LilJayV10:
Most dealerships have a time-constraint on detailers, so speed takes a priority over quality, and as a result, dealership detailers are required to meet the demands of the detail/car prep department manager. That's unfortunate, BUT, they are in business to make money. What IS unfortunate is that many companies and businesses do not get or understand that to do that you need repeat/returning happy customers who PAY for your product or service. A one-time customer who pays for his or her service or product but never comes back will never grow a business, but will tell everyone they know about their bad or so-so experience.
A paying customer's good or bad word-of-mouth advertising will determine a company's/business's success or failure.
I know there are professional detailers who are regular contributors to this forum who's good part of their business is taking care of customers from dealer's bad experiences. What's REALLY unfortunate is that many dealers end up paying for this "outsourced" service and it is an overhead expense to their profit margin. So the time (and hence money) they think they save actually cost them in the long run. It's the penny-wise-and-pound-foolish principle. But I am sure that the professional detailers don't mind: they benefit financially. It's the customer who looses out because of their time involved to rectify a dealer-induced problem. I think that's what this question and subsequent posts are informing any new-car buyer about and how to avoid that.
That brings up a parallel thought about having a trusted, Autopian approved, professional detailer prep a new car after delivery. I don't think you could "negotiate" this into the purchase price of a car from a dealer. If you could convince the dealer that he does not have to prep a new car and that you are actually saving them time and money by NOT doing this, could you ask for that savings up front during the negotiations. I KNOW every dealer has a $100-to-$250 "dealer charge" added to the MSRP. This is part of that attempt to cover the overhead for time it takes for dealer prep and filling out required state car title/license/vehicle and sales taxes paperwork. Anyone who buys a new (or used) car and pays this additional charge is just giving their own hard-earned money away to, what I consider, a greedy dealer. But all dealerships do it this way. I just think is an attempt to gouge the customer. You sometime wonder, though, if that is the car salesperson's "commission" for their part in the car sale and if they "negotiate" that away, they loose out on their work income. That may be part of the reason it's so difficult to "haggle" on cars at dealerships these days about "dealer-added costs". I don't think that some people realize it's being added to purchase price within the state-required dealer contract paperwork!
