Car Deets rises from the ashes and joins forces with RV Concierge

WASILLA — A fire forced Car Deets out of its downtown Palmer location in October. But now, the automotive detailing shop has joined forces with RV Concierge, located off East Bogard Road.

Car Deets owner Jim Beach made a big announcement Saturday.

“I’m just so excited I don’t even know what to do with it, that we have the opportunity to offer better service and be in an environment that’s significantly better and moving forward with a whole new service to offer the community and expand on the RV side,” Beach said.

Car Deets is entering a new era. The detailers will operate out of RV Concierge’s big warehouse garage. Beach said the new space is substantially bigger than the old shop.

He said the new space “quadruples” the number of cars they can work on compared to the little shop in Palmer and they can keep the cars warm easier. This large car bay is essentially giving the staff and customers a whole new winter experience.

“In the winter, you’d work on two cars, that’s all we could work on. Pull those out, pull two more cars in. It would take an hour for the cars to warm up enough. If you tried to clean them too soon, the cleaner would freeze…” Beach said. “We’d try to start their car 15 minutes before they got here so they weren’t climbing into a frozen car. So here, they can actually come inside and their cars’ room temperature.”

Beach noted the more centralized location will help them serve more people from the Wasilla area in addition to their Palmer customers.

“We love that building. It’s just iconic. My team, they were very sad, until the last four days,” Beach said.

Several Car Deets employees busily detailed vehicles inside the new space Saturday. Beach said they have tentative plans to open fully to the public during Small Business Saturday, Nov. 30. He said this merger will create more job opportunities, additional services and more opportunities for the Valley.

Beach noted that the Palmer shop was too small to offer Clear Bra installations but the new space is big enough. Clear Bras are paint protection films for vehicles.

“So, from that side of the business, it just allows us to do more and to be more effective and more efficient about what we’re doing,” Beach said.

Beach said that he’s hesitant to call the fire a blessing in disguise because it was a very traumatic ordeal losing that iconic, sentimental space. He said that it almost makes him emotional thinking what if there were any employees there at the time. Luckily, no one was.

“It would have been just catastrophic,” Beach said.

While the fire was a tragic setback, Beach indicated the new partnership and larger work space will work out nicely and he’s excited for the future.

“I have to admit, it’s a very good thing at this point. I wouldn’t schedule it,” Beach said.

The new ceiling height means Valley customers with RVs and other large vehicles can new utilize Car Deets’ services.

RV Concierge owners Terry and Karen Smith both indicated they were excited about the new partnership. Terry said they both were “high touch” businesses that effectively complement each other.

“When I saw the fire in the paper, I said, ‘man, we’re looking for businesses that is complementary to RV Concierge because we’re a high touch business and we keep growing. At the end of the day, they clean and detail the interior, exterior right? So that’s what we do at RV Concierge when we’re turning our coaches,” Terry said.

RV Concierge stores, cleans, rents, and sells RVs.

Car Deets opened in 2013. They have locations in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Kenai, Olathe, Missouri, and Phoenix, Arizona.

Car Deets and RV Concierge are located at 4721 East Bogard Road in Wasilla, across the street from the Valley Country Store.

“I’m really excited about the opportunities and where we can take it,” Terry said.

For more information about Car Deets, call 907-229-2860 or visit cardeetsak.com

For more information about RV Concierge, call 907- 357-4678 or visit yourrvconcierge.com

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com