Mobile Car Wash

Something that is huge in the UK outside of London, especially up north, is to find some cheap, disused land (popular are closed down petrol (gas) stations) and set up a hand car wash there.

Your costs are very low so the mark-up is high. Drivers get a better and cheaper service than using the automatic machines. You typically need something like 6 people to handle 3 cars at once.

As someone touched on earlier, once you get a steady client base, I would hire guys for $15 an hour off of Craigslist. Emphasize detailing. A car wash is $10-20 not worth it imo. You charge 100+ for detail, you pay these guys 15 an hour and you sit at home/market.

It's an excellent idea. Your age alone will work to your benefit. Not to mention the fact that you have thought outside of the box.

People love to see young people going for it and don't mind rewarding them for it.
Come with a service they can actually use and these same people will bring more business by word of mouth.

I used to do things like that as a youngster myself

if it actually works , you could scale it up to a full blown business with employees

Bottom line, go for it and DON"T listen to negative input.
Test for yourself, that will answer all of your questions.

Best Wishes!

I have about four years of experience doing this. I worked mostly in aviation cleaning and some exotic/luxury cars towards the end of my career. It is not as easy as some would think. Washing and detailing cars is a much more complicated process if you want to do it the right way.

There are some fundamental things that you'll want to learn about what you're doing before you take action. You'll want to do the best job you can on your clients cars so you will have as many repeat and referred customers as possible. If you end up scratching and fucking up your customers cars up, you're not going to see a lot of success.

Some clientele will only deal with you if you have insurance. Also, branding on your work clothes and vehicle would be a big help. I think there is always room for new business' in this niche because of the lack of professionalism that most fly by night mobile detail companies have.

Good luck with your endeavor. Do your research. There is a lot of car cleaning videos on youtube I'm sure.

Thanks for all the support guys, I'll be going to the store tomorrow to pick up some waterless car wash products and test them out on my own car first. I'll keep you updated!

Ok so I figured its going to cost me about $12 in cleaning products per car and take me around 1hr per car. So I think if I charge $30 then $18/hr ain't too bad for some extra money.

Here is my car which I did today to test everything out:
(wait I can't even post links)
so i(.)imgur(.)com/XcrOqwt(.)jpg

Find regular costumers which adds an added advantage for you. Focus on your education also.

Mobile detailing is a way better venture. I did that when I was 18-19 I am 21 now.

I was making 100-300 a day over summer.

Simply awesome idea i would say!!instead of going home you can go to parking section also!!and if you are going to wash with waterless method then parking would be best place for you to earn the most!!!