Auto Detailing Scratch Repair - Should Car Detailers Offer the Service?

One thing I always told my auto detailing franchisees was that they needed to give the customer what they wanted, and if they found that customers wanted a service that they were not yet providing, then they needed to get their crews trained and start offering those add-on services. Let's talk about this shall we - I'd like to discuss paint and dent repair, and scratch repair services on auto paint because it's not as difficult as it appears, even if in the future, those services may not entirely be needed anymore.

There was an interesting article in GizMag on April 15, 2014 titled; "Self-healing polymer restores itself in minutes," by Dario Borghino. The article stated the German researchers have a new coating material, a 'self-repairing sealant which is a scratch-resistant paint' and although this technology is still in its infancy and probably will not hit the market for 4-5 years, a car manufacturer might expedite it to market, as that would be a great selling feature, a car that never gets scratches from shopping carts, keys, etc., just think about how revolutionary that would be for a moment.

The article is quoted as saying; "Self-healing polymers are extremely attractive materials, but creating the "ideal" polymer is far from easy, and compromises are in order. So far, scientists have mainly approached the problem from two angles: they've either used a network of embedded microcapsules containing a healing agent (which can only heal the material a limited number of times), or materials that can heal indefinitely because they are bound together by reversible chemical reactions (but need a large amount of energy as a catalyst)."

Today, in the auto detailing profession there are a number of franchises, distributorships and Biz Ops offering paintless dent removal, and scratch repairs. It's become such a great business model and so respected by the auto dealers, customers and industry that someone with the right set-up could do just that and not even ever actually wax or polish a car. Yes, generally speaking the services do fall in the same category, but today there is enough business for either as a stand-alone small mobile business.

Posted in: automotive