Who here does fleet work/ buses??

Superior Shine

Superior Shine

New member
I have a proposel to give on washing and waxing buses. The wash will be monthly with waxing yearly.

Now I do 99% high end cars and may not want these buses but $$$ is $$$ and if I can get some good $$$ out of this with minimal problems I may go for it.
 
I Do

I wash 2 big fleets, one on the Central Coast, and one in the desert. They're both large in size, and with various types of vehicles. Both locations are washed weekly, and for many years washing was all I did. About 5 years ago I was asked if I wanted to start detailing, and off I went. The location I do in the desert lets me wash and/or detail employees personal cars on the property and that's become a sweet setup for me.

I only have one bus in all of these units and I detail it yearly. My opinion is that you should take the account. Commercial jobs are cool. Hope you get your price to.
 
What would you charge to wash a 40 foot school bus. I know how long it takes me to wash a car/truck. But I havn't a clue on a school bus. The guy they have now charges $6 each!!
 
Hard to play the pricing game sight unseen.

If you're only washing them once a month, $6 is low. Real low!

How many do you think you can wash in an hour? That's key..
 
if he charged 6 bucks each all he does is take a large brush the ones janitors use to dust the floor ;) and go over the whole car and pressure spray it off with some soap then go on doesnt both takeing extreme detail. I know its hard to do that when you are a perfectionist detailer line all of us here. Good luck with the busses.
 
I think $6 is way low. When you say wash, what would it include? Will you do windows (heck of a lot of windows on a school bus)? Scrub out wheel wells? Shine tires, etc?

I can't even imagine waxing a school bus.

Let us know what happens.

Matt
 
Don't go for it!!!!! School buses are a pain in the rear. The paint that they put on them is a single stage paint and it sucks to clean. It seemed no matter what I used they still seemed the same after I was finished. They don't shine just by washing them they'll need to be buff and waxed to achieve what you're I believe your customers are looking for.
Then you have all those damn windows. Needless to say I did this account bi-weekly for only a few months. I wasn't happy with the way they turned out and they took to long finish. I had 12 all together @ $25 for the short 30 passenger and $35 for the 42 passenger buses. If they wanted the interior sweeped out and windows I added $20... And they paid the money to have it all done. Exteriors Bi-weekly and the interiors bi-monthly. it sounded great until I found out that it took me two days to do them.Not that I'm slow by any means there is a lot of paint on them to wash. If it a regular school bus they have the sliding windows that are a pain to clean inside and out.

I've done fleet work for Budget rental car. And that was great until they went under. They have transporters that go from the terminal to there location at the airports. Now those were sweet to clean and budget paid well for quality work. Washed\Waxed, spot cleaned cloth seats, sqeeguied windows, sweaped the floors, and polished the chrome mirrors. for $175 each they had 7 busses and that took 2 1\2 hours each. two days to complete and well worth it.

I hope this gives you some insight on what your getting into.
 
Thanks for the responses. The buses are something I am looking into only because they asked me. I would charge something like $30 each if we could wash 4 an hour. The wash would include a soap up, scrub down and rinse, drip dry. No windows.

The $6 guy is just spraying them down with some harsh stuff as the buses are chalky again. I waxed them last year for $250 each. We went over
them with a cleaner wax using the PC and a wool pad.
 
This is intersting I have a buddie that his father owns a refuse company (garbage trucks) They have 42 trucks in all and wash them once a week. They are uising airplane soap and using high pressure washers. They do not have to be dried off, just the windows. The yard is set up with every thing. I was thinking this might be a goo d source of income during the winter and I would only work 5 hours a day.

any thoughts on this subject?
 
On big vehciels like that, there is absolutely no reason to hand wash them. Power wash with dilluted Meguiars Wash & Wax (You can buy this stuff in 1, 5, 30, and 55 gallon sizes) and then spray it down again. Let it drip dry, dont even bother hand drying the windows. Those kids are going to gummy them up anyways.
 
If anybody's still interested I'll tell you the magic bullit.... Use Softened Water!! And if you want to get real fancy, use Deionized Water for final rinse. Not only does soft water make your soap work 10 times more effectively, it will save you tons of time and money in the long run. Using soft water you will still get some spots on the windows, mirrors, and chrome (but nothing like with hard water), and with deionized the surface will be for the most part spot free.

If you want to one step them, get a GOOD Sodium Hydroxide based soap, and even mix your soap using soft water. I mostly one step when I wash, but do have a 2 step process that I like alot.

Superior I like that $30 per bus that you mention. For the frequency of wash that they want, that's a more realistic price.

Hope this helps you.
 
I think you can buy a filter type machine that softens water. When I used to clean carpet we had a water softener attached to the truck mount propane heater. The water went from the tank to the softener to the heater. The soft water made the pre-spray and the extraction emulsifier work much better. It was much faster to clean greasy traffic lanes with the soft water than with hard water.

Matt
 
My Dad, being the anal car enthusiast as he is at 70, retired and built a home in AZ. All his hose bibs are run off of soft water. The difference is amazing. For those who have actually used soft water will agree it is worth every penny.
 
I might look into one of those inline filters. But I think the PC will come first, Dwayne just needs to have a discount on them :D
 
$6 a bus! This guy must be indepently weathly or does not mind starving.

Remember, always charge what the work is worth to you.

Eric
 
For $6, Ill grab about 10-20 bottles of Turtle Wax Jet Wash/Wax (these things hook inline to the hose) and spray the bus down, then powerwash it.

$6 for a freaking bus is rediculous.
 
That sounds pretty good the Jet was deal no one actually details those buses like SMR and Dressing wheel wells engine details etc they just want them to look nice and not like they dont care about them same with big commercial trucks they are washed regularly to prevent rust from salt etc but are very seldom fully detailed unless its a show truck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top