Elonheater32
New member
I have always detailed my own vehicles since I take great pride in the finished product. I recently purchased my first vehicle that was not white or silver which was a Aruba Blue 20010 Audi A5. Of course, it being blue showed every single imperfection including swirl marks and holograms were evident on the hood. I was unable to get swirl marks out of my silver 2008 BMW 335i so I wanted to leave my Audi A5 to the pros. I had been using my Porter Cable and figured that I needed someone that used a high speed polisher and of course with more experience!
This is when my search for a great detailer began in my area. I live in Greensboro, NC so I started calling a ton of detailers and I had in my mind that I was going to hire the person who knew the most about detailing and was NOT going to simply hire the cheapest person. I finally found this guy and explained to him that I had some swirl marks and holograms and he had quoted me that it would be approximately $250 for the job so I told him that I wanted him to do it. He told me that he was going to send me his "best guy" there.
So Friday came when they were supposed to come detail the car and a completely different company came. I later found that the guy that I hired to do the job had contracted out the job to someone else since they were too busy to do it themselves.
So this is when the nightmare started. The second they came they squirted polish on my vehicle and took the machine polisher and started breaking down the polish. Horrified, I walked down there and asked them if they were not going to wash the vehicle first since I have always been super picky to get every single bit of dirt/grime off before I even start thinking about waxing or polishing any of my vehicles. The gentleman seemed very annoyed that I was sort of watching them and told me that they would wash after the polish. I was speechless, but did not know what to say since this guy was his "best guy" so I figured that I was naive and not "up to date" on the latest detailing processes.
He literally spent less than 90 seconds on each piece of sheet metal. I myself including all of the other detailing videos I have seen includes the polish being broken down very well and working it into the paint deliberately, but this guy was polishing my car as if it was a pie eating contest. Keep in mind that I had explicitly explained to the gentleman that I was after swirl mark and hologram correction and not just the "run of the mill" car dealership detail. After polishing my car it seemed as if he applied wax to the vehicle twice which he later confirmed that he did put two coats of wax on it.
He brought my vehicle up the driveway and requested for me to look the car over. After looking at the car it looked good, but then again what vehicle would not after putting 2 coats of wax on it. I did notice a TON of hazing on the hood and roof and trunk lid so I told him that I was concerned about the hazing because it looked very bad and he quickly wiped the surface of the hood with his towel in attempt to get the hazing off which by the way did absolutely nothing to get the hazing off and then immediately requested for payment. I was a bit confused and VERY annoyed about the process and the hazing that was present on my vehicle but I figured that I could get the hazing out very easily myself and quite frankly I just wanted them off my property since I felt as if I had gotten a mediocre detail job.
Once they left, I took my Cobra cloth and started trying to get the hazing out. It was literally taking me 5 minutes to work on a small streak of hazing to get it out.... the hazing was nearly impossible for me to get out and I spent over a hour and half getting all of the hazing out. Extremely frustrated, I contacted the gentleman that I had contacted for the detail job and told him my concerns.
I had told him that they polished my vehicle before washing it and by the way... my car had not been washed in over a month and was filthy. It had dirt, grime, bird poop, and mud on the bottom of it... you name it .. .it was on the car. The gentleman agreed that a vehicle should NEVER be polished before being washed unless it was very clean and he told me he was going to contact the person that did the detail to get their side of the story.
Later that day, he got back in touch with me and explained to me that after talking to a few of his friends.... that they told him that the "pros" polish cars all the time before washing them and that it was acceptable. He had also sent me a list of the process that they used on my vehicle which is listed as below......
1) First pass high speed wheel using medium compound
2) Clay (I do not know how the pros clay, but what they called claying my car took them all of 5 minutes????) It takes me about an hour to properly clay my car but thats just me....
3) 2nd pass light compound
4) Clay (wow... claying my car twice???)
5) Orbital low speed polish using a mild finishing product
6) Wash to remove compound (I am confused about this....) If they wiped down the polish properly with a cloth then why wash???
7) Carnuba and sealant blend (I am pretty sure he used too much sealant which is what left the hazing)
To top it off.... A week after the detail the wax apparently has worn off a bit because now I see a TON of swirl marks and holograms.... I even see holograms where I did not have it before. The vehicle is in much worse shape than it was before and I thought I was paying for a TOP notch detail job. The guy that I hired to do the job admitted that the guy that he had sent to do my Audi was the first swirl mark detail job that he had sent him to.
