first. I had no brush specifically made for pet hair, but I do have a somewhat coarse brush I use for the carpet, that I was using to clump the pet hair, and then attempt to remove with my very very wet sweaty hands so the process was taking awhile. Coupled with i'm not used to being in such a tight space being a tall guy and trying to work my way thru the little places of a muscle coupe to wipe everything down was taking awhile.
So I got really behind on that.
I start with the wheels for the exterior. 1-1.5hrs. Wow. Wheels werent especially dirty, but the time it took to wash the wheel, spray it with cleaner, wait a few minutes to soak, scrub cleaner in with wheel brush, wash again, keep grabbing needed supplies, off my car which I parked next to me in the driveway to use as a table, took some time. Keep in mind thru all of this, im scrubbing and working as fast as I can while still attempting to make everything look good, to the point im almost throwing up and my head is spinning im trying so hard to make it faster. I'm also freaking out about how long its taking because she's waiting inside with my wife talking for all these hours at night time expecting a full detail and i'm realizing i'm not going to be able to get everything done in time.
I'm onto the body, I wash, and do my best to remove bugs and tar. This is taking awhile. Maybe the product i'm using isn't strong enough, maybe the sponge isn't good enough, but this took some time to get most of it off.
Then it's on to washing the car by hand with a hose and hand mitt. By the time this is all done, i've spent like 7 hours on the car, its late at night now, and my body is just giving up i've been pushing it so hard for 7 hours immediately after work, and i'm in the hottest part of the summer.
I ended up not getting to claybar, polish, or wax the car. I had to finish with a spray quick wax after the wash and apologize to the owner of the car. She was grateful for the work and very kind, but I was so let down at how much time it took, the amount of energy and effort I put in, and didn't even get to the meat of the detail.
I haven't touched detailing since, I was so let down. I even had business cards made and a bunch of people that were offering money for a detail, and I just fell so hard off the horse, it was a huge blow to my confidence and morale in detailing.
(Also I was planning to apply the polish and wax completely by hand, no DA, so who knows how many more hours I would of been, as i've only practiced on parts and never done it by hand on an entire car.)
I think part of the issue too is that the water for the hose is at the back of the house on the far other corner as the driveway, so I have to run the hose around the house and thru a seasonal room and into the garage and then to the driveway, and the hose just barely reaches to get 1/4-1/2 of the car in the driveway, so i'm constantly having to move supplies and the car to make it work.
I guess i'm saying this because i'm hoping for some encouragement or similar stories, I want to take this seriously and make money off of it and do something I enjoy, but that was such a hard pill to swallow to not be able to come thru with a full detail like I had promised to do, and to take so much time with so much effort given. Thanks
