How a Woolwax undercoating and ceramic coating shop in Duluth, MN, swapped a platform that couldn’t run the business for a system new hires pick up fast, built around license plate and VIN lookup, connected estimates and inspections, and automatic QuickBooks sync.
Exclusive Detail Duluth opened in 2024 in West Duluth, Minnesota, set up to bring car care technology the Northland didn’t have yet. The shop started with Woolwax undercoating and rust proofing, and owner Clinton says it is the only certified Woolwax applicator in the Twin Ports area. The service list now runs from ceramic coatings and paint correction to high-speed buffing, oxidation removal, and exterior detailing for owners getting a car ready to sell. In a market where winter road salt goes after frames and body panels, rust protection is how a vehicle lasts, not a cosmetic add-on.
The car care experience behind the shop dates back to before 2024. The family business started in a single-car garage in north Minneapolis 40 years ago, and the Duluth shop opened as its own independent location. Clinton brings a business background. His wife, a former teacher, has been instrumental in training the shop’s new employees, and training sits at the center of the business by design: Exclusive Detail Duluth was started to create jobs for people in the community looking for a second chance. That puts one requirement on every tool the team uses. A new hire has to be able to learn it.
Clinton had a couple of months between deciding to open the Duluth location and opening the doors. In that window, he needed one platform to hold customer records, track vehicles and work in progress, and run inventory and scheduling, and it had to be easy enough to learn on a deadline. He chose a platform and opened on it.
It didn’t hold up on features or on support. When questions came up, the knowledge and prompt service Clinton was looking for weren’t there. For a new shop, that combination is expensive. Every hour spent fighting software comes out of customer time and training time, and a system nobody can get answers about is a system nobody can teach. The question stopped being whether to switch and became how to avoid picking wrong a second time.
Customer Quote
“Before Torque360, we used a different platform, and that platform didn’t allow us to do any of the stuff that we needed to do. And their customer service was not very good at all.”
“Before Torque360, we used a different platform, and that platform didn’t allow us to do any of the stuff that we needed to do. And their customer service was not very good at all.”
“Before Torque360, we used a different platform, and that platform didn’t allow us to do any of the stuff that we needed to do. And their customer service was not very good at all.”
Owner of Exclusive Detail Duluth
The second search was more deliberate. Clinton researched extensively online, made a lot of calls, and “checked out the database and the ease of use and the software that I needed to run my business.” Torque360 was the platform that covered all of it. Five features carry most of the day-to-day load:
