Mazda paint correction first customer

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xtrimprotech

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Took me 9 hours excluding roof.
Car was after paint shop 3 weeks and customer did not like the way clear coat layed with orange peel and dust specks. It was my first customer since we open the doors to our new show

I only charged him 300.00. How much should I charge for this wet sand and polish jobs. Let me know cause I don't know. I don't want to be too expansive and inderbid my self. Thanks guys
 
Looks good.

Did you wet sand, cut, and buff the entire car or just the fender?

What products did you use?

$300 for 9 hours of work seems a little low IMO, but only you can gauge what you need to charge based on your expenses and based on your area. If you are having customers flocking to you ready to pay your $33.33/hour then you should be able to comfortably raise your prices to more accurately suit the demand for your services. If you are having limited amounts of business, your prices may be too high... you just have to feel it out.
 
9 hours of specialized work for only $300? That's too low! You seem to do good work, charge more or don't do it at all. Stop selling yourself short!
 
Nice job. I would have never accepted that paint job from a body shop. It was complete hack before you worked it. It is also high risk because your fixing fresh paint. 3 weeks is fresh. I ask clients about body or paint work at estimate time and I won't touch a car under 90 days.

That seems fair hourly wage. You have to take into consideration your cost of doing business, water, electric, supplies. Add up all that stuff plus taxes. Then your income tax then you get an idea about how much you really got paid.

That all eats into your bottom line. For what you were able to do I would have charged closer $400 for that type of correction to cover expenses and most of all your time.

I would shop around the competition in your area. See what they charge. Check out the quality of work they do. If you are solo it's nice because the guy turning out a 1/2 dozen to a dozen cars a day pending what he is doing is not doing all the work himself.

You need to find a niche for yourself. Part of selling detailing is the experience that a client sees when a car goes from ugh to WOW!

Do not worry about being too expensive or too cheap. Worry about being a fair business person to your client and yourself. Getting paid good money to do something says only one thing. The work you do is worth it. If you loose a client over $50 I would not worry about it. One thrilled client can turn into another one then another one. That's how you build a client base not by being $50 cheaper. People who have cars done by detailers and not some chop shop have the money to spend. Otherwise they would be home doing it themselves or running the car through a car wash because it's good enough for them and they don't care how a 50k + Benz looks.
 
looks like he did just the fender? That doesn't seem like enough time for what you did.... anyhoo that looks amazing!!! great work
 
No I did the whole car except roof. Thanks guys. I do think that wet sand and polish buff and seal costs little but more. But he was a first client so I wanted to at least start somewhere plus that $300 will buy me other compounds and polishes
 
$300 is low but you have a customer for life and the word of mouth will be well worth it. Great job!
 
That's some seriously good work, looks like the same color as my fiance's 2007 Mazda 6, espcially in the last pic where it almost has a gold effect (could be the lighting)

The very low price is some good word of mouth but some adjustment in price is probably in order, get some quotes from your competitors and go from there, good luck to you!

Sent from my SPH-M930 using AG Online
 
I would love my 2014 Mazda 6 to have a jewel polish. I have no DA experience what so ever. It's liquid silver and I know I could take it to the next level.
Thoughts ?
 
Rick72 said:
I would love my 2014 Mazda 6 to have a jewel polish. I have no DA experience what so ever. It's liquid silver and I know I could take it to the next level.
Thoughts ?
Click to expand...
1. wash a car
2. clay bar
3 if u have no experience in da be really carefull tape all the edges (I use green 3/4 3m tape its kinda expensive but works good)

start on a panel where most likely ppl don't see too much to test the panel,
start with least 3000 grit about 6x6 inch area then buff with compound I use (perfect it. compound but just orederd from geeks new componds from different makers to try)
then machine glaze using lighter pad and look at the difference if its easy to remove the scratch from da sander or hand held sand block, because some clears are so hard and tough you can really spent days to buff out,

do one panel at the time

on that mazda was 2 coats of Omni (cheap clear) and a lot of dust specs and runs so I was afraid to too much of leveling of clear will burn through,, but so far thank god not,
I use da sander on 3000 grid and hand held block for 2000 and under so I can feel the pressure I am applying,
have fun youll engoy it its an awesome hobby to buff cars or business. thanks guys for your support
 
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