Do you guys pay $500.00 like I do for interior/exterior. Clay bar, cleaner, 3 coats. I have gotten great advice from this forum about DIY, I am just short on time all the time. I can imagine the satisfaction after doing your own car.
Anyhow, my original question, 5 bens for detail, I live here in the Bay Area,
fair price?

Redline once a day.

 

it's hard to answer you question.
the price depends on the condition of the paint and amount of work needed.
if not much paint correction is needed, then 350-500$ sounds right.

if a lot of work is needed to correct the paint, more time will be involved meaning more $$.

I charge 345$ for basic detail. if major work is done that is based on number of panels that will need to be addressed.

 

thanks for the reply. My car is 04 C4s, weekend driver, paint is in great shape. It sounds more like $300.00 is the fair price, because of the condition.

 

autopia @ fremont charges ~$300 BUT whatever you do, DO NOT take your car there. they're a bunch of numb nuts and have no clue what detail means. i only went there because of their location being close to me. i used my wife's suv as the guinea pig.

 

before you take your car anywhere, make sure to check them out.
there are more bad detailers out there than good ones.

 

Both advice taken in. Now, since I'm already wondering about my guy, and know not to go to autopia, anyone suggest a premium detailer. What questions should I ask? I don't mind paying 5 bills, as long as I'm getting my money's worth.

 

I have a local private detailer here in Orlando, $260 gets the whole shebang done per car, $300 for my SUV. This is with limited polishing, if polishing is required the price obviously goes up but I do my best to keep the cars properly washed to prevent this.

 

Onelove

You must be a loyal customer, or the price is on the down low. Can't get anything close here in the bay area for detailing.

Cheers

 

All of this guys clients are loyal customers. He does it all from my daily driver X5, to SLRs, Veyrons, etc. He doesn't advertise other than WOM but does some of the best detail work I've ever seen and I'm SUPER picky.

 

I would ask to see some examples of his work and possibly references. It also wouldn't hurt to meet him in advance to discuss exactly what you want done to your vehicles and have him give them an evaluation.

 

What do I pay???? Not enough! The only detailers around here are the 159.95 variety and you REALLY only get what you pay for.

 

If you were local, I would take care of you boss.

 

Are you happy with the $500 detail? If you are then it is worth it. Up here for a top end detail, you are in the $650-1000 range.

 

stealth
Seriously, 1 G for detailing. Tell me all about it. I'm happy with the results of 5 bill detail, although I really don't know how to compare it to what you are
getting. I thought we were expensive here in the bay area, I got it all wrong.
I got a whole new perspective.

"Life's like a garden, you gotta dig it." Joe Dirt

 

tanman, pricing doesn't always depend on quality... I started detailing for ~1/4-1/3 of what a couple high quality, somewhat local detailers were charging... after getting my name out there, I'm still at 1/2-3/4 of those detailers' prices (similar prices to the previously mentioned $500-1000)...

Oh and I actually do good work and don't cut corners in any way... As an example, a 1-step polish for me would start @ $200 for a small car, such as an E30 BMW (1990) and 2-3 step would start @ $300.. $200 would not include interior but $300 does. I price not only according to size of vehicle and paint condition, but also design of vehicle, etc. (for example flatter cars are 10x easier to polish than Porsches, etc.)... in short, there are too many variables involved in the pricing... just find a good detailer (autopia.org is a great site to find a good, quality detailer) and pay him what he wants to do a great job... if you're happy and amazed, it's worth it