What a detail department really costs a dealership
Most dealerships know what their detail department costs in payroll. Very few know their real cost per vehicle — because half of the line items aren't coded anywhere.
Ask a general manager what the detail department costs and you'll get a payroll number. That's the visible line. It's rarely more than half the bill.
The costs everyone counts
- Gross wages for washers, prep techs and the supervisor, if there is one
- Payroll burden: employer contributions, CNESST, vacation pay
- Products and consumables: soaps, waxes, pads, microfibres, bags, seat and floor protection
The costs that show up on no line at all
These are what open the gap between perceived cost and real cost.
- Equipment: purchase, depreciation, repairs, and replacing whatever breaks sooner than planned
- Overtime at month-end, when deliveries pile up
- Management time: the hours a manager spends recruiting, training, rescheduling and settling priorities. It's the most expensive item on the list, and it's billed nowhere.
- Redos: every vehicle that goes back through the bay is paid for twice
- The cost of delay: a pushed delivery, a used unit waiting to be photographed and listed, a service customer who leaves unhappy
- Turnover: every departure costs a job posting, training, and a few weeks at reduced output
The calculation
Exercise
- Add up twelve months of every item above — visible and invisible.
- Count the real number of units processed in the year: delivery preps, used-vehicle recons, courtesy washes, loaners, lot units.
- Divide. That's your real cost per unit.
The second step is the one that surprises most dealerships: almost nobody counts units processed, because detail has no repair order. You can't manage what you don't measure.
What the number is for
Once you have it, you can compare. Not one impression against another: a cost per unit against a cost per unit, with a written scope of work and a written quality standard on both sides.
That's exactly what we produce during an assessment. We visit your bay, measure your real volumes and put a number on what the department costs you today — even if you then decide to keep it in-house. The number is yours.
Want that number for your dealership?
A one-hour visit is enough to produce it. No fee, no obligation — and the calculation stays with you, whatever you decide.