About a week ago my neighbor got a new car. Of course he was very pleased about it and wanted to show everybody. So myself and another neighbor were chatting about cars and how nice this one looked. As we were talking, I always tend to rub my hand over the paint surface on a new car. I like to “feel” a new car, especially on the showroom floor of a dealership. This tells me how well a car was prepped. Most new cars are prepped rather quickly for delivery and certainly not “detailed”. Many dealers do not wax a new car for various reasons. One is that they don’t get paid any extra time from the manufacturer to do this. They get paid a prep time which involves checking the fluid levels, air pressure in tires, making sure all accessories work, a short test ride, and other mechanicals, along with the “detail” of removing any film on the car, plastic covering inside on carpets and seats, washing the vehicle, quickly cleaning windows, dressing tires, and ensuring the new car looks like a new car. By waxing it, they will not get paid the extra time so many dealers just wash the car and maybe give it a quick spray wax. Most of the time this prep is acceptable to a customer. If the car looks new and has no blemishes, they take the car and are on their way. But it leaves the dealership with basically no wax on the paint surface.

 

My neighbors’ new car, which is a major Japanese manufacturer, looked good…..not great. It was clean, the interior was clean, and the tires were shiny. However, the windows were very streaky which is common on a new car prep and the paint felt horrible. It was very gritty and felt like sandpaper, which my neighbor did not notice, and it felt very dry, so I knew it was not waxed at all. But he wasn’t complaining and I did not want to break his very happy bubble, so I said nothing about the prep job. My other neighbor was also there, and he had bought a new car last year as well. He brought up the point about what I told him last year when he first got the car. He said that I told him to get some wax on that car right away and I took care of it within the first week that he had it. My neighbor with the brand new car only days old said to me……”but the dealer told me not to wax the car for a year”

 

I am sure many of you have heard this before. “Don’t wax a new car for at least one year” This is as false of a statement as I have ever heard. Dealers say many untruthful things to customers as we all know, but in a case like this, it hurts the detailing business. Here’s why

 

The first thing that is done at the factory is the car gets painted. It’s a bare body car at this point with no drive train, interior, glass, trim, etc. Its painted first and then put together. I have seen it in person with the robotic sprayers spraying a bare body and seeing the car almost come to life as it’s painted. What needs to happen before the rest of the car can be put together is that the paint (clear coat) needs to dry and cure. Workers cannot assemble a car with wet paint or paint that will show fingerprints if touched. It needs to be fully cured “before” it moves along the line to be built. The way to dry and cure the paint is two fold. Sometimes an activator or hardener is mixed in with the clear coat to start the curing process. The other thing that happens on all cars is that they are “baked” in a curing oven to further accelerate the process. After the vehicles exit the curing oven, they cool for a couple of hours and then on to assembly. All cars are about 97% cured and dry by the time the car leaves the assembly line. By the time that car reaches a dealers lot, it’s almost 100%. In fact at the end of the paint line after the cars have been cured, they run by a line of workers who are looking for imperfections in the clear such as dirt nibs and small runs. They are corrected at that time by sanding out the imperfections and then by buffing the sanding marks that are left. They can do this because the clear coat is almost fully cured just hours after painting.

 

So why would a dealer tell a customer to NOT wax a car for a year. This is old school thinking in that the older single stage paints of 30-40 years ago would dry from the outside –in. The thinking was that although a car was dry and seemed fully cured, it was still a bit “wet” underneath. In theory, if wax was applied while the paint was still in a drying process…meaning that the solvents still had to escape, the wax would seal the surface thereby NOT allowing the solvents to escape. In turn, the solvents would finally force their way up and through the paint causing little solvent pops or dimples in the paint surface. So a dealer would tell a new car customer 40 years ago not to wax a car for a full year. It may have been true back then, but it certainly is not true today. OK back to where this screws the detailing business

 

Let’s say a car was built a few months ago on 4/30/2009, three months previous from today

 

Let’s assume it arrives at a dealer’s lot about a week later. It will arrive maybe a week or 2 after that if it’s coming from overseas

 

Let’s assume the vehicle is NOT pre sold and is for stock, so it may sit for a while. We all know how the car industry is at this point and that cars are not flying off the lots. Let’s assume that this vehicle will be outside on a dealer’s lot exposed to the atmospheric pollutants. Some cars will have the protective plastic on the top surfaces, but there is time limit where it needs to be removed after a certain date. Some vehicles have no protective wrap at all, so this is not good for the paint surface.

