The detail bay decides how fast a unit turns and whether the customer's first 10 seconds are a "wow" or a wince. But the queue lives on a whiteboard, recon hand-offs are verbal, and "is 4127 done?" gets answered three different ways. Louie puts the bay on a phone: a live recon queue, photo upload that tags the unit, one-tap recon approval to front-line ready, staging, and service-drive upsell flags.
A unit that sits an extra week in recon is carrying cost the GM never sees as "detail." A rushed delivery prep is a CSI ding nobody traces back to the bay. The bay fails quietly — one undocumented hand-off at a time.
Priorities change hourly — a sold unit jumps the line, a delivery moves up. The whiteboard is always one erase behind, and the wrong car gets detailed first.
The sales floor, the desk, and the lot all ask separately. The detailer gets interrupted five times an hour to answer the same question.
Inspection → mechanical → body → detail → photo. Each hand-off is a shout across the shop, and two weeks vanish with nobody knowing where.
The unit's clean but the listing sits photo-less for days, or the photos are dark and miss the interior. Online shoppers scroll right past.
A 4:45pm delivery means a 10-minute wipe-down. Fingerprints on the dash, a smudge on the glass — the customer's first impression takes the hit.
A service customer's trade-worthy car sits in the bay for a wash and nobody connects it to a sales opportunity. The equity drives home.
Every module below is built and in the demo, and it runs on the phone already in the detailer's pocket. No per-tech seats, no "detail module" SKU.
Live 7-stage recon board (arrived → mechanical → cosmetic → detail → photos → priced → live). Tap to advance a unit; anything stuck more than 2 days gets flagged.
Capture the finished unit at the bay, tagged by VIN. Pushes straight to the listing — no four-day photo lag, no missing interior shots.
One-tap sign-off that moves the unit to front-line ready, timestamped with photo proof. The time-in-stage dashboard finds the bottleneck.
Move finished units through arrival, detail, recon, photos, and live with condition notes logged at each stage — one board instead of a guess about where a unit sits.
When a unit in the bay has positive equity, flag the advisor for a trade conversation while the customer is still in the building.
Here's what the detail tech's phone walks through from open to noon — queue, photos, approvals, and an equity catch, no whiteboard required.
Modeled on a mixed queue of fresh trades, delivery prep, and lot refresh.
Phone loads 9 units in the recon queue: 4 delivery prep, 3 fresh trades, 2 lot refresh. Detailer works the delivery-prep units first.
2024 RAV4 for a 10am handoff. Full detail, fuel, wash, cabin wipe — logged and moved to the staging stage on the board.
GMC trade from last night. Recon stage tapped done with photos; unit advances to front-line ready and onto the listing.
Sales asks about #4127. They see its current recon stage on their own screen. Detailer never stops working.
Two finished units shot and tagged by VIN at the bay. Complete 24-photo sets live on the listings before 10am.
A service customer's clean Tacoma rolls in for a wash — positive equity. Advisor pinged; trade conversation starts while they wait.
Queue at 2, both deliveries staged, all photos live, one equity lead created. Shift brief posts to the next detailer.
Same detailer, same equipment, same units. The difference is whether the bay runs on a whiteboard and shouts or a phone that tells the whole store what's done.
| Task | Old way (whiteboard + shouts) | Louie way |
|---|---|---|
| Queue visibility | Whiteboard, always one erase behind | Live recon board, one stage per unit |
| "Is it done?" | 5 interruptions an hour | Live status on every screen |
| Recon hand-offs | Verbal, two-week mystery | Timestamped + photo, one-tap approval |
| Photos | 4-day lag, often incomplete | Tagged at the bay, same hour |
| Delivery prep | Rushed 10-min wipe | Logged on the staging board |
| Equity in the bay | Drives home unnoticed | Advisor flagged for a trade |
We claim: the simulation engine models recon-to-front-line dropping from 21 to 9 days, photo-set completeness at 98%, "is it done?" walkbacks eliminated, and ~3 extra service-drive trades a month captured from the bay. Full methodology at /money.
We don't claim: every shop hits identical numbers. Recon time depends on your vendor mix, bay count, and how your hand-offs work today. The mechanism is mechanical: one live queue, photo every stage, approve in one tap, flag the equity.
$24,995 one-time license per rooftop. Every detailer, every phone. No monthly fees, no "detail module" upgrade SKU.