For those of you who travel distances for detailing, how do you factor expenses such as gas, time, food and hotel accommodations and such? I am doing my first of these in the Dallas area, luckily Scott14 is letting me crash with him!! But anyway, please give me some ideas. Also, do you have a min # of details that have to be lined up or a cost to make it worth your while?
I just use the government's mileage fee, its a minimum of $0.67 per mile for wear and tear. That calculates brakes, suspensions, oil changes, bushings, tires and all. For staying in a hotel that is completely dependent on the owner of the vehicles choice.
I've done it a few times, but I can't answer your questions. Every time I've done it, I've built it into a trip to go visit with some friends. When staying at a friend's house, I do a vehicle for him for a big discount in exchange for the place to stay. I've been asked to go to the DC area by some people recently, and hope to do that sometime this spring, before it gets beastly hot outside. But it will probably have to wait until June; I'll be up that way for an autocross anyway, and will be towing the S2000 up, so I'll probably pack my detailing gear for the ride. Stay at a buddy's place for a few days and do three or four cars, maybe more, depending on what kind of work people want.
When I have done this in the past I charged $0.50 a mile for the travel and I stayed in the customer's house. He had guest quarters and was a single guy so it wasn't "too awkward". Other times, I have done like others here already mentioned... I was in the area anyway so living accommodations weren't an issue as I was already staying with family/friends in the area.
I charge an extra $5/hr instead of mileage. I also only go where I can stay for free (which is still basically all of california). One time someone asked me to go where I couldn't stay with a friend or family member--they were't happy when I said I needed them to pay for hotel too :shrug:
