I thought you were using the FINAL INSPECTION... you made mention about buying a gallon of it a while back...

*shrugs*

RP

 

mustang88

I agree with you on what you said. Because when I did go to the car wash, I had to wait for in my truck for almost ten minutes waiting for a young girl to get done. The place was busy and she was drying her car in the stall with a towel. She was aslo running after some guy and was hardly ever at her car. She could have pulled up out of the way to be considerate. But after all, she was a high school cheerleader. But that is a different story.
I can agree on raising prices, because they just added a spotless rinse to their system. But I don't think that it is right to dropped the timer on the system. I barely got the spray soap on my truck when I looked at the timer and it was just over a minute, when I used to be able to also wash with the brush before time started to run out and have to add more money. I know that it is a business, but that is going too far.

 

I agree with all of you especially mustang88 and jwrape. I will never use the brush in the car wash and I always wash my own drying towels before they touch the truck. I go to college and used to dry the truck after the car wash in the parking lot here, but I think that is the reason for the short keying on the hood that I found a few weeks after I got here. From now on I have gone to the parking lot of a church down the road for the drying off and other stuff. I agree with mustang88, I am a business management major and sometimes you have to raise your costs to continue running a quality company. It is just something that needs to be done sometimes. You all understand I hope.

 

I disagree you do NOT have to raise prices to run a quality business. For a better quality business you have to pay attention to detail and the market itself. Raising prices in and of itself does NOT always bring better quality to a business usally just more profit in the owners pocket.

Car washes that are successful use quality products and equipment. They don't necessarily need to raise prices if there business is ALWAYS busy. That's where good business managment takes place, keeping all your capital equipment operating as much as possible. When that happens the owners can make more then they could imagen then by raising prices themselfs. Sure you can raise prices but if your business is actually operating say 50% of the time, then you raise prices and now only operating 30% of the time you loss money and return customers. Once a business has screwed a customer you can usally forget ever seeing him/her return.

If I had some capital money I'd start a car wash geared towards MANY people, those that just use as is now, then the people with tons of mud, and have somewhere between 10 -15 spaces marked off for those who wish to use a bucket and soap themselfs. I don't know how many gallons of water it takes to wash a car but lets say 5 gallons. There are meters for measuring water flow. You could charge the bucket people so much money per gallon and give a time limit of say 15 - 20 minutes to finish or pay more money.

Thats how you make your capital work for you and the customer. The more happy customers you have the more you business will operate at peak. It's simple.

Raising prices, without justifcation (property taxes, etc) is just a cop out for those who can not operate a business correctly. Then again it don't nesesate a reason to raise them if you can keep them at current level or keep raises in price as low as possible.

For those that don't think my plan with the sections for bucket washers and mud washers would work or make money, ask yourself, "how many places have you seen do it, or even try?"

 

I fill my bucket at home & cover the bucket & go. Sounds like a good idea. I guess it depends on the area.

 

Was thinking about it but I like Mother's Instant Detailer better for doing a quick shine after detailing.

I've also got a gallon of Pro's Proactive (polymer quick detailer) and Wipe Out showroom shine (carnauba quick detailer)

Poorboy also sent me a bottle of his quick detail stuff to test out. I haven't tested it out for use instead of a wash but I have been using it some to do clean-up after waxing.

I've also just been using a bottle of water to help clean up streaks and splatter after waxing. It is a lot cheaper than a quick detailer

In other words, I have more quick detailer than I can use.

Their Final Inspection is good though. I'm always looking for new stuff so by the time I run out of all this quick detailer I'll probably have more items to test out.

Mother's Instant Detailer is currently my fav for quick detailing after washing. It makes the surface so slick!

 

I am lucky the local car wash here is pretty good, although I agree that having a good wax really makes a difference with getting dirt off at a car wash. I use mostly Meguiar's products and have no complaints other then if you drop the bottles, the darn things break way too often . I too wouldn't use the brush and perfer hand washing but due to winter I am forced to use the car wash. I still use Meguiar's Quick Detailer and am happy with the results. It sure keeps my truck looking clean!

 

Raising prices sometimes HAS to be done to keep a quality business.

If the operating cost of the business goes up, then they are going to raise the price. They are business owners and are taking a risk with their own money to start a business. Why would they want to be taking such a great risk and not be making any money from it?

Prices are also different for a service based business as compared to a product based business.

If you are selling a product at say $10 and 1000 people come running in to buy it, then as long as you have 1000 in stock you can sell them. You can make more money by having more people buy it. So if you advertise and 2000 people coming in, then you can sell it to all of them as long as you have 2000 products in stock.

A service based business is different. Maybe a wash place like this can only do 1000 washes in a day. What if 1500 people show up? All their cars can't be washed. Even if you continue to advertise and have 2000 people show up then they still can't service that many people like you can if you are selling products. So you have an overflow of business. Supply and demand. Raise your prices!

That is just if you have an overflow of business. Operating costs is another issue. You can't charge less than it costs you to operate. Most people also think of only the chemicals they use as operating costs. You need to think of more things. Chemicals, Water, Water filtering, Electricity, Maintenance of building, employees, insurances, licenses and fees, rent, office costs, etc all have to be paid by the customer. And those expenses add up!

