car cleaning - General Cleaning Issues

General Cleaning Issues - Floorcare, car valeting, buying and selling businesses, pricing, staffing, market research, etc.

car cleaning

Posted by helpinghands (helpinghands), 27 January 2004

hi

we run a cleaning company in andover and we are thinking of doing car cleaning services could someone give me some advice on how much to charge

say full valet

mini valet

just ouside of the car clean and so on

many thanks

helping hands[b][/b]

Posted by seanc (seanc), 27 January 2004

hi carl/paul good luck Roll Eyes

Posted by Auto_Groom (Auto_Groom), 27 January 2004

depending on the size,mess and if there is leather?
mini valet from £25.00 full valet from £40.00 extra £20 for leather interior.
hope this helps.
Andy

Posted by Les (Les), 27 January 2004

It might be an idea to mystery shop some valeters in your area to get an idea of the local 'going rate'
One tip from my experience is to allow plenty of time if asked to " JUST valet my 4WD / MPV , it's a BIT grubby on the inside from the school run and oh yes we do have a dog".
This is customer speak meaning, "The inside is completely trashed from my out of control kids and all their friends, and we keep the hounds in it for the local hunt" Grin

Otherwise Good Luck Wink

Posted by Charles_@_lakeland (lakeland), 27 January 2004

Hello,

Are you going to be mobile or have clients coming to your premises? Fixing your tariffs would depend on the area in which you are operating.

Setting your prices I would always advise you to state starting from

A regular valet starting from £16.00

1 star valet £16.00
2 star £30.00
3 star £38.00
4 star £55.00

I operate all over the country and set my tariffs according to the area. I charge £80.00 in London for a showroom valet. For the same valet in Liverpool I would charge £60.00. I would be more that happy to send you a brochure and lists of treatments we offer our clients. Use your local yellow pages to see who your competition is. Phone them asking them to give you a quote. Great business and very enjoyable but be warned hard work at times. Do your research now you client base and the products you use.

Regards
Lakeland

Posted by helpinghands (helpinghands), 28 January 2004

hi

thanks for your help could you send me some details

to

helpinghands@ukonline.co.uk

Posted by LTT (LTT), 28 January 2004

Excellent products now available for cleaning leather car interiors - give us a ring on 01423 881027
Regards
Judy

Posted by petra (petra), 28 January 2004

I find the prochem leather cleaner and the conditioner is excellent and I used it today (helping Auto Groom) on a Discovery and the results were fabulous, the owner was well impressed.
Petra

Posted by stevekennedy (stevekennedy), 4 February 2004

Hi all,

I tried to set up a valeting business in Edinburgh some years ago but was prevented by the council. They had issues with the waste water. Said I couldn't wash vehicles commercially in the street. Needed to make sure all the waste water went down public sewer or was collected up and disposed of.

Anyone found this to be a problem? Any way round it?

Posted by Les (Les), 4 February 2004

Hi Steve,
Cleaning cars without water eh? Roll Eyes

Have you tried Clean_waterless who is this group?
I'm thinking of giving their stuff a trial run.
Les Wink

Posted by stevekennedy (stevekennedy), 4 February 2004

Yeah, noticed that. Seems interesting. Just bought a pure water window cleaning machine. Thought about doing the odd car with it.

Posted by gwrightson (gwrightson), 4 February 2004

not done any car interiors yet
but have been approached by a local franchise outlet
were an accaintance happens to work, he asked me if would be interested in cleaning the interiors,
never gave them a second thought untill he mentioned they pay around £70 just for inside cleaning makes me wonder maybe i should give it a go is this a good rate
geoff

Posted by Auto_Groom (Auto_Groom), 4 February 2004

thats a very good rate if they are cars and not vans.
Andy

Posted by Les (Les), 4 February 2004

Hi Geoff,
If it's not a Winnibago(?) franchise that's a very nice rate for interiors. Grin

