Resale value and CONSISTENT detailing

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peter hurcos

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Sure, we all know that a good quality detail at resale time is money well spent.

The question I am asking is: Can you in your experience identify additional value for those cars that have been consistently detailed as opposed to the scenario of average care followed by the complete and competent, going over at sale time? In other words, can the buyers tell the difference? If so, is a higher price received for the consistently detailed cars compared to the cars with average care that are well detailed at sale time?

I would loosely define a "consistently detailed car" as one that is claybarred at least once a year, always has a coat of sealant or wax on it and receives regular maintenance washes applied by hand, using appropriate products, (microfine towels and mitts, grit guards, quality shampoos, etc.) of course.
 
Depends on the buyer's knowledge that "consistent detailing" even exists in the first place.

Clay barring once a year; regular maintenance washes by hand; grit guards; "appropriate products"; etc? :doh:
You are kidding about this, right?!?! You gotta be!

Another way of "kicking the tires"?

:dunno:

Bob
 
FUNX725 said:
Depends on the buyer's knowledge that "consistent detailing" even exists in the first place.

Clay barring once a year; maintenance washes by hand; grit guards; "appropriate products"; etc? :doh:
You are kidding about this, right?!?! You gotta be!

Another way of kicking the tires?

:dunno:

Bob
Click to expand...

People these days describe a good wash and wax as "detail" So i define my terms.
 
peter hurcos said:
People these days describe a good wash and wax as "detail" So i define my terms.
Click to expand...
And I'm asking:
You expect that the majority of used vehicle buyers will know your defined terms of "consistent detailing"...
and will make it a part of their negotiating process as it applies to a vehicle's perceived value?


Bob
 
I sold an 8 yr old Mazda 6 with 150K miles on it for $5300 last year in the first day of the ad (listed for $5600, accepted $5300 and had a ton of calls that day) at the first showing - this is with 4 cyl manual transmission.

Granted that the paint condition was just part of it but being original owner with meticulous maintenance overall I felt made the car stand out. I was happy with the ease of transaction and I'm sure if I went to CarMax or trade-in they would've offered me thousands less.

Back to your question: the condition of the paint in my mind is merely a representation of how someone takes care of their vehicle and I would rather pay a little more for one that shows it has been cared for.
 
Condition of a vehicle boils down to numbers in a book. If it was detailed daily you might get top dollar but never beyond. Now a dealer can juggle the numbers on a trade to make it look like you got above book but they added on the other end to make it work.
 
I had an eye opener. A buddy of mine asked if I could sell his Infinity for him. It is a 2006 model. Myself being OCD I completely cleaned the inside and did a 90% correction on the outside. This car looked better than 90%the cars out there, was an orig owner car with 70k miles, no accidents and dealer serviced with service records (seriously clean). You think it would be no problem getting Kelly Blue Book Value, but everyone is looking for a deal. Low ball offers left and right-what a waste of time. They wanted to take the blue book value then want a 1k decrease in the price since the car would need new tires in the next 6 months or so (it is a used car ###). After wasting my time and effort (detailing) the car for free I gave the car back to my buddy with the names and numbers of the people who I talked to and the low prices that they offered. He can deal with it.
 
Sooo....it sounds like the public can tell the difference between a car that has had average care and then "the works" right before the sale, and one that has had consistent detailing before sale.

I wonder what the tip off is, or even if these are such subtle cues that the buyers can't articulate what they notice, but which influence the decision anyway.

What do you suppose the 'tell' might be?
 
If your selling it to someone you can get more money, if your selling it / trading it in to a dealer they just look at the book numbers. Sure you're likely to get the best book price.
 
When I bought my current car I passed on few others with less mileage and got it because I could tell the car was loved and taken car of by the looks. To me if a car is in great looking shape chances are the previous owner also took care of it mechanically. Did I pay the upper end of what it was worth, yeah I did. But I didnt pay more than what it is worth because it was clean.
 
Makes little difference if trading in at a dealer. They know it will come clean and all cars are usually cleaned any way before being put out for sale.
 
There are a lot of people who truly and seriously could look at a flawlessly detailed car, and a swirled-out mess, and think both look pretty good, just one is a little shinier. Gotta know your market.

If I'm buying a car, I want to know how the owner maintained it, finish included. If it's a 5 or 6 year old vehicle (or older), then not having it at least waxed regularly is a deal breaker because that means the clearcoat is in serious jeopardy. If they threw a coat of wax on it every few months and took it to the swirl-o-matic car wash often enough that bug bombs didn't cling, and I can't find any obvious major flaws, then that's good enough for me. Swirls come out!

And yeah, the tire thing; I've actually found that a new set of tires is every bit as much a valuable investment as detailing when selling a car. For some reason, any time I've sold an old car of mine, if it had new tires; it sold easier, quicker, and for more money than I anticipated. It wasn't how clean the car was, or how meticulously I maintained it, or even that I was giving them a spreadsheet printed out detailing everything down to the gas mileage I was getting and the cost-per-mile including repairs and maintenance; no, they were excited that the tires were new.

Did sell a tractor for a family member one time. I washed it real good (this was long before I got into detailing, but I did clean it up). Ran some seafoam through it, had them replace a couple of cracked and dry rotted belts, and even convinced them to buy a 'gauge face kit' for this 1950's tractor so I could refurbish the gauges to make it look spectacular (as the paint was in great shape but the gauge faces were completely faded off from a half a century of sitting outside).

He was asking $3500. The next morning, an older gentleman shuffled up to my door with $3500 in cash and just handed it to me. Wanted the paperwork. I said "Do you wanna see the tractor?" he said "oh, yeah, I guess". So we went to the garage. He glanced at it, then asked me to do the paperwork. Loaded it on his trailer and he went away! Doubt I'll ever sell anything that easy ever again. Actually kind of felt bad for the guy, because I sure hope he isn't that easy at a car dealership. Shudder to think of what they end up making him pay.

I've always wondered this. Kelly Blue Book says that cars above a certain condition have "Perfect paint with no visible flaws or defects". Now, I think what they are really saying, is no deep scratches, repainted panels, paint transfer, rust, CC failure, etc. But what I read is no swirls, marring, contamination, or fading. But then there's the problem. A guy with a swirled out car, and your flawless car, are worth the same according to "the book", as by their standards, I don't think they consider swirls and marring 'flaws or defects'.
 
Gotta remember that 98% of people out there do not see swirls or holograms - all they see is rust, deep scratches, clearcoat failure (but still doesn't know what it is lol). Too many times people call us because they are selling their auto and an AIO and a full interior is all it needs to look like it had been taken care of for all the years. I even suggest when detailing the engine to my clients not to dress anything under the hood, so that it looks more natural and doesn't look like it was detailed yesterday. Consistent detailing is very expensive and is geared more for the satisfaction of the anal guy/gal that wants their ride looking immaculate while they own it.... but there is no way consistently detailing a DD would return you moneys over expenses.
 
Interesting responses. MkSmith says he can tell a car that has been consistently maintained and one that has been detailed at sale time. I suspect a lot of people can--but how?

Bates Detailing offers a hint and an interesting observation; a detailed engine is a cue that that you merely got it detailed yesterday in preparation for sale. That's what I'm looking for. Specifically, what are the cues.

I can certainly see the observation about the tires--new tires are $400 that the buyer won't have to spend. But that's a straight-forward dollars and cents kind of thing.
 
Romans5.8 said:
I've always wondered this. Kelly Blue Book says that cars above a certain condition have "Perfect paint with no visible flaws or defects". Now, I think what they are really saying, is no deep scratches, repainted panels, paint transfer, rust, CC failure, etc. But what I read is no swirls, marring, contamination, or fading. But then there's the problem. A guy with a swirled out car, and your flawless car, are worth the same according to "the book", as by their standards, I don't think they consider swirls and marring 'flaws or defects'.
Click to expand...

You are correct sir! That is exactly what they are saying! Perfect condition would notate no obvious flaws in the paint, no repainted panels, no body repairs.

Next condition could allow for body repair, but they'd look for anything that didn't align properly, which these days is hard to do considering Insurance Companies only want to pay for AFTERMARKET parts. Read they are NOT paying for OEM parts!!!

My daughters G6 GTP we're picking up tomorrow from yet another wreck. She was sitting at a red light and a guy in a F150 slammed it in reverse and punched a hole completely through her front bumper with the trailer receiver! I threatened to sue the company and the owner, because they were trying to get out of coverage because the guy driving was in his late 30's (a grown freaking man) wasn't NAMED as a driver on the woman's policy. Give me a friggin' break! I told them that unless the owner had told the police the vehicle was stolen and was prepared to file charges against the driver that I didn't give a rats arse! And of course that the insurance company was prepared to treat it as a stolen vehicle as well!