9 in 10 businesses fail in the first 5 years. 9 in 10 of the businesses that make it past 5 years will fail before they reach 10 years.

 

I don't mean to **** anyone off with my comment earlier, but I fully agree with Intel486 also. A quality business may be able to make it without raising prices and may remain a quality business, but at some points that business may still have to raise prices because of increases in costs to the business including labor costs, electricity, etc. My dad has a small business and so I have seen this first hand, I do not claim to be an expert at it all, but even if you are a good quality business, the overhead costs rise and you may have to raise your price to the customer to reflect these costs.

 

First let me say I agree with Intel as well as GreenBuck50 as far as raising prices due to operating cost, electric, supplies etc. That is common sence. After reading my post maybe it was not so clear I did mention raising prices due to tax increase, I mentioned raising prices without "justification", supplies, overhead would all be jusitified. What I was addressing is those that have no idea how to properly manage a business (they think they do but dont)

For example lets take what Intel does "detailing" Intel knows his business and is very good at it. Now I have never seen any of Intel's work in person but from reading his post I can tell he knows his business very well. Intel may charge say $80 for a good wax job, but after time his supplies go up so naturally he needs to raise his price. It's much easier to stay at home and go broke rather then busting your butt going broke.

Not lets take me, I do a pretty good job with my own truck. However, I do NOT have the proper knowledge or experience to start my own detailing business. So now with that in mind lets say I charge what Intels does for waxing $80. Mine is NOT going to be as nice as Intels, and will most likely take me longer. So what I mean by raising prices "without" justification due to poor business management would be for me to raise my price to say $120.00 since I don't get as many calls as Intel but want PROFIT never the less.

That's how I took the comment that "you have to raise prices to maintain quality business". Even when operating cost do go up does NOT always mean one needs to raise their prices in order to maintain their profit margin. Sometimes, maybe not in Intel's case, but some business a change can be made to say take less time to do a task thereby reducing operating cost thus off setting the operating cost increase. That is what I met by you DONT always have to raise prices in order to maintain quality.

My dad owned his own construction business for over 35 years of which I worked for him and learned alot as far as managment, reducing time for particular task while maintaining or improving the quality of the outcome and helping to maintain cost or keep cost increase's to a minium.

As Intel mentioned about most business fail in the first 5 years it is "usally" directly related to the managment of the business itself rather then quality, operating cost etc. all of which are an interactive part of proper managment.

Supply and demand are a part of business and cost/profits. The biggest part is knowing your market, people and customer service, overlook those important factors and neither supply and demand, nor proper managment will do anything for you because your business is sure to fail.

 

I'F YOU HAVE A NEWER F-150 2001 2002 W/SLIDDING REAR WINDOW CHECK IT FOR LEAKS

 

01 XLT Sport, Alright, I got it

BTW, I wish I could get $80 for just a wax job

 

Intel:

Cool, sorry if my first post was misleading. I did not intend to offend anyone who does a proffesional job or runs a successful business. Many people do but there are quit a few out there who don't they really believe if they can just make more money they can turn it around without giving sincer thought to how they are operating their business to begin with.

Like someone mentioned there are some real crappy car washes around here, hardly no soap, hose leaks and they charge 25 - 50 cents more for a 4 - 5 min. wash when there are others here, mainly the one I go to when forced (winter temps) that cost less, have excellent equipment, plenty of soap etc and the place is just crowed. Sometimes I wait for 30 - 45 mins just to wash my truck. I do so because I trust it how it operates, never a problem accepting dollor bills, owner is usally always around to help when needed and it is absolutely clean, bays, vacums, the whole grounds itself. Kind of makes my point when someone is running a business sucessfully, using his equipment as much as possible (crowed day and night) charges less and most likely makes 4 - 10 times the money that the guy with the crappy car wash does and yet the crappy place raises its price.

I thought you got around $80 for a wax job, hell if you were back here you could get it you wouldn't believe some of the places that advertise themselfs as pro-detailers, heck I think I could do as good as them. Guess thats the difference in people like you and I. You can do the business and sleep at night because you know you gave the customer the best service for the best price. If I were to do it I wouldn't be able to sleep at night since I would be thinking I did an so-so job and took someones money with them thinking I was a professional.

 

You mean 97 or newer right?? I had a 98' F150 STX with a rear slider that had a horrible leak. I even had the window guy come out and fill the dead space with silicone and it still leaked like a sunking battleship.

If you buy a F150, get the solid rear window or a after market slider, the Ford rear slider sucks, no if ands or butts. I have only heard of very few sliders that didn't leak.

And for that matter, very few trucks that the door didn't have cracks in them as well. Another FORD screw up.

Sorry guys, I was hashing up old memories of my nearly perfect STX. It was perfect except for those two, actually three things. I had rust under the door as well.

But on the flip side, I Love my Expedition!!!

 

It is just because the economy is different down here... this is the one of the poorest states