Sounds like worth giving it a go.
Interior car cleaning has it's moments, (see my comments above re: Customer Speak)
Best of luck and let us know how you get on
Les

Posted by Les (Les), 4 February 2004

HI Steve,
Hang on..... Cleaning cars without water was one thing, now cleaning them with Window Cleaning gear, that's got to be a first ! Grin

P.S. Obviously if it works let me know and I'll be making it a second Grin

You just never know we might start a trend, but don't let them boys on the window group know Tongue

Posted by Ian_G. (Ian_Gourlay), 5 February 2004

What do you have to do when you clean car interiors

Are we talking about a hover dash polish etc.

Or HWE cleaning

Those of you who do Valeting how many cars can you do in a day.

What Marketing method do you use.

Posted by Les (Les), 5 February 2004

Hi Ian,
Interior valets cane be as little or as much as the customer wants. Most of them just suddenly realise that the interior of their car looks disgusting, (or worse) Grin

and want you to make it look beautiful again, (bit like plastic surgery).
The 'kiddy' and 'doggy' ones are usually the worst and will normally require HWE. This is always an awkward one because in an MPV you can spend nearly as much time as cleaning a couple of sofas, but can't really charge as much. Cry

I do some work for a garage & they are just testing a 'Deoderising Bomb' basically in aerosol form, pop it in the 'smelly' vehicle, press the button and it goes off for approx 3 mins completely impregnating the interior with a choice of lovely odours, (Hi Karate/Old Spice that sort of thing) Shocked

. Or in this case, the car, their office and the streets within a 100 yards of their premises Cheesy

I do some local advertising but fortunately most comes by word of mouth or people seeing me do the job in their street. Or they come out to see where the nice aroma is coming from like the "Aah Bisto" advert Tongue

Posted by wreelyclean_servic (Wreelyclean Services), 28 February 2004

...I wonder if my wheely bin gear will clean car interiors Huh

£70 for the inside of a car eh Huh

?

I wouldn`t think twice...go on give it a whirl....you can only make money can`t you... Grin

Posted by no_water_no_wet (no_water_no_wet), 19 March 2004

I have the perfect solution to this, you become a waterless car valeter i distribute no-wet to waterless valeters in surrey and before you all laugh ask people like Blue Planet Valeting Ltd who used to be traditional valetersand now turn away work as they are so busy.
Best wishes
Lyn.on 02/04/04 at 17:14:04, stevekennedy wrote:

Posted by no_water_no_wet (no_water_no_wet), 19 March 2004

Les
Have a look at www.blueplanetvaleting.com they are the no1 waterless in the south.

Regards
Lyn

on 02/04/04 at 18:01:00, Les wrote:

Hi Steve,
Cleaning cars without water eh? Roll Eyes

Have you tried Clean_waterless who is this group?
I'm thinking of giving their stuff a trial run.
Les Wink

Posted by Ian_G. (Ian_Gourlay), 24 March 2004

How many companies are there selling waterless products.

Is it the same firm

or diffrent importers.

Posted by jb_valet (jb_valet), 24 March 2004

hi Les and Steve

i,m a newbie from surrey and have just come on to see how all this works, i have done work for blueplanet and they are waterless and i take my hat of to them very good ones at that.

i have been a normal valeter for years and got intrested about six months ago in waterless products but did not pursue it due to i did not believe it would be any good.

i then found quite a few companies had stopped valeters coming on site due to their sudden change of rules regarding water, i tracked down some waterless products and the stuff was more of a glaze than a good quality polish and then i saw a advert from blueplanet seeking tempory contract valeters but must use their waterless products, i went along and sure enough they were using waterless products but not the glaze type.
they use a product called no wet and i for one have been converted, it is a really good product and long lasting.
I now use a mixture of both as it helps me in the corporate market, i cant afford to go 100%waterless as most people still cant get their heads around it, and most dealers wont use it not because it,s not good enough but because it,s to expensive compared to free water.

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