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From: Lance (Auto Detailing Product Review for Mobile Automotive Detailing and Detail Shops)
Remote Name: 66.82.49.60
Date: 23 Jan 2004
Time: 21:05:32
Headlight Restoration. We have noticed a new trend with our fleet customers, and they are wanting to save more money. In the last couple of decades large fleet managers have often removed and replaced normal wearable items. Today as fleet customers want to save more money, due to a take mean of the belts of upper management onto middle management, they are asking for repairs on things like mirrors, bumpers, body trim, seats and even headlights. It all started with windshield repair about 15 years ago. Rather than replacing a window or windshield you would simply replace the hole or crack with resin. This trend is increasing. At the last mobile tech Expo in Orlando, Florida we saw at least 10 vendors for we shall repair, to vendors for plastic repair, six vendors for upholstery repair, and even a vendor who sold a acrylic headlight and lens repair in a small box kit. The cost to replace headlights for a fleet of vehicles can easily cost thousands of dollars. We have found that there is actually competition, which approaches fleet shop owners and managers asking for ways to keep their fleets headlights in shape. It is more cost-effective for managers of large fleets to maintain their vehicles headlights, then to replace them. We have found that harm full UV rays can cause substantial damage overtime to these fleets of vehicles. We have seen this at budget, Avis, Hertz, Dollar and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. We have also seen this at Hewlett-Packard, which is the largest owner dealer of Ford Taurus in the world. Every 18 months Hewlett-Packard leases brand-new Ford Taurus’ and Ford Taurus wagons. They are even planning to lease Ford's new highbred sedans. The headlights on these vehicles become opaque overtime in a look cloudy. In addition to this rollover carwashes and un-maintained or poorly maintained in Bay automatics scratch the surface of the lenses. There is also road debris and shopping cart therapy at the local Wal-Marts. We has studied the products to solve these problems. The best product we have found is made by; micros surface fishing products, Inc., who generally specializes in products used in the manufacturing and restoration of aircraft transparencies for museums military aviation and general aviation. Some of their higher end acrylic kits are used by the airlines; SW, Jed Blue, Continental Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska air, Trans air, Ted, and FedEx. This company has now designed in marketed acrylic headlight lens restoration kits for the automotive detailer and car care professional. http://www.micro-surface.com . The detail guys, http://www.DetailGuys.com have approved micromesh has the product of choice for headlight restoration. A new set of sealed beam headlights on a Jeep Cherokee could run as high as $60, however our team can make money lightly sanding and coating these headlights with the Micro-Glass product in the Micro-Mesh Kit by Micro Surface Corporation. It is important for the detail guys team to constantly review such products, this innovation has propelled our team to come up with the solutions for our fleet customers and help us bundle services to compete against the other large vendors to these fleet companies. One company we compete with is the fleet wash out of New Jersey. They do not offer this service, but we do. This is just one more way we can bundle services to provide a value added service to our customers. We have talked to managers of fleet wash company in their various markets. Some of these managers have told us they have been looking into doing headlight restoration, because we now offer the service. Many of the high end to Auto detailing shops do offer headlight restoration using various methods. Recently with the floods that we've had in the United States, we have seen Auto auctions start to offer this service also. Generally the Auto auctions that we've seen do not know how to deal with sealed beams, instead they're much better with none sealed beams, and by removing the lens and wiping down the inside and using glass wax they are able to make the lenses look transparent and therefore the car looks sellable as runs through the auto auctions. Whereas this is a good idea for auto auctions it is not good enough for the fleet customers especially those that assign their cars to specific individuals. Companies like the Baby Bells, quest, Cox cable, AT&T, FedEx, United States Postal Service etc. have thousands and thousands of vehicles. Generally these vehicles are assigned for the most part with very few as a percentage of the total fleet being pool cars like at the GSA office. As the vehicles get back from Iraq and Kwait and were ever they do next to wipe out terrorism from the face of the planet, they will have seen and blasted headlights, from the very fine silica type sand of the Middle East. So how does one go about taking care of this problem? Well, it is much simpler than you think. The first thing to do is to assess exactly how bad the damage it is this can be done in a number of ways; first, you would get the opaqueness or cloudiness of the lens. Second, you look to see if there's any pit marks and hard water spots. This is how you assess which method you'll use to either clean or restore the surface. Let's face it if there's too much damage, the time it will take to fix the lens will cost you more than to replace it. The micromesh is cool because you can use it either wet or drive when you're sanding. How much did he detail guys charge for this service? Well in depends, on a service fleets and vans such bred companies, wholesale companies small package delivery companies, online grocery services, dry cleaners, flower shops, armored car services, limo services, school buses, garbage trucks any other fleets mentioned above, we have found that is not difficult to get 8 to $10 per lens, remember each of the service trucks or cars have between two and for lenses. This can add up to quite a lot of money very quickly. We have also found that used car dealerships will go for it once you show them how it works. We also found us to be a nice add-on to keep bar accrues busy in inclement weather. As you know the Northeast United States has been slammed by snowstorms and Nor-Easters, these additional services provide an extra revenue generator when wash cars. There is a great article in TSP magazine in the October -- November 2003 edition. The micromesh soft touch pads are only three by four inches with a phone center but they were killer since they have micromesh upon both sides. When using them they bend with the lens as you're working so you can go fast with even pressure. We found that we could clean, micromesh, white and buff a lens in about six to eight minutes. If you're working indoors on a fleet of vehicles in the winter in the northern colder climates of the US or Canada you can make money no matter what the weather is in this is just one more way we are solving the problem of continuing sales with a mobile carwash or mobile detailing rig in the harsh winter weather climates. By using the micromesh can't it cuts down the time to do the job significantly. The old way was to use different levels of fine grit sandpaper slowly working up. For instance starting with a 1000 grit and working upwards to 12,000 grit in a micro fiber. This is great if you're restoring your car, but it just wasn't worth it if you're detailing one. Another company which recommends using the product is Bud Abram’s detail plus: http://www.DetailPlus.com which I believe also sells these Kit's. This is detailing tip number 112. Any questions or comments e-mailed me; lance@carwashguys.com .
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