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accessories and machines it gets worse.<br />
Simultaneously, some Asian brands are<br />
establishing a presence here, but with<br />
low quality products lots of machines<br />
are sold with little to no manufacturer<br />
warranty. Product options are reduced<br />
to a few global brands such as SONAX,<br />
Meguiar’s, 3M, Menzerna, 3D or Koch<br />
Chemie. Other brands are made available<br />
here but not for an official dealer,<br />
distributor or branch and the products<br />
are highly taxed as well.<br />
On the flip side we have a few local<br />
manufacturers getting into this market.<br />
There´s an Argentinian chemical engineer<br />
that produces a set of detailing<br />
products with decent performance and<br />
our neighbor Brazil has an important<br />
manufacturer that has been historically<br />
a huge player in Carnauba wax<br />
production and now is producing high<br />
performance detailing chemicals with<br />
interesting results.<br />
Approximately how many<br />
detail shops are in<br />
Argentina?<br />
We are about 5,000 detailers in Argentina<br />
now, some detailing shops are shared with<br />
a car wash facility, or some kind of business<br />
related to cars. That number includes a<br />
good amount of part timers that work<br />
on weekends. But one aspect I want to<br />
point out is there could be some thousand<br />
so-called “detail shops” in every city, but<br />
there could be hundreds of guys detailing<br />
cars for dealerships, collectors, going<br />
mobile or even detailing museum cars. We<br />
could count them as detailers as well.<br />
Anything else you can tell<br />
me about the detail market<br />
in Argentina?<br />
A country such as Argentina has its<br />
particularities for instance, you have<br />
subtropical forests in the northeast, high<br />
altitude deserts in the northwest close to<br />
the Andes, and glaciers. High mountains<br />
and blue lakes like Switzerland in the<br />
southwest and plains along the entire<br />
Atlantic coast.<br />
Snow and salt removal is a must in<br />
the extreme south provinces of Santa<br />
Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. Red soil with<br />
high iron rust content can be a nightmare<br />
on car interiors and chassis if you<br />
live in the northern Misiones province.<br />
Sun can really damage a clear coat in<br />
the highlands of Jujuy. Dirt roads in the<br />
Pampas are covered with a thin dust that<br />
can easily pass through your door jamb<br />
rubber seals if they aren’t in good shape,<br />
gravel roads in Patagonia can literally<br />
remove undercarriage protection and<br />
rust your car chassis severely, so for us<br />
detailers it is not always just a polish and<br />
wax. Interiors get very dirty and molds<br />
grow fast if you don’t vacuum your car<br />
properly, as average humidity in the air<br />
is beyond 70% in my region, and bad<br />
odors can easily infect a car interior.<br />
Within Latin America the Argentinean<br />
detailer is much respected as well as all<br />
car-related technicians. We have a strong<br />
car industry and a reputation of being<br />
self-taught people in general.<br />
Argentine customers are very careful<br />
about whom they trust their vehicles<br />
to; they gather information about the<br />
detailer that is going to work on the unit,<br />
and inquire about his/her experience<br />
and reputation.<br />
Some particular types of customers<br />
demand more than just paint correction<br />
and look for what is referred to as<br />
a “full detail” – here that means you<br />
work on each and every part of the car,<br />
and it always includes a high amount of<br />
manhours and this kind of project can<br />
be complex and physically demanding. I<br />
take a few cars for full detail a year and<br />
it’s been mostly high-end or rare units<br />
most of the time.<br />
According to the Pareto Principle, 80<br />
percent of a business income is produced<br />
by 20 percent of the customers. In my<br />
business that rule of thumb is accomplished,<br />
very few customers keep my<br />
business rolling so taking good care of<br />
my customer base is my main strategy.<br />
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VOL. 5, NO.3 • FALL <strong>2020</strong> | AUTO DETAILING NEWS | 31