So at this point what do I do? Is it ever acceptable to polish the vehicle when it is filthy dirty? Is it possible to get true swirl mark correction while only working in the polish for a minute for each panel? I am sooooo aggravated that I shelled out over $200 for something that I could have not only done tremendously better job of it myself, but it actually looks much worse than it did before : (
Please give me your professional input and opinions on this matter.
Thanks in advance!!!
This is when my search for a great detailer began in my area. I live in Greensboro, NC so I started calling a ton of detailers and I had in my mind that I was going to hire the person who knew the most about detailing and was NOT going to simply hire the cheapest person. I finally found this guy and explained to him that I had some swirl marks and holograms and he had quoted me that it would be approximately $250 for the job so I told him that I wanted him to do it. He told me that he was going to send me his "best guy" there.
So Friday came when they were supposed to come detail the car and a completely different company came. I later found that the guy that I hired to do the job had contracted out the job to someone else since they were too busy to do it themselves.
So this is when the nightmare started. The second they came they squirted polish on my vehicle and took the machine polisher and started breaking down the polish. Horrified, I walked down there and asked them if they were not going to wash the vehicle first since I have always been super picky to get every single bit of dirt/grime off before I even start thinking about waxing or polishing any of my vehicles. The gentleman seemed very annoyed that I was sort of watching them and told me that they would wash after the polish. I was speechless, but did not know what to say since this guy was his "best guy" so I figured that I was naive and not "up to date" on the latest detailing processes.
He literally spent less than 90 seconds on each piece of sheet metal. I myself including all of the other detailing videos I have seen includes the polish being broken down very well and working it into the paint deliberately, but this guy was polishing my car as if it was a pie eating contest. Keep in mind that I had explicitly explained to the gentleman that I was after swirl mark and hologram correction and not just the "run of the mill" car dealership detail. After polishing my car it seemed as if he applied wax to the vehicle twice which he later confirmed that he did put two coats of wax on it.
He brought my vehicle up the driveway and requested for me to look the car over. After looking at the car it looked good, but then again what vehicle would not after putting 2 coats of wax on it. I did notice a TON of hazing on the hood and roof and trunk lid so I told him that I was concerned about the hazing because it looked very bad and he quickly wiped the surface of the hood with his towel in attempt to get the hazing off which by the way did absolutely nothing to get the hazing off and then immediately requested for payment. I was a bit confused and VERY annoyed about the process and the hazing that was present on my vehicle but I figured that I could get the hazing out very easily myself and quite frankly I just wanted them off my property since I felt as if I had gotten a mediocre detail job.
Once they left, I took my Cobra cloth and started trying to get the hazing out. It was literally taking me 5 minutes to work on a small streak of hazing to get it out.... the hazing was nearly impossible for me to get out and I spent over a hour and half getting all of the hazing out. Extremely frustrated, I contacted the gentleman that I had contacted for the detail job and told him my concerns.
I had told him that they polished my vehicle before washing it and by the way... my car had not been washed in over a month and was filthy. It had dirt, grime, bird poop, and mud on the bottom of it... you name it .. .it was on the car. The gentleman agreed that a vehicle should NEVER be polished before being washed unless it was very clean and he told me he was going to contact the person that did the detail to get their side of the story.
Later that day, he got back in touch with me and explained to me that after talking to a few of his friends.... that they told him that the "pros" polish cars all the time before washing them and that it was acceptable. He had also sent me a list of the process that they used on my vehicle which is listed as below......
1) First pass high speed wheel using medium compound
2) Clay (I do not know how the pros clay, but what they called claying my car took them all of 5 minutes????) It takes me about an hour to properly clay my car but thats just me....
3) 2nd pass light compound
4) Clay (wow... claying my car twice???)
5) Orbital low speed polish using a mild finishing product
6) Wash to remove compound (I am confused about this....) If they wiped down the polish properly with a cloth then why wash???
7) Carnuba and sealant blend (I am pretty sure he used too much sealant which is what left the hazing)
To top it off.... A week after the detail the wax apparently has worn off a bit because now I see a TON of swirl marks and holograms.... I even see holograms where I did not have it before. The vehicle is in much worse shape than it was before and I thought I was paying for a TOP notch detail job. The guy that I hired to do the job admitted that the guy that he had sent to do my Audi was the first swirl mark detail job that he had sent him to.
So at this point what do I do? Is it ever acceptable to polish the vehicle when it is filthy dirty? Is it possible to get true swirl mark correction while only working in the polish for a minute for each panel? I am sooooo aggravated that I shelled out over $200 for something that I could have not only done tremendously better job of it myself, but it actually looks much worse than it did before : (
Please give me your professional input and opinions on this matter.
Thanks in advance!!!