 

Let’s say the vehicle finally gets sold about 3 months later. Things are slow. Cars are not selling. Maybe it has poor options, a funky color, it’s a gas guzzling SUV, or whatever keeps a new car from selling rather quickly. It sells today on 7/30/2009 

 

This is Day 1 for the customer but the car is already 3 months old. This is conservative also. Some cars sitting on lots are there for more than 3 months. You can check the build date on the inside sticker on the left front door of most cars to prove when it was built. Let’s also assume that this is a dealer who does not “wax” a new car. They wash it and dress tires, etc but there is no wax on the car and it certainly was not buffed. I see new cars where the line of glue from the plastic wrap is still there. I feel new cars and many need to be clayed. Some new cars have light scratches that need to be buffed out. But many go out the door in whatever condition they happen to be in. So the car is sold on 7/30/2009 with NO wax on it

 

The customer also was told by the dealer NOT to wax it for 1 year. But it’s strange that many dealers still try to sell a paint sealant or weather package…or whatever they cal it in particular area of the country. They try to sell these packages from $600 and up. Many dealers try to get around $1,000 for this. If they could have sold the paint sealant package, they would have basically “waxed” the car and took the money, but if a customer says no to this, they let the car go with NO wax and tell them not to wax it for 1 year. VERY strange!

 

So because a customer is told NOT to wax a new car for 1 year, they will not even think about it. Now pity the poor detailer who suggests a wax job or light buff to this customer within that 1 year time frame. Now the customer thinks that the detailer is trying to rip him off because of what the dealer said!!! Imagine that? A customer that thinks a dealer is telling the truth on a subject they generally know nothing about, and they think the detailer is lying!!

 

So 1 year passes, with no thought in the customers’ mind of detailing or waxing. Let’s fast forward to 7/30/2010. The car is 1 year old. But in reality with the 3 months that it sat on the lot, it’s now 15 months old. It may not look so great either. Maybe they are thinking of getting it detailed, but hey its summer time, kids are out of school, you need the car, you go on vacation. Things are just busy. This customer will wait until the kids go back to school. Hell, they may as well wait until just before winter to get it done.

 

Fast forward again to 10/30/2010 It’s finally time to get the car “waxed” (well in the customers mind anyway). In the customers mind, they still have a “brand new car”. In reality this pig could be in horrible shape and it’s really 18 months old, a year and a half. But when the customer price shops this “wax job” they will tell a detailer that they have a new car that is “about” a year old. Oh but how wrong they are in many ways. This 18 year old car could be black. It never had any wax on it. It’s probably going to need some degree of “detailing”.  So when you see the car and price it out, it’s far different than what the customer thinks it needs. Now you look like a bad guy for giving them such a high price on a “brand new car”

 

Look at how much money was lost in this time because a dealer told an old myth to the customer. This is the way it can be handled from the beginning and see how much business can be gained.

 

I have customers (because they are properly educated and trained) that call me 2 days “before” they pick up a new car. They say they are picking up the new car on Thursday, can we get some wax on it in the next few days after that. So, I get the brand new car that still has a temporary tag on it and still dressing on the tires to set up from day1. I will clay it, give it a light polish and wax it for a very fair price. If I put 2 hours into it, that about all it will need at most, I can still get a nice price which is far less than a dealer who wanted to sell him a paint sealant package. Now if you guys want to sell them something like that, go ahead, but be fair and don’t over-estimate how long stuff lasts. Remember we want repeat business.

 

I then tell them it’s a good idea to bring it back after about 3-4 months. I am realistic in that most people will not bring it in every month or 2. So if you can get them almost from day one for what really amounts at that time as a “wax job” and even every 4 months after that, at whatever your average “easy” detail price is. You will have seen that vehicle at day 1 or thereabouts, 4 months after that, then another 4 months, then another 4 months. So in the first year you have seen the car 3-4 times, and maybe a time or 2 in the next 6 months to equal the 18 month mark. Sure the customer will have spent more money in total for all those visits compared to a one time “full” detail at 18 months. But the car will always look brand new and you won’t have to fight as much for your price on that initial detail at 18 months

 

Of course you won’t convince everybody to do this but to get a few customers like this will make your life much easier and add a lot of revenue to the bottom line and keep customers extremely happy with how great the vehicle looks all the time.

 

Even if they spend a total of $500-600 for a bunch of “easy” details in that 18 month time frame, its still far less than the 1 time fee of the super fantastic, supposedly 5 year guaranteed, almost bulletproof shielding, paint sealant package that the dealer wanted to sell then upfront. There are so many ways to do this and make it easy for the customer to have a detailed looking car all year round and to keep you busy and profitable. It’s again all about educating and training the customer AT ALL TIMES! It never stops and it never should stop.

To visit our detailing website servicing Alpine NJ and surrounding areas, please visit www.njautodetail.com or our training, products and equipment site at www.kleencarauto.com