Anyone else work at a NEW CAR dealership (bodyshop/washbay/detailer)?

M

MrSelfDestruct

New member
I work in the wash bay of a GM dealership. Clean up the new, used, and deliveries. Anyways I was thinking this thread could be dedicated to discussion of how dealerships do things.



Guess I'll start off with a question- what do you do for a new car delivery (aside from just basic cleanup) ?
 
I'll be interested to hear if any dealership prep guys do the full decontamination sytem routine on a regular basis. None of the dealerships I do business with do it...
 
Accumulator said:
I'll be interested to hear if any dealership prep guys do the full decontamination sytem routine on a regular basis. None of the dealerships I do business with do it...
Click to expand...



When I owned the store we used cosmolene remover, water, and cleaner wax to prep the new cars. No decomtamination in sight. If a customer ever compalined about the cleanliness of the car, we would give them a "WE OWE" to get it scratched up by us at a later date. We delivered over 1600 cars per year over 30 years and I can count on one hand the number of complaints.
 
I worked at bmw of bellevue. All we did was use a solvent to remove adhesives from the bumpers and side skirts. Then windows, cleaner wax, tire shine.
 
jsatek said:
If a customer ever compalined about the cleanliness of the car, we would give them a "WE OWE" to get it scratched up by us at a later date. We delivered over 1600 cars per year over 30 years and I can count on one hand the number of complaints.
Click to expand...



LOL at your candor regarding the marring, and I'm not surprised that so few people complained. Most people couldn't care less.



Heh heh, back in the day when *I* was doing this stuff, "new car prep" meant a run through the dealership-owned car wash (yeah, it *was* one of the really bad ones) followed by "green glaze" applied with a Milwaukee rotary and a *wool pad* :eek: This was back in the days before b/c, and single stage was pretty forgiving of such treatment. I had to fix my co-workers' jobs so often that finally they just gave me all the red/dark cars, heaven knows what things looked like after I left...I was a dream employee; all I wanted to do was detail new cars so I'd show up early and work through lunch without asking for OT :D
 
Hello there fellow dealership prep guy. How does your GSM treat you guys where your at? I have management experience of a five star detail shop. Sure do see a lot of differnt things, sales people, customer problems, new products, head aches, tylenol...
 
I worked at a toyota dealer for a while as the lead new car detailer.. As far as decontamination went, we probably clayed about 35% of the vehicles because of rail dust. We started using an Oxalic Acid product to remove the contaminants, which worked awesome and cut a good amount of time... When we were using that product, we were decontaminating about 80% of the vehicles, but it only lasted about 2-3 months because our detailing bays were pretty well open inside the service garage and the Techs complained so much the Head Service manager talked to our chemical supplier and wouldn't let us order body acid anymore... What a shame.
 
SR20det- Huh, that's interesting. At least they tried to do the right thing.



Tumbler said:
i think there is a completely different mentality of an outside detailer than one who works for a dealer
Click to expand...



Guess it depends on the person (and what the dealership lets him/her do). Stoddard Imports used to have a guy who was *great*. I let him do the new cars for me and my family and never had any complaints. He and I had some good discussions over the years and he knew his stuff. But then he graduated from college and went off to do other things for bigger bucks. Now their new cars look like absolute horror shows :( but they'll happily deliver them "still in the bag" for customers like me who care about such things.
 
When I first became a detailer I worked at a local Chrysler dealership. The detailing was all done by the private company I worked for, and there was one owner, myself, and occasionally one other guy. The owner was always out with his buddies or something so I was often left to myself to clean cars or whatever else.



New cars got a wash/dry, spray wax as we dried, tire shine, interior/exterior windows, interior vacuum and door jambs. We'd also use solvents to remove any stickers or the like, and removed the plastic from the floors and such on the inside.



Used cars that were being delivered were detailed in full if necessary, except usually some sort of one-step on the outside. I don't really remember what the other packages were like, but we also did about 1-2 retail jobs a week.



I worked there for 4 months, then realized that I wasn't learning anymore and $8/hour wasn't enough to practically be running the shop.
 
Windows, windows, windows. Remove all stickers. Then wet the windows with non-amonia based windows cleaner and razor blade away the excess glue; never take a razor to an aftermarket-tinted window. Then follow with adhesive remover and a clean towel. Then clean the windows twice with clean towels. Twice.



Clean windows are critical on surveys. The customer will wash his/her car maybe 15 times before cleaning the windows. They have to be right at the point of delivery; that work will linger for months.
 
I've been "detailing" cars for a Dodge dealership for a little over two years now. As far as supplies go, most of our stuff comes from an independent supplier who deals AutoMagic products. A few basic things like car wash concentrate and glass cleaner we get through Mopar. Anyway, new cars get all the plastic ripped out of them and a quick wash, dry, and vac when we get them in. The higher end models (ie. SRT) get a wax job, tire shine, and clean windows on top of that. Deliveries get the same thing minus the wax job. We handle trade-ins and customer details on an as needed or requested basis.



I'd say the main problem with detailing at the dealership is that service managers have no concept of what it takes to actually do a full detail. They're only interested in moving cars in and out as fast as possible. Unfortunately for the customer, the guy (me) making $7 an hour doesn't have any leverage against the higher ups depite our new suggestion box. Never have a dealership detail your car unless you know exactly what you're getting :bolt
 
Sean C. said:
I've been "detailing" cars for a Dodge dealership for a little over two years now. As far as supplies go, most of our stuff comes from an independent supplier who deals AutoMagic products. A few basic things like car wash concentrate and glass cleaner we get through Mopar. Anyway, new cars get all the plastic ripped out of them and a quick wash, dry, and vac when we get them in. The higher end models (ie. SRT) get a wax job, tire shine, and clean windows on top of that. Deliveries get the same thing minus the wax job. We handle trade-ins and customer details on an as needed or requested basis.



I'd say the main problem with detailing at the dealership is that service managers have no concept of what it takes to actually do a full detail. They're only interested in moving cars in and out as fast as possible. Unfortunately for the customer, the guy (me) making $7 an hour doesn't have any leverage against the higher ups depite our new suggestion box. Never have a dealership detail your car unless you know exactly what you're getting :bolt
Click to expand...



Sales Manager:



"Make that 120,000 mile trade in PERFECT. You have 2 hours."



Sure, buddy. :rofl
 
i have a question, when i bought my 06 rsx type-s it came with clear film on the whole car (hood, doors, fender, etc..) and when i took it home i realized that there were groups of several small scratches all over the car from the ppl taking the film off. when i took it back to get it fixed they were using something that i couldnt figure out what it was. inside the bottle it was like a peachish color or maybe a little darker, a little on the light brownish side. when they used it, they applied it on the scratches and just rubbed it off with a towel. any idea what this is?
 
ASSALBERT- Welcome to Autopia!



Those scratches are a good reason to take the transit film off yourself next time ;)



The product they used was either an abrasive polish (removes the scratches like sanding a scratch out of a piece of wood) or a glaze that fills the scratch (temporary, like make-up), or a combination of the two. If the scratches appear to "come back", then it was just a glaze and you might oughta insist that they fix it properly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top