Wills, good luck on the 5th wheel! Over all the rv is fairly clean on the outside which is very good. I'll talk to him on pricing soon. We just got back from a trip to GA and the weekend prior VA so the truck and trailer is in need of a major overhaul! The trailers got plenty of Diesel soot
rops: down the side, and the trucks beyond nasty inside and out. Along with fresh coke covering the passengers floor board. Apparently some people have no clue what they are doing when hauling trailers going from 25 to 65 then back to 35 back to 60 then decide to stop and make a turn out of nowhere. It's kind of harder to stop this thing than most people think. Literally had the trailer locked up and ended up in the other lane, thankfully no one was coming.
Wow...crazy!
Well we worked on the 5th wheel today. For washing we just used Dawn soap (a lot of it, you'll have to refill your bucket plenty of times lol) just to really get all the grime off of it, plus the owner said he use to just use car wax on it, and thou it looked like it had been a while since ANY wax was put on it, I wanted to use the dawn to wash it down real good. Used a brush on the high parts and wash mitt on everything else i could reach from a step stool (which was about 80% of it).
Here is the wax we used
32-oz Meguiar's Flagship Premium Marine Wax
I like it
. Heres what i learned...first off wax going onto fiberglass is a lot different than going onto clear coat! In my case, since the paint was pretty 'dry' so to speak, it soaked up the wax...so i found that how usually working in 3x3 ft areas with wax on cars is good....sometimes I had to narrow it down to 2x2 ft spaces because if i didnt, after applying and wiping off (i wiped off as soon as i was done applying) there would be a few spots here n there that i coudl see it missed...because the surface wasnt 'smooth' like a car...it had a strange texture to it (look closely at your g/fs dads and you may see the same thing).
I also found that something of this size can eat up a pad pretty quick. I used a Megs softbuff Polishing pad (there was some oxidation so since the wax had some cleaners in it, i opted for the polishing pad over the finishing pad) that was 6.5"...and it did a number on it. Its a lot of area...decal ink (at least on this one) ended up on my pad. You will have to clean your pad A LOT so have plenty of terry cloths with you (unless you can talk him into buying you a pad washer lol).
The guy ended up really loving the work we did, and after telling him we really underbid it etc...he came back out an hour or so later when we were only 1/2 done...and asked me what i would have charged him if i had known the amount of work it would have taken. I told him I probably would have done $8-10/ft and asked him his thoughts on that from a customers standpoint. He said to him it would be well worth it because A. We did great work and put more into it than anyone ever had (and he bought it new in 02') and had it looking better than it ever had. And B. He wanted us to come back out next year and do it again. He also said his neighbor wanted us to give him a bid.
After telling me that he then said he'd make the check out for $250 instead of the $150 we had agreed on. I told him no that I had misquoted and that was my mistake, but he insisted it was well worth it and with the hours we'd put in he had no problem paying it.
So thou I misbid the job...I did read the guy right as far as he seemed like a pretty nice guy who wasnt gonna break my balls lol....and ended up tipping quite nicely and seems like we'll have a repeat customer already.
My advice to you is go at least $8/ft for wash and wax...IF its in decent shape and a light color. If its in really bad shape...and/or a dark color...i'd go more.
At first i thought that anything more than 8 a foot was too much, but after tackeling this thing...I can tell you its worth every penny and you will WORK to earn every penny.
Be sure you have a nice size pad...and if you have a more 'used' one...use it, not a brand new one. Personally I think i'll be leaning towards $10/ft from now on, because even just a 'wax' takes a lot of work...simply because of the beating these things take and the fact that most are in the sun almost all the time.
Also note that this was for JUST exterior...interior (as in your case) is a whole seperate job...and i'd charge it as a seperate job...especially if your cleaning up all the crap you listed! I should also note I didnt have to do the top of this thing either (it has a canvas top for the record). But i did get up there and use a power nozel to spray it down for him.
I'll try to post some pics for you to see tomorrow if I can. Give that wax a try thou...its good stuff...just make sure you use enough...put a good 'X' bead on your pad...you'll need it!
