Still learning so let me know if my thought process is correct or this was a coincidence.
Finished up my Hu-Vee job tonight. The sprinter vans were the ones that gave me a hell of a time last time. I started by hitting a straight truck I forgot yesterday. I sprayed my acid then my soap but it wasn’t touching the film. Was about to pull the brush out but decided to soak the hell out of it in acid and then hit it with the soap. That worked.
So everything I read about 2-stepping says you should just need to mist the acid and let the soap do the work. Was my soaking it in acid a coincidence or was I misunderstanding what I was reading regarding misting?
This is the one thing I love about doing this. I am always learning and trying to be efficient as possible while providing a good product for the customer
Mist will keep it wet, wet it means to cover the surface completely and soak it means ummm keeping wet I guess lol. You got to wet it. Get on YouTube man plenty of videos showing the process.
soak my #1 and soak my #2 the same way, no misting,no dwell time, in between or after #2 soap. 2 machines, 28 minutes now, 70 foot tractor trailer ,full sleeper , includes engine bay hot clean ,inner frame rails,outer frame rails of tractor , all slack adjusters etc. And brightner all rims,tanks ,boxes,step treads etc and hand brush deep dish rims on tractor and trailer not steers. Two guys. One,4gpm @3000 psi for tractor, One 5.5 @3500 psi for trailer. If it’s a full size tractor sleeper flat bed. We can have it done in 20 minutes or less…If we don’t have to apply brightner we’re faster
Your getting it now bubby,I was wondering what the heck was going on. Bad Ratio, Bad injector, poly line going bad, Acid got neutralized ect,ect,not holding you lip up in the air right
Me to man,I just got a couple of years on ya,I learn something new every day,trial and error. @dperez is the veteran old fleet washing fart around these parts. I’m going to get that upstreaming part that’s on here somewhere and at least try it out soon as get another machine dialed in with my other. @dperez swears by it ,so that’s good enough for me. It won’t work on all my rigs I do ,but if I can switch from DS to US in a few QC changes, I’m on board. Just gotta figure out how he goes from soap to rinse with the flick of his gun…
Offered up some info to a guy in KC about a potential client and he said if he gets it he will send me $500. That would be cool if it’s true, I’m skeptical though.
Not sure if the issues with the website will prevent any posting but here we go:
Stopped by Student Transportation of America this afternoon and spoke with someone to get some information.
What I found out: ~500 trucks (give or take 50) cleaned 6 times a year. 4 different terminals with buses.
The terminal I stopped at today has two areas they service with around 80 buses. 12 of those buses are on dirt roads for their routes so much dirtier than the others.
I figured it would take me a week and a half to clean all the trucks at 4 different terminals by myself (this is the time I may have to hire someone). I would assume I could clean the ~500 pieces in 125 hours (1 per 15 minutes on average, but probably can get to 1 cleaned per 10 minutes).
With these assumptions I plan on placing a bid in at $20 per bus. I also plan on offering up a disinfection for $2.50 per bus using Vital Oxide. What do you guys think before I submit the bid?
Used the Nerta Jumbo tonight. I’m not a fan of 1 stepping. You have to use a little more pressure to get ■■■■ cleaned. Much different than 2-stepping where you let the chems do the work. Don’t get me wrong, the Nerta worked well, but at that price point I can 2 step 10x the amount of vehicles than I can 1 step
I down streamed it on one truck, did not like the results at all! Went to foaming with a little heat, around 115 degrees, and let it dwell. Dwelled long enough it was probably a minute or two from drying. It cleaned, but like I said I had to use a little pressure to really clean it. Whereas my 2 stepping I don’t need any pressure to clean and just let the chems do the work.
How do you tell a customer the juice isn’t worth the squeeze? We have an account that only wants their trucks done monthly. We have cleaned them twice so far. The decals are old and these trucks drive a lot of dirt roads so they are dirty as hell. The second time I cleaned them we were using hot water and a couple of stickers were blown off (according to them). We went there today to try and clean the trucks but we could not break the film at all without having to pull out the brush, and I didn’t price the trucks to be brushed each time.
So how do you go about letting a customer know either the schedule needs to be upped, price dramatically increased or we are just not going to clean them anymore? It sucks because it’s almost $10k a year just on these trucks done monthly.
Just be open and honest with them. Let them know how filthy the trucks are from always driving on dirt roads and they need to be cleaned every two weeks or they are too difficult and take too long to clean.
This is my email. Trying to keep it professional and trying to clean the trucks in the future:
I am going to have to go back to the drawing board on your trucks and talk to my soap supplier. The amount of film on the fleet is more than I am used to and my soaps are not cutting it for me. The film build up is partly due to the monthly cleaning schedule, possible dirt road driving(?) and my inability to break it is in part due to not being able to use hot water for fear of blowing off the decals. Typical turn around time for my supplier is roughly 2 weeks, which I had planned on ordering new soaps Wednesday next week. If my new soap is unable to break the film I will have to give a new estimate, that will include brushing, for you to approve for me to continue cleaning the trucks.
This is a good one for @Infinity . He’s awesome at grammar and always knows exactly how to say something.
That’s sounds good but I don’t know if I’d say "more than I am used to but rather “you’ve yet to find a soap that can cut through the amount of dirt and grime that their trucks pickup on the road each month.”
You know, don’t make it sound like it’s more than you’re used to but rather you know that they are just too dirty for monthly cleanings.
“Most accounts with similar amounts of dirt and grime are on bi-weekly cleanings so are able to come clean without scrubbing. I’ve yet to find soap available to cut through the amount of monthly dirt buildup your vehicles have. Scrubbing takes extra time and effort so, if nothing is available, we may have to look into increasing the monthly price or go to bi-monthly cleanings. A month is just too long to go between cleanings with the roads your trucks travel. Bi-monthly cleanings are normally the better option because it gives you an overall cleaner truck for the month.”
Don’t put that but rather wait for Alex. He’ll talk them into bi-weekly, cleaning their personal vehicles, and probably their neighbor’s vehicles too.
