After our homes or offices, the next investment many of us make is on our cars. Yet, we fail to give due importance to car cleaning. The cars are either washed by the building security guards, drivers or by the domestic help. The service stations, petrol pumps and private garages offer car cleaning services as well, but these services are expensive and require one to drive-in their vehicle to the service station.
This encouraged Mumbai resident Raghav Gupta to start a professional door-to-door car wash and car-polishing company, Mr. Car Bath, in the year 2007 for residential and corporate owners. Currently, at Mr. Car Bath, there are two supervisors and 15 cleaning staff who offer 25 different treatments to the vehicles on demand. “Our specialised car cleaning treatments include odourless and non-toxic herbal pest control treatment; interior polishing; exterior enrichment for the swirl marks, hairline scratches, cement spots, paint spots, road grime marks and protective polymer coating treatment to avoid dullness and deterioration of the car from acid rain, dust-settle, water settle, UV rays of the sun & further oxidisation. In short, we offer one-stop solution for all vehicles.
“We require just half metre of space around the car to provide the cleaning service to the clients. In addition, if the client requires a polishing work, we would need a plug point. Otherwise, most of our cleaning equipment are portable. We have vacuum cleaners and jet pressure machines which we use for cleaning the exterior of the vehicle, under the car chasse as well as for the tyres and mudguard area. We also have micro-fibre cloths and other specialised cloths that we source from different parts of the world.”
The range of cleaning agents used includes leather conditioners & moisturisers, fabric cleaners, general purpose cleaners, hard-surface cleaners, glass-cleaners, odour neutralisers, engine degreasers, engine laminators, tyre polishers, soaps and even special brushes. There are also upholstery brushes and mat brushes. Raghav adds, “The body of the car is metallic and nobody would wish to have scratches on the exterior of the car. To prevent scratches, we use non-abrasive brush called SHYNL (short nylon mesh), chamois sponges and chamois cloth of different grades like synthetic and leather to clean the exteriors. We also have slight abrasive brushes for the carpet to remove the rolled-up dirt.
“Some of our cleaning agents and equipment are indigenous and some are imported from Germany and the US. We use established brands from Haylide, JohnsonDiversey and Gala brush. Most of the cleaning agents are safe and pH neutral.”
Raghav made a lot of research before venturing into the car-cleaning business. He visited Dubai, Spain, Germany, New Zealand & the US; spent hours in the service stations and private garages to understand the concept. Besides providing services to cars, he also provides cleaning service to two-wheelers, trucks, yachts and private airplanes.
Another company of Raghav is Mr. Bath which merchandises car-cleaning products, car-care products and other innovative car accessories like car shampoos chamois cloth, non-abrasive Shnyl scrubs for the exterior of the cars and many more. Till date, Raghav have provided cleaning services to more than 2500 cars in Mumbai.
