All right, Kansas City, welcome back to the Bespoke Automotive Refinement Podcast. Today we have with us the owner and the founder himself, Thomas Thill. Welcome to our podcast.
We’re so glad that you could join us today. Oh, I’m so happy to be here and thank you for pronouncing my last name right. I really appreciate that.
It is a hard name. What are some of the things that people call you based on your name? Oh, I’ve been called Thomas Thill. I’ve been called Thomas Thill.
I’ve been called Thomas Hill. I’ve been called Thomas Thrill a lot, which I kind of like because I’m a thrill seeker. But honestly, I’m really impressed that you got my name right the first time.
Well, thank you. I’m practicing actually. It’s one of those names that you have to practice.
Well, Thomas, can you tell us a little bit about the area that you service? What are some of the areas in the United States that you provide detailing? So I’m located out of Overland Park, Kansas, which is right outside of Kansas City, Missouri or Kansas City, Kansas. So I service the entire Kansas City area, anywhere from St. Joe, Louisburg, Lawrence, Lee Summit, everywhere in that circle. I service, but you know, I have jobs in Wichita that I go take care of.
I have clients in Western Kansas I go take care of. I have a clientele in Northwest Arkansas that I go take care of. I’m willing to travel wherever, uh, just depending on the job and, you know, depending on if it’s something that we can make work between the client and the company relationship.
How far do you think you’d be able to drive in a day or prefer to drive in a day to service somebody in the Kansas City Car Detailing area? I would be willing to drive upwards of 45 minutes without any additional travel fee. After that, you know, because Kansas City is a big city, so you’ve got a lot of driving. I would say after about a 45 minute drive is when I’m going to start charging mileage.
If I go to Wichita, I have a good clientele there. I really don’t charge them extra to go there. Uh, they’ll put me up in a hotel.
So, if you’re in the Wichita area, if you’re willing to, you know, pay for me to stay in a hotel, I will not charge you mileage. Do you service areas like Lee’s Summit, Missouri? I do actually, I’m actually working in Lee’s Summit right now. I’m, uh, doing a Kansas City Car Detailing package on a, uh, Ford F-250.
It’s lifted. It is literally, I’m not a truck guy, but this truck is dope. It’s lifted.
It’s on fuel wheels. It’s got the right lift kit. It’s got shocks, uh, Fox shocks, a little tongue twister there.
What Kansas City Car Detailing package are you doing on this Ford F-150, 250? It’s an F-250. Yes. You know, there’s a difference, right? Yes, I do.
Big difference. So what I’m doing, initially was just going to start out as a basic detail, for the customer, but the customer was complaining that their undercarriage had these, what appeared to be rust marks. They were really just iron deposits.
So I ended up doing a full undercarriage detail. I did what’s called a classy chassis detail. So I sprayed, uh, iron remover on the entire undercarriage, sprayed it down with a foam cannon, scrubbed the entire undercarriage, and pressure washed it off.
I used a product that brings back that gloss black finish that the chassis should look like that you see on, you know, trucks that go to SEMA or other big truck shows. The customer wants a single stage paint correction and we’re doing a five year ceramic coating on it.
I bet your client is really going to appreciate this Kansas City Car Detailing package. I hope so.
What do you think is probably the biggest package that you give or service in the Kansas City area?
Honestly, for the last year, I’ve made a living just doing paint correction work.
And I’m really trying to branch out of that. I want to offer others, I do offer other services. I was really lucky when I first moved here, I tapped into the exotic car market.
So, you know, I’ve only been working on Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Bugattis, for the last year. Just the Kansas City area? Really just the Kansas City area. I’ve been going down, I’ve gone down to Arkansas a couple of times to work on some stuff.
I’ve gone to Wichita to do some stuff, but it’s really been paint correction because that’s my specialty. That’s what I’ve known for in the local car community. And so, it’s just kind of by design.
When someone wants their car paint corrected, they call me. It’s, it’s, I don’t know how I branded myself accidentally, but it worked. As the paint guy, paint correction specialist in Kansas City.
Yeah. How long does it take to provide one of these services? How long does a paint correction take?
Well, it completely depends on the condition of the paint. On a car, it typically takes two to three days.
It’s kind of crazy though, because I do the same process on every vehicle, exactly the same. So if someone buys a brand new, say they buy a brand new Porsche 911, and then it doesn’t have a whole lot of scratches in it, but it’s got orange peel. I will do the same level of correction work on that brand new Porsche that I will on a 25 year old daily driven car that’s covered in scratches because I’m trying to cut through not only the, uh, scratches, but the orange peel.
So it takes two to three days on a car, and then it takes four to five on a, on a full size truck. So you offer paint correction to the Kansas City area. What other Kansas City Car Detailing packages do you offer? Well, I offer everything from monthly and bi -weekly maintenance washes.
Uh, I really offer that to people who, you know, if they have a car that they drive every day and they want to keep it clean and they don’t want to run it through a harmful express car wash, we offer that. I have a basic detailing package that’s just an exterior wash and then do a full interior package. I would say the most popular package is the gold glamor package.
That is a deep detail, deep clean, deep detail. And then I do a single stage paint correction, that allows the car to basically look brand new. It’s not a full paint correction, but it removes enough of the imperfections in it that it looks like it did when you bought the car new.
And it’s, it’s a great alternative to, you know, if you don’t want to pay $2 ,500 to have your new F-250 paint correct, or your used F-250 paint corrected, but you want it to look good, it’s a great way to, to have that done without, you know, paying over $1,500. When somebody wants a Kansas City Car Detailing service done on their vehicle, how long should they plan for each of these things to take? Well, that completely depends. I mean, you know, if, if you’re looking at having a maintenance wash done, something like that really only takes about an hour to two hours, depending on the size of the car.
If you’re doing a full detail, that’s going to take two to four. And if you’re wanting that gold glamor package, that’s, that’s, that’s an all day deal. Once you get into the full paint correction services, you’re going to be looking at two to three days, two to five days, depending on the size of the vehicle.
How long should I plan? Like, let’s say my car, I drive daily, but it’s just me, no other people in the car, no pets, anything. How long would that take versus somebody that has a lot of kids, takes pets in their vehicle and has a lot more wear and tear on the interior? Well, do you charge extra for that? I do charge extra for that. So I charge extra for a pet hair removal.
I charge extra for an extra dirty fee because obviously it’s going to take more time. Let’s say your car isn’t disgusting. It’s just got, you know, some dirt in the floorboards.
The mats are a little bit dirty and the plastics on the interior are covered in dust and the car’s just dusty, but it’s not filthy that maintenance detail is only going to take about two hours to three hours.