- Start a mobile DPF cleaning businessHow a van-based trade hub serving local garages works, from company set-up, insurance and waste registration to the van, the job on site and winning trade work. For new entrants and mobile mechanics or remappers adding a service.
- Bring DPF cleaning in-houseWhat changes when a garage stops sending filters away: turnaround, margin, quality control and the capital or lease it takes. Covers choosing between the workshop machines, site needs and fitting cleaning into the working day.
- Profit calculatorYour price, jobs and costs in; profit and payback out, with every assumption shown beside the result.
- Finance optionsHow buying outright or spreading the cost changes the decision, and what to ask any finance provider.
Three ways a machine earns its place
Before any figures, decide what kind of cleaning business you are building, because the same machine pays back very differently in each. The machine, the space, the customers and the costs that matter all follow from that choice.
- In-house garage
- A workshop cleans the filters it removes from its own customers’ vehicles, and perhaps some for neighbouring garages. The gain is margin kept in the business, a faster turnaround and control over the quality of the job. Usually an E or S in a bay.
- Mobile trade hub
- A technician with a METClean V in a van cleans filters at local garages that don’t have a machine. The garages remove and refit; you clean and invoice them at a trade rate, and they charge their own customer. Demand depends on the relationships you build.
- Heavy-duty and fleet
- A fleet, plant or commercial workshop cleans truck, bus and machinery filters, where downtime is expensive and replacement filters cost far more. The XL Multi+ is built for this work, and the case usually rests on vehicle availability as much as margin.
What drives the numbers
A handful of things decide whether a machine pays its way. Some you control, some depend on your local market, and two come from MET: the machine price and the running cost per clean. Figures for each live in the calculator, the MET shop and the business plan, not on this page, because yours will differ from anyone else’s.
- Jobs per week
- How many filters you’ll clean in a normal week, from your own work or from demand you can show. This moves the answer more than anything else, so be honest about it.
- Retail or trade price
- A clean sold to the vehicle owner earns a retail price; a clean done for another garage earns a lower trade rate so they can add their own margin. Most operators do some of each, and the mix changes the result.
- Machine cost
- The machine’s price from the MET shop, excluding VAT, where a current price is confirmed; otherwise your quoted price. If you lease, the regular payment replaces the upfront cost. Add any installation, training and adaptors you pay for.
- Running cost
- Water, cleaning product, power, filter consumables and waste for each clean. The calculator uses MET’s current running-cost figure and shows it in its assumptions.
- Labour
- The technician time for removing, loading, cleaning, drying, refitting and recording, and what that time costs you. The wash runs by itself, so part of the cycle can go on other paid work.
- Travel, space and waste
- For a mobile operator, fuel and time between sites. For a garage, the bay the machine occupies. For everyone, the cost of disposing of used water, sediment and spent filter elements through a licensed waste route.
Working it through
Start with the margin on one clean: your price, less the running cost, less the labour it takes, less any travel. Multiply that by the jobs you’re confident of in a normal week, not your busiest. What’s left each month, after any lease or finance payment, is what pays back the machine.
Then compare that with what you do today. For a garage the alternative is usually fitting a new filter or sending the old one away and waiting, with a vehicle in a bay meanwhile. For a mobile technician it is passing the off-vehicle work to someone else. Count the lost bay time or lost jobs, because a faster turnaround can matter as much as the margin.
Finally, change one figure at a time. If the case only works at your highest price, your busiest week and all-retail work, it isn’t strong yet. If it still works with fewer jobs, more trade work and a lower price, it is robust enough to plan on.
Risks to plan for
No machine can promise a cleaning outcome, and any figures you see in the calculator or MET’s guides are examples to replace with your own, not a forecast. These are the things that most often make the real numbers differ from the plan.
- Demand takes time to build if you’re offering cleaning to other businesses
- Some filters are cracked, melted or contaminated with oil or coolant and can’t be cleaned
- The underlying vehicle fault has to be fixed, or the filter blocks again and the customer blames the clean
- Saturated filters may need finishing in an oven or on the vehicle, adding time
- An undersized compressor, power supply or water arrangement slows every job
- Operator time, training, insurance, waste disposal and maintenance come out of the margin
- VAT, tax and capital allowances change the cash position and need your accountant’s view
MET’s business plan checklist
MET publishes a business plan checklist for anyone setting up a cleaning service. It runs from forming the company to tracking whether the work is profitable, and it is a useful list to tick off whether you are starting from scratch or adding cleaning to an existing business.
Read its revenue and cost figures as MET’s examples rather than a prediction for your area. Put your own prices and volumes into the profit calculator before you rely on any of them.
- MET business plan checklist
Seven phases: legal and financial set-up, including a limited company, business banking, insurance and waste carrier registration; choosing and fitting out the van; buying and installing the equipment; training; building an online presence with booking; outreach to local garages for trade work; and tracking profitability.
Run your numbers
The profit calculator puts these factors side by side. Choose a machine, set your price and jobs a month, and it shows monthly revenue, monthly net and payback, with the running cost and every other assumption listed beside the result. It opens on example figures for you to replace, and nothing in it is a promise of earnings.
It leaves out VAT, tax, technician wages, premises, travel and other overheads, and says so, so add those to your own view before deciding. If you plan to lease, enter the payment from your own quote.
By the work you do
Space, staffing and throughput differ a lot between a garage cleaning its own customers’ filters, a mobile operator working from a van and a fleet workshop with heavy-duty filters. Each of these pages covers the machines, site and day-to-day work for that kind of business.
Go through your figures with us
Ask for a quote and we’ll check your volumes, site and costs with you.