I used to have my own valeting company many years ago a valeted mainly trade cars and taxis' Most people want a car cleaning to a budget. But all cars were done equally to the same standard, i wasnt aware of any of the claying proceedures in those days but didnt really have the clients that would pay for it.
All my full valets were striped of mats, stickers, car junk, spere wheel, jack and boot carpet along with wheel cover.
All customer belongings and bits put in a plastic sack or box and then the car thouroughly hoovered out.
Moved up for steam cleaning - TFR all under the bonnet, door frames and panels, round the boot where the seal is then on to the wheels. - Turn the steam sleaner down from pressure wash to more steam and water, do the bonnet and engine bay, then all the door frames and panels, then on to the boot and do round the seal and if required the boot itself, then
back under the engine to do some of the bits missed because of the ammount of steam, than on to wheels and arches.
Prespray the car with a jet wash and TFR mix, low pressure (allways start from the bottom) then turn the TFR off and give the whole car a good jet wash, especially round the rubber trim and seals. Visual check for tar and missed bits, treat, finish and rinse off.
Move the car out of the wet and leather off, and then move to a valeteing bay. Clean the dash board and plastics then a full upholsty clean with a wet and dry vac, sucking out any excess water from the door panels and checking the pockets where clean on the doors.
Start the engine and check for misfires and get up to temp, set the heaters on full heat floor and partial windows and vents, shut the doors and start the body polish and tratements.
Open the doors, turn off engine, wet vac the seats to remove any more water.
Whislt this was going on the Spare wheel, jack, mats and carpets from the boot as well as wheel trims were all presprayed and then pressure washed. When dried they were placed back by the car.
Most cars were left for the whole day if private, half day if trade and once finhed where deried out as mush as time would allow, generally they had another going over on the seats and carpets every hour or 2.
An hour before the customer was due, the windows were cleaned, tax disc put back in the window, dash,vents and switches finshed and checked., boot reasembled.
When the customer turned up, invite them to inspect, then put paper mats and seat cover in, plus ask where all customers belongings were to be put and show him anything that would have been found under the seats etc.
The above is a basic summary of a full car valet, a lot has not been mentioned. Todays full valets they tend not to do the engine bay.
Couple of things worthy of a mention here.
T-cut strips a fine layer of paint of your car. any polish that turns the polishing cloth the same colour as your car is actually removong paint.
A lot of people are not aware that polish and wax do differnt jobs on a car.
One of the main things people do wrong when cleaning a car is start from the top. How many times have you seen a person slop a bloody great soapy sponge in the middle of the roof of the car about to be cleaned.
Allways soften dirt from the bottom of the car and rince it off, never use a sponge at the very start. once the car is wet than soap the car with a sponge, dont suppose this really matters where you but be methodical with it. If you do decide to use anything to agitae stubborn dirn, then the pressure wash would be my 1st option, a brush on the end of a hose would be my 2nd. But using a sponge is just holding the dirt particles on the surface therefore rubbing them against the paint work.
The reason for not soaping a dry car from scratch and starting on the roof is that each run of soapy water that runs down the cars cuts it's own clean line down the paint work, and if only doing a quick wash to nip to the shops then may shows the marks when leathered off. Looks a bugga on dark cars.
A good was twice a year could be by far the paint protction to stop the dirt affecting your paintwork in the first place.
Plus dont believe the hype about cleaning a car is all elow grease. A good valet is the result of good qualtity materials, some elbow grease, but overall is personal job satifaction.
The ultimate way to valet the interior of a car is do remove the seats and if possible even the carpet, this way you can clean all the carpet and thorougly dry before refitting and on the seats you can clean the seat frames as you have better access to theand the sides of the seat next to the centre console.
The simple bits a lot of valeters dont do, Interior mirror, glove box, door pockets, centre console, air vents and parts of the boot including the space wheel.
When you pay for a full valet then Expect one.
£250 for the full works by the OP.
As mentioned a lot of that will be overheads, you wouldnt pay a back street valeters £250 for a job like this which is why the top class car owners dont use them. If the guy is booked up a week in advance then that means he is doing the job right for the money he is charging, if it was too much for that particular erea then he simply would not be as busy.
As for doing one aday, they should easly manage to 2 a day with 2 of them working if they have the space for 2 cars.
I will say this though, the guy has thought the job out and I nocticed he has hung white plastic sheeting on the walls to protect the walls and give him the extra presentaion image.
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Topic: Omega elite detailed by www.finerdetails.co.uk (Read 3636 times)