How many of your neighbors are into car detailing

Zero to your question. And I live in a condo complex of about 150 families.

A few do wash their cars on a sunny weekend. Summer/fall only. 1 or 2 QD after washing but that's it. No one polishes. No one waxes. No one has a clue as to what's a R.O. I know no one seals. And no one knows what a coating is. Transportation is what its all about.

No one ever asks me what the heck am I doing in my garage. No one cares. Somewhat sad but true. But they are not car guys like Barry M. or Mike P. or you and I. They do own and drive nice cars ala M-B, BMW, Corvette's but I don't see any Ferrari 458's, Porsche 911's or McLaren P1's in the driveway.

Ah well. So be it. Maybe if I owned a Lamborghini Huracan I would just drive it too!
 
In my neighborhood we have a TON of people that take family walks in the evenings. The kids always love to ride their bikes through the foam at the end of the driveway. I haven't seen anyone on my block washing, a few people have asked what the foam lance is but........the new guy a few doors down was walking his dog a couple weeks back and asked where my second bucket was...... Maybe he's a closet geek?!?

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Am I the only one seeing a huge business opportunity here? If all of the members on this post are detailers and no one else in their neighborhood cleans their own cars, It seems like it would be a good time to place flyers in all the neighbors mailboxes. Just think if you owned a lawn care business and no one in your neighborhood cut their grass. I would think you would want them all as customers.
 
Definitely room for small business, it's just whether it's worth spending time doing that while not at work and the cost/benefit of it.
 
On our street, 21 houses...only the immediate kinda washes his vehicles every couple of weeks.

The rest (along with 90% of the rest of the town) head for the big brush tunnel(s)!

Folks around here just seem to not give a hoot 'bout clean cars.

Bill
 
Two people on my street hand wash, it used to be one, but after helping one neighbor remove scratches and swirls from their minivan installed at the swirlomatic wash, they have decided it's better to hand wash.

Maybe it had something to do with the 6 hours he spent with one of my polishers in his hands......😄
 
I have one guy a few houses down who details and owns his own business. He never does anything at his house. We've never really chatted much about it. I know he's a rotary guy. I think that since he does it all day, it's the last thing he wants to talk about, lol. Especially since he has done it for years and I am far from anything but a hobbyist.

I converted the guy across the street into an AG customer when he asked me what I was using on my wheels and said he was having a hard time getting his wheels clean on his 535. You know, typical BMW brake dust buildup. I went over with a bottle of Sonax Full Effect and my Speed Master Jr brush and made his wheels bleed! He was hooked from there. A few days later he had some familiar looking boxes on his front porch! His girlfriend's G37 had some very clean wheels shortly thereafter! He recently told me that a few guys at his work asked about how he got his wheels so clean...

I have also corrupted more than my fair share of individuals with a bottle of 845.

I even have the kids down the street telling me I have the shiniest cars! I had one little girl come down last night, I think she's in kindergarten, and tell me that I clean my cars too much and it was shiny enough! (I was doing a WW with some Pinnacle WW with Carnauba) So, I showed her all the dirt I was taking off! Her response? "EWWW!!"

I realize that it's all baby steps, but I do what I can! There are people that care, and I will find them and help them out when and where I can!
 
Just two.
They're also really nice "car crazy" guys.

Bob
 
Bill1234 said:
I see some of the neighbors do work as they do the occasional wash and wax. I am the full blown properly done person though. They know that the car is nice looking, but it does take hard work and time to do.
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I think this comes closest to my situation. Of my immediate neighbors, the ones whose names I actually know, I think only three or four spend any serious amount of time keeping their cars nice enough. I honestly don't know if any of them are up to date with the latest trends, techniques and technology of real detailing, though. Do they do a 2BW? Paint correction before LSP? No real idea, but I don't think so.

My next door neighbor is the service department foreman at a big Mercedes Benz dealership and has been a professional mechanic for 30 years. Before e promotion he had a long list of sideline customers whose cars he serviced on weekends -- his deal with MB was that they didn't care as long as he didn't touch Benzes or smarts -- and I've learned a lot about auto mechanics from him. I frequently saw him detailing cars, old-skool-style: big Makita rotary, wool, 3M compounds and polishes. One day he saw me take a spot light to my wife's Accord and do a test patch with the PC and Meg's MF system and came over. He was intrigued. I inferred from his questions that he had doubts I could correct the seriously neglected, thin Honda paint with the PC, but when he came back a few hours later after I was finishing up the polishing step he was floored.
 
I did an interactive detail with my best friend of 30 years the other day on a "new" car he picked up for his wife. It's actually a beater 1999 Beetle TDI with high mileage that he got for less than two grand, but he wanted to at least get the good parts of the paint back to almost-new.

My friend spent the better part of two decades as a used car manager at a Honda dealership, so while he knows how dealership minimum wage car jockeys "detail" and knows a lot of wholesaler tricks, he had never done a proper wash-dry-clay-correct-polish-wax before. He had never seen a 6" DA in action, thinking all detailers use big rotaries with wool.

While we weren't able to fix a lot of the biggest problem areas -- actual damage as well as previous hack job spot repairs -- the paint definitely popped once we were done. His wife is thrilled. And I may have made a convert out of him.
 
My neighbor (old retired navy guy) used to detail his truck and his wife's car.
He unfortunately passed away last year.

But I see the kid up the street from me constantly detail his WRX. I introduced myself a while back to him.

Other than that, everyone is either retired on my street or too busy with their kids I think I detail.
 
Real Riders said:
Am I the only one seeing a huge business opportunity here? If all of the members on this post are detailers and no one else in their neighborhood cleans their own cars, It seems like it would be a good time to place flyers in all the neighbors mailboxes. Just think if you owned a lawn care business and no one in your neighborhood cut their grass. I would think you would want them all as customers.
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Up here the real cutthroat businesses are driveway snow plowing and summer lawn spraying. I can't imagine a single person around here who would hand over a hundred bucks for a WW/QD -- never mind double or triple that for a full detail -- on their rides that cost a fair chunk of change. But these same people will pay $250 to have a farm tractor with a blower on the back come and clear snow in 60 seconds perhaps 15 times a winter. They gladly pay $500 for a team of guys to mow once a week all summer. And most have no issue paying $500 for four "non-pesticide" snake oil lawn treatments a year (my untreated lawn has about as many weeds as theirs).
 
I've never seen any of my neighbors wash either, even my neighbor 2 doors down with an Aston Martin DB9 :eek: My next door neighbors think I'm crazy, and every now and then I see the kid's Mom try to "clean up" his Jeep with whatever towel she found on the garage floor, yikes! :laughing:
 
The guy behind me does an ok job of cleaning. But I swear he has no concept of weather, as he usually does all of his cars right before bad weather. I check the weather hourly to see what degree I can detail my cars. Other than Alex, no one else.
 
Happy to be the only one in my neighborhood. I get the occasional comments that I'm going wash the paint away with my weekly washes. I do have to find a place that will safely do my winter washes for me.
 
I'll give my Neghibor across the street credit. I've seen him out washing, waxing and slathering armor all on his Suburban. It does not look half bad. It's better than most.
Other than that next door the guy has a new black Chevy truck that sits in the garage while he drives his "mill car"
If you have never seen a car that goes into the steel mill on a regular basis you would be astounded. It has to be in the top 5 worst places for a car care enthusiast to work.
Everyone else seems to run through automatics .
 
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