How do I learn to detail cars?
 

Exactly as above really. I think it would be a dream for me to run my own business. Cleaning cars is a passion i've had a long time and would love to detail cars for a living. Question is where could I be trained to do a professional job?

Any advice on where to look would be great!

Try the Royal Institute of Vehicular Detailing.

Seek out a professional detailer and go and work with them for a while.

There are usually loads in large car parks in big town centres at a fiver a go ;)



Seriously you need two things - the skill to finish a car properly and a access to a marketplace that will pay between £150 and £500 to have their car buffed up. Unless you have both then it won't work.

like a fool I actually googled that

Rent "The Karate Kid" on DVD and pay particular attention to the "Wax on, wax off" bits :thumb:

As Rannoch suggests - Commuter stations around London are also a good bet. :)

Cheers for that but I live in N Wales.

Surely there must be a night class or something I could attend?

Who pays that? In Mayfair a full valet is only £100.

Nathan, like you i used to be almost obsessed with the process, my car was pretty much beyond showroom condition for many years, but i've let that lapse now. I often wondered if other people would appreciate the same standard of finish, and what it would cost to achieve it. I worked out it would probably take something in the order of six hours to get a reasonable finish, and for that i'd need to be compensated at least £500. And who's going to pay that when people like Mark Underwood (wherever HE got to after the fraud claims!!) could do you 95% of it for about £150. I just don't think the additional work, which was essential to me, would ever be worth it to the average punter, regardless of vehicle. Would be interested to know how you get on though.

I suggest you go look at the detailing world forum and ask in the car care forum here.

For those who stay away from that kinda thing and think its a bucket and sponge job - professional detailers charge around £25 - £35 an hour, and that includes paint correction.

(Shock - a sensible answer)

go into the care care section, have a word with a few of the detailers on there, especially polishedbliss and ask him how he got started. I am sure he will give you some good advice (as he is in scotland so no competition :D )

NathanB
Its not the easy money you may think it is.....


there is a HUGE difference between somebody doing it as an enthusiast, to somebody who does it to put food on the table and pay the bills.


The fact is that people who do full time detailing, IMO are few and far between, you can look at something like detailing world and see the huge army of PC bandits, but the vast majority of them would not know how to run a business if they tried. The majority seam to have normal jobs and do a bit of cleaning on the side at weekends to bring in some extra cash, maybe under cutting the next bloke a little bit etc etc.

Over the years vast amounts of people have tried to setup fulltime, and failed, this pissed punters off, this also tended to cheapen the "valeter" name, which is why people now call it "detailing"

A quick scan of eBay will find you loads of people selling the stuff required to startup, for a reason!!!

Mobile work, does not appeal to me, having to cancel and rebook work due to rain and bad weather, without having other work to prop it up is madness.

i am registered on a "valeting" forum and the amount of people complaining when the rain is bad is huge, as approx 97% of them are all mobile, therefor IMO you need a site, with an enclosed area to work in, this pushes the costs up.

it would be nice if we lived in Spain, but we don't ;)

having access to a unit or such is where its at IMHO

pricing.
Don't try and undercut people, this is pointless, there is more and more people jumping on the ship armed with an eBay kit and a cheap white van, and everybody is trying to be that little bit cheaper, its madness, last year i started to get so sick of hand washes popping up everywhere, trying to under cut us left right and centre, that i threw a big strop ;)

then i raised our prices, this worked wonders, work started pouring in, hand washes started closing down left right and centre :lol:

i have just raised our price yet again, and we are now pretty much booked up solid 1 to 2 weeks in advance, and we are finding that a higher quality of clients are coming to us, instead of battered old fords etc etc
ie: i have a new regular who is in every monday for a tidy up and he drives this :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...f/PICT0004.jpg




Start with high prices and keep raising them would be my advice, let the eBay massive fight for the scraps and put themselves all out of business........

You then have the "fun" in training other people up to do some of the work, and then the real problems start :lol:

Micky
currently at home drinking beer while logged onto the works DVR CCTV system, "supervising" his staff finishing of a punters car :lol:

Thanks guy (esp Sticky) there's some really good info here.

There isn't a chance in hell I'd trust those eastern european hand wash numpties with my car..

I'd rather stick it through Tescos machine wash and thats saying something ;)

I would rather pay though the nose for a job done with attention to detail and care - and I don't understand anyone who claims to be a car nut thinking differently to be honest.

It's metal and paint - get over it :)

I know of 2 hand wash sites in the north east round our area that make money, the rest are a joke.

one of them is 100 yards down the road from my mates conveyor car wash, and they are knocking out full valets for £35 PMSL

his conveyor car wash washes around 40k cars a year, the dodgy hand wash gets no where near that, my mate also runs the same prices for valeting as me, and now always has worked booked in, while the dodgy chav wash is struggling, doing battered old cars for £35 :cuckoo:

sounds strange to some, but in some trades, people would really rather pay more then chase about for a cheap job.

my mate even tells people who call in and ask why he is more expensive then the "wash down the road" that "if you want a cheap valet, they will do them for £35 down the road"

they will visit once and then return the next time for a proper job

my new aston martin regular was the same
chased the cheap jobs and then came back for a proper one :)

Nathan - an example of what's out there. £185 for 8hrs+? No thanks. :)

eBay.co.uk: Car valet with Swissol swissvax carnuaba wax (item 160087789907 end time 02-Mar-07 16:03:23 GMT)

if you can find a decent "chap" on a cheap wage, you can make about £110 from that single job.

but this is a whole different kettle of fish......

Detailing is a lonely anal pursuit ...... the results are a fine shiny example of a motor vehicle and if thats what rocks your boat there is nowt wrong with it.

Suits a compulsive obsessive perfectly ..... not for your average person.

Mate of mine used to enter and regularly win concours events at the national car shows. He then decided to buy a valetting business and put himself out of business by taking his anal approach to his own car to work. He would spend 2 hours on each car when showroom detailing at main dealers at £25 per car and wonder why he was always skint. The work he did was second to none, his prices were too low for the job done but he wouldn't have been able to charge what the job was worth, hence not enough cars/day and not enough cash.

Kev

try
Mark Evans: Veterinary Surgeon, Engineer, Presenter, Author

Adrian

Nathan, pm Detailling Matt, he's coming down from Cheshire again the end of March to detail some of the lads cars again, this will be his 2nd trip down, he does an amazing job, have a look on the Wales section and you can see his results, ask him how you go about becoming a detailer. :thumb:

Russ

Not that many - which is my point.

Good detailers will charge £150 upwards and it more than a valet it usually involves something like a Zymol preparation and finish.

The drivers are Astons, Porsches, Lambos, Zondas, Ferraris etc.

Here is the link to a friend of mine who set up his own business last year. When he did it he was already an expert detailer for a local Porsche specialist and through that work had an excellent network of high end car owners. Both elements are key assets.

He is based on York and travels all over the UK to work on cars.

Detailer

Its also likely to be the second most expensive thing you own after your house.

Now considering a car costs even £12,000 - £200 once a year to keep the body looking its best hardly seems excessive when you pay £300 - £400 a year just to service the engine.

I like your mates "unique weathershield" - 2 gazebos stuck together :notworthy
:lol1:

Just a heads up on whats involved
 

This is a detailers job, not just a wash and wax :lol1:



https://www.scoobynet.com/wales-26/5...ng#post6692406

LOL !