Meet Wills and Daniela Amstutz of Windows and Wheels Auto Detailing

Today we’d like to introduce you to Wills and Daniela Amstutz.

Wills and Daniela Amstutz (yup, that’s us, the owners) grew up with a lot of love, but not a lot of money and definitely not a lot of cars to play with. I don’t mean this as a complaint, but as a precursor, so that when I tell you how EXCITED we were when our mom bought a used, 1996 Ford Taurus, you don’t think we’re totally nuts.

Little did we know that 96’ Taurus would spark an interest and passion in us that would totally change our lives. What started out as us just washing (and washing, and washing some more) our moms wonderful “new” car – gave rise to us gaining interest into the world of detailing.

Slowly but surely we’d take what little extra money we had from washing windows in the summer (yup, that’s how we got the name Windows and Wheels) to go buy new car soap, tire shine and paste wax (oh yes, the good ole days!) While our supplies and experience were very limited at the time, our passion was not.

That passion apparently showed through to others – as some of our moms retired clients started asking her “Who keeps your car looking so good?” When they heard it was her own children, they asked if we would mind detailing their car. We jumped at the chance!

(I can still remember the Mercury Marquis that was our first official “detail” for us, trust me – it was a big deal.) See that little mean green machine in the back? Yup, thats what we started our business out of! For a few years, we bounced around the valley working on anything we could get our hands on. Show cars, RVs… minivans (those were always adventures!)

To us it didn’t matter, we just wanted to give 100% effort towards anything that was thrown at us. Eventually, we started working from home and started focusing more so on our specialty work that we had been teaching ourselves through much trial and error- paint correction and ceramic paint coatings (this was back around 2011-2012).

It was definitely easier being able to work from home – while the set up wasn’t “ideal,” it was functional, and we were putting out some killer work that was getting attention from the local car groups and car enthusiasts. Yup, detailing from home was life. We turned out some miracles from that garage.

Things were going great until someone became a bit jealous. We were contacted by the Town of Gilbert and informed someone ha reported us running a business from home (oh no!) and we were not allowed to perform “this type of service” from our house. The reason we were given was because we were “increasing traffic” to the neighborhood. *Insert eye roll here*

Yup, our one car at a time process was just totally turning our neighborhood into the Phoenix International Raceway, so we were no longer allowed to work from home (even though the guy two doors down had a daycare from home with 15 people in and out to drop kids off daily). SO, the hunt for a shop began. In hindsight, this was a blessing in disguise. It pushed us to move up a notch and a bit out of our comfort zone and eventually we came across 219 S William Dillard Dr. Suite 119 Gilbert, Az.

No, it didn’t look like much, to begin with. It was BIG but dirty, dimly lit and hardly expressed our high detail, super clean tastes. However, we had a vision, and to us, this was a blank canvas awaiting our OCD touch. That, combined with the fact that we had some family members who loved us enough to give a lending hand meant there was nothing that would stop us from taking this canvas and turning it into something truly special.

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Has it been a smooth road?
We’ve had down plenty of struggles from being self-taught with no startup $, clients or experience, trying to differentiate our level of service from the local car washes. Moving from mobile to working at home to finally moving into our own shop – it’s been a crazy ride.

Now we find ourselves helping out many other detailers across the country who are starting up or who followed our story along the way and became inspired to start up their own detailing business. The number of calls and messages I’ve gotten from people both in and out of Az who’ve told us our story inspired them has been one of the most rewarding parts of our journey.

I love being able to lend a hand and hopefully help shorten the learning curve that we encountered during our startup years.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
We specialize in ceramic paint protective coatings, clear bra installation and paint polishing (also called paint correction). We love being able to take a new car and make it look better than new and giving it protection to be able to continue to look that way for years to come.

We also enjoy taking a vehicle that looks like they’re done for and reviving the appearance to a level that the owners never expected. The smile and wide-eyed expressions owners get when they pick of their vehicles never gets old.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I love working in Gilbert. We honestly get work from all over; Scottsdale, Mesa, Phoenix, Chandler, etc (and sometimes from out of state) – but Gilbert has been great to us. Lots of car enthusiasts and car clubs, great weather and great people.

Pricing:

• Ceramic Paint Coating starting at $700
• Window tint starting at $325

Contact Info:

• Website: www.windowsandwheels.com
• Phone: 4806335961
• Email: Wills@Windowsandwheels.com
• Facebook: Facebook.com/windowsandwheels

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