Brand_new_car_bought_with_swirls

[merlot]

Originally Posted by jimmie jam

i don't understand why this happens at all . you guys know better and should be doing a COMPLETE inspection BEFORE you buy the car . i'm not trying to bash here but we see this thread time after time. does anyone learn? maybe the thrill of the new car purchase blinds everyone and they go brain dead when they purchase, for most of us, the SECOND MOST EXPENSIVE item during their lifetime????? good luck in solving your problems.

Funny you should mention that. When I bought my 2003 Subaru WRX, I ordered it and specifically asked the dealer not to detail the car. I also got it in silver so I knew swirls would be less visible.

This time around though, I wasn't planning on buying a car, but there was a phenomenal discount and financing offer on leftover '08's. I was so excited about getting it, I forgot to check the little things. Live and learn.

[jshillin]

Yep, Subaru paint is on the soft side. I bought my '08 WRB WRX last November and it came with some nice dealer installed swirls!! I corrected it the first weekend after I brought it home and I haven't done anything but wash/LSP since. Get it polished up nicely and read on here about "GOOD" Car wash techniques to keep the paint swirl free for as long as you can!! My car will see a very light polish in the spring, probably 106ff to get the little bit of marring out and I'll be good go for another 18 months or so!! Congrats on the car purchase man, you'll love it!!

[bert31]

Originally Posted by Accumulator

There are a whole lotta assumptions related to the New Car Purchase thing...dealers assume people don't care about marring and will just take the car, customers assume they *have* to accept the car marred or not, and most everybody assumes that all cars have marring anyhow (if they even notice it in the first place).

You hit the nail on the head with this paragraph. So many on here don't understand why dealerships don't hire competent detailers. The simple fact is 98% of their customers don't notice or care so it wouldn't be a good business investment to pay for a competent detailer. It would be good customer service to provide adequate paint care for cars but it would be service that very few customers would even notice or appreciate.

[merlot]

I'm scheduled to take my car in this Friday to have my accessories installed. At that time they are going to look at the paint. I have no confidence the dealer will own up to the swirls. SOA said they will give me up to $100 if I take it elsewhere, but that won't cover the full cost. I'm hopeful that I can't get more out of SOA if I need too.

PS - When I purchased my last car, a 2003 Subaru WRX, I made sure to tell the dealer NOT to detail it since I knew swirls would happen. This time around I had no intentions of buying a car, but after hearing about $7k of msrp w/ 0% for 63 months financing on leftover 08's, I had to jump on it. So, the situation this time around was a bit different then me having control of what the car went through after delivery to the dealer.

[toyotaguy]

HOLOGRAMS.....not swirls. If there are swirl marks, the washing induced circular marring, then it will be easy to polish out. Holograms will need compounding to remove if deep enough.

Have someone do a solid two step on the car....something like megs 83, then megs 80 should do the trick no problem. menzerna IP/FPII will too, and a number of other combos, but you are going to have to remove the holograms, and the swirl marks if there are any will go with it!

[Accumulator]

bert31- After your post (with which I agree wholeheartedly!) I guess it's time to prepost how Stoddard Imported Cars once had a *GREAT* cosmetic prep guy who did a very nice job on a few cars my family bought there; he could do *my* cars anytime and that's saying something! But then he finished grad school and went on to his real career and now, well...now I take 'em in-the-plastic.

Originally Posted by toyotaguy

HOLOGRAMS.....not swirls. If there are swirl marks, the washing induced circular marring, then it will be easy to polish out. Holograms will need compounding to remove if deep enough...but you are going to have to remove the holograms, and the swirl marks if there are any will go with it!

Interesting how experiences vary. I almost always find wash-induced marring to be much *harder* to correct than holograms.

IME the holograms (unless hideously bad and/or involving a lot of heat) are usually quite shallow, and thus easy to remove, whereas the wash induced marring is sometimes so deep that it's risky to correct it 100% for fear of overthinning the clear. All it takes is one bad speck of something really abrasive stuck in the wash/dry medium to cause a nail-catcher that's half-a-mil deep.

There are a whole lotta variables here...so it's not like anybody's right/wrong, just caught my attention because my experiences are usually so different.

[windydog]

Do you have photos of the car repaired?