hi well today i met a guy with a sweet mint 85 corvette and i was talking to him for a while and explaining how i do alot of detailing on my cars and well he offered me kinda a job on washing/waxing his corvette and some of his cars/trucks and well i have plenty of diffrent packages i could do for his cars and well im not sure how much to charge so im hoping you guys and help me on how much you think i should charge. ok so if i did a full car detailing including EVERYTHING like say 1 full car wash ( including engine) with high quality car wash and including rim cleaner/tire cleaner and rim shiner/tire shiner with high quality products. and a the tpi engine polished to a high gloss shine, every bodypanel clayed and then say 1 coat of polish and 1 coat of turtle wax platnium car wax ( for protection ) and 2 coats of meguirs nxt gen 2.0 tech wax ( for shine ). also a full interior shining with a high gloss product. and of course glass cleaning. also small scratch removal. and i would polish/wax inside doors and painted area around the engine. so pretty much the whole thing shined up so any idea i should charge for this say on his corvette? sorry if its confusing. so plz give me a idea on how much i should charge. thank you guys so much. also i only do hand work no tools used here. yes i know im talkin about a vette but i figured you guys could still help.

Well if i would pay someone to that they charge around $80 but since you are probably gonna spend that much just for the materials

Well if you do all the things you say as well as a vacuum job and you take your time to make it look real nice you could get some dough. I know places that do professional detail work and they charge anywhere between 150 and 230 and sometimes more depending on how much cleaning they actually do. If the car is regularly cleaned then for what you say you could charge anywhere between 70 and 170. this would be cheaper than taking it someplace and if you do it right it might earn you repeat business. I clean cars but i don't do near as much work as you, except on my own car of course

this sounds like at least a 4 to 6 hr job. how much is your time worth to you? I would charge about $180. Im not a professional when it comes to detailing but i have done all the above and this takes time and care.

i figure $30 an hour considering your material, hes also willing to pay someone to do this so he can afford it.

Time is money!

I washed a van today and waxed it and i charged them $50 and they gave me $50 as a tip that was $100

.....He was impressed with what you did on your own car and wants the same for his. Word of mouth is the best advertisement. Good luck!

the detail center i bring my company cars to charges 100 so 100-150 is a normal price

It sounds to me like you are doing more than a basic detail job and should charge a bit more. This sound more like a show prep and the local shops qualified to do such work charge closer to $500. Plan on having the car from 2-3 days and don't go too fast. You also mentioned a polish, I would only use this step if you are trying to remove fine surface defects in the paint, not as part of a normal detail job.

step by step:
wash, use dawn dish washing detergent, this remove all old waxes and surface contaminates, 1 hour

claybar: 2 hours. minimum, my car took nearly 4 hrs to do correctly.

interior with vacuum and full detail, 2 hours

wheel detail: 1 hour unless wheel removal and back sides done, then 2-3 hours
If you are going to polish it add 2 hrs.

each wax/sealant coat 1.5 hours. so three coats 4.5 hrs

engine detail: 3 hrs.
Right there your looking at, say 15-17 hrs, and at the above 30/hr that would be $450-$500 adding costs of materials and $550 isn't to bad a number. Any shops that charge less are not claybarring the car, not removing wheels, not doing engine compartments, one coat of wax on unprepped paint etc. Quality work costs money and if you are doing the job correctly (it sounds like you will) then make sure you get paid correctly.. just my

wow ya thats one nice detail job you do. And i thought i was crazy lol. Honestly I used to detail a show car for a guy(1967 396 black chevelle). He had a whole "shop" that he would part it in and i would come over and do it for him before every show..and also before storage and after storage(thats when it was more intensive). Either way it would honestly take me a full saturdays worth of work and most of sunday to do the whole car. Mind you it was a gloss black and I had to be super careful with it and it really took a long time to get the shine he wanted. Well either way he would give me $300 cash to detail it, he supplied all product he wanted tho and didnt believe in tools, all by hand he would insist. He was very anal about his car and I dont blame him. It was complelty done frame up. He had close to $38,000 invested. Absolutly beautiful car.

So id say if your doing all that you said and suppling the product i wouldnt suspect you asking for 450 a bad deal. Mind you I also had to put the car on the lift and clean underneath too. It was crazy how much I had to do. Saddest part about that whole thing was he died from cancer and the car got auctioned off. I lost the detailing "business" i had with him and the car and havent seen the car since. Word is that the car is being stored down in NJ in a container or something waiting to be pulled out later for barret jackson.

Either way man...dont be afraid to ask for some money for your work. I think I should have had more, but im only 19 right now and this was a year and a half ago. So at 17, it was darn good money to be making on the side.


I completly agree its by word of mouth. The whole reason i got that "job" was because a guy he worked with i used to detail his work truck for him and everyone was amazed how clean I would get it. That one was a 04 silverado 2500 crew cab(also black). I also used to steam clean his carpets in the truck cause they would get so soiled and nasty. I since broke the steam cleaner and reallly want to get another one as it worked wonders on the seats and carpet.



Sorry for the long story...i just get excited when I think of when i used to detail that chevelle for Ron. Uhhh I miss that car. Just driving it up onto the lift would give me goose bumps cause i was so scared to scratch it