Anyhow, I had a $845 estimate from the Hennessy GMC/Buick (including a OEM bumper cover) and they refused to pay for it. They cut his estimate by $114 and another $71 on the bumper cover. Me and the Body Shop Manager go way back (he's fixed this car 3 times now himself) so he did it his way giving me the OEM part. :props:

Getting back to "book values". KBB, NADA, and Black Book will all have different values. Looking at only one doesn't give you a true picture of the value on a given vehicle. Local auction prices are tracked with Black Book and updated weekly. Kelly Blue Book tracks sales more towards the retail market, and includes data from online sources. NADA is a mix of all three. And all of them are regional prices.

Insurance companies like NADA! But, they ALL track sales and values with closely guarded proprietary databases. Auction results for instance are tracked on wrecked vehicles just as they are on undamaged vehicles. They'll track the amount of damage to a vehicle and how that correlates to the salvage return at auction.

Companies will move their business for a 1% difference in returns. Well actually they'll move them for some strange and unexplained reasons (lots of politics involved). Then after they realize they are losing much more than 1%, (some 6 months down the road) they want to bring their business back, and of course they want you to feel like you need to give them some sort of "sweetheart deal" just to regain their business! Like I said, lots of politics involved! :rolleyes:

End of the day the only real difference in a "value" is if you keep it up to reasonable standards. What "Autogeeks" do is by all reasons, totally un-reasonable! :laughing:
 
All of these are valid arguments. Most buyers may be clueless about condition other than milage, obvious wear. But some, as mksmth stated, have the knowledge to look beyond the obvious and recognize a well-cared-for vehicle, and thus willing to pay a little more. A lot more? maybe not. But a great post by the OP.
 
PaulMys said:
All of these are valid arguments. Most buyers may be clueless about condition other than milage, obvious wear. But some, as mksmth stated, have the knowledge to look beyond the obvious and recognize a well-cared-for vehicle, and thus willing to pay a little more. A lot more? maybe not. But a great post by the OP.
Click to expand...

I do ponder whether or not they'd be willing to pay more. For example, in an ideal world where I saw two identical cars, with identical mileage, identical everything, but one had swirls and one didn't? I wouldn't pay that much more for the unswirled model. For one, the un-swirled model may have been aggressively corrected and thus missing a lot of clearcoat. Otherwise, even the cost of paying someone to correct the finish is a few hundred bucks. I can't imagine paying $500, $1000, or more for a swirl free finish, when INSTEAD I could probably use it as a bargaining chip (pointing out the damaged finish to the seller), and then spend a weekend at home corrected it with $30+ worth of product.

But that's me! Others may be different. A swirled finish is also evidence that the car was cared for poorly. Probably through an automatic swirl installer, or washed using poor methods. It also probably hasn't been waxed or sealed. So therin is a place where it MAY matter. Say I was looking at an 8 or 10 or 15 year old car. Both don't appear to have clearcoat failure, but one is swirled up and the owner said he waxed it now and then, the other has no swirls and the owner said he had been using high end waxes, and in recent years, sealants and even a coating? That may be worth a few hundred bucks or more to me, simply knowing the clearcoat is not on the verge of failure. As repainting the car is far more expensive than the small premium of a swirl-free finish.

That said, I did see a Corvette (07 or 08 I believe) on craigslist that was a good $8k below book value, at least $8k less than similar ones listed. The reason? It would need repainted. See, he took it to a hack detailer who buffed it with a rotary and left HORRIBLE holograms, swirls, and two small quarter-sized burn-through spots (that he showed in the pics anyway). A body shop told him you can't get those holograms and swirls 'out' and it would need to be repainted. They also told him (per his ad) that you aren't supposed to use a 'buffer' on clearcoat paint. (Sounds like a real up-with-the-times body shop). So he was selling it for a discount as he didn't want to deal with repainting it. It was black. I don't really have the liquid cash OR experience to do it, but I did sit back and ponder what kind of a profit one could get if one were to buy that car, and give it a full paint correction. Even if the burn through couldn't be corrected, if it really was only a couple of isolated spots, then you won't get top dollar, but you might be able to make a couple grand off of a 12-15 hour detailing job!

It is amazing how little knowledge people really had about paint. Every now and then you'll hear about people taking an older single stage car with oxidized ("faded") paint and stripping it down and repainting when all it needed was a good compound and polish. That sort of thing.
 
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