what`s the worst mistake you`ve made while detailing?

[Concourswanna b]

Bought a windshield chip repair kit from G`s Garage for my `94 Bimmer e-34. I affixed the base plate and was ready to use the resin/filler, and decided the plate needed one last good "tap" with my fist, just to be sure it was attached to the glass. Of course, cracks spider-webbed out away from the chip.:dohTried the resin anyway, and it worked great... for filling in the chip, but not the extended cracks I had created. Live & learn.

[creina1221]

About 10 years ago, when I first started, I learned all the rotary buffer errors the hard way.



I learned how to use a rotary on used dealer cars that we had an account with. The first one I did, I caught the antenna. I paid out of my pocket for this. About a week later, I was doing the rocker and not paying attention, the cord wrapped around the spindle hitting me in the face and across my arm. I had a notable welt for amost a week. About 6 months after this with no mishaps, I buffing 2-3 cars per day, I graudated to customer cars.



With that being said, I`m error free for almost 10 years.

[efnfast]

I wouldn`t necessarily call it a mistake, more over a :LOLOL



When I first started machine polishing I bought some 80 and 83. I had no idea about proper polishign technique, but i thought you had to `work down` in terms of pads and product. So this was my first detailing regime:



orange/83

green/83

white/83



orange/80

green/80

white/80



then wax





For the life of me, after that I could not figure out how the heck anybody managed to detail their vehicles - I mean, 6 steps, holy heck, that`s a lot! :LOLOL

[5spdfrk]

One that I can think of off hand is i was looking at my factory painted/clear coated wheels and noticed a smudge that looked like it came from a tire hitting it on the roadway or something else rubber. It wouldn`t come off with various cleaners and elbow grease, so I figured I would use my dremel and buffing tip to clean it off. Well like a newb with a rotary, I burned the clearcoat and left a nice little black burn mark over the hard to see smudge i was trying to remove! lol Lesson learned...less speed and don`t hold it in the same place too long!

[Leadfootluke]

Had my supplies on my bench, and ended up leaving my two pads I was using face up. Usually they would not be out in the open until I was ready to start. I was moving crap from one end to the other and dropped maybe one spec of steel wool from a previous project that landed on the pad.



Ended up doing one small spot and noticing it right away. Still sucks :\



And that was [still is] in my first week of detailing. More stories to come I`m afraid.

[Buff and Shine]

Two events that come to mind, one was my mistake, the other was made by one of my detailers.



I was working with a new distributor in the Ventura area about 20 years ago when she took me to a high end body shop in the area. At the time foam pads were in their infancy so most of the buffing was done with wools and wool blends. I can`t recall the exact details but there was a flaw on this fresh paint job that required some buffing. It was fairly small so I pulled out a double sided wool pad, only one thing was missing, the spindle adaptor. Not to worry, I thought I was good enough to lightly buff on edge and not have the buffer spindle come into contact with the paint. I was wrong, talk about beads of sweat forming on my forehead when I picked the pad up off the paint and saw that the spindle wormed its way through the double sided pad and made a pig tail the size of New York on the paint. I think at the time there was 5 or 6 observers standing around. I looked like a fool, but thats life I guess. Needless to say we paid for the repair work and I remember it wasn`t cheap.



The second one was at a dealer whereby I had mobile detailers doing new car prep on Hondas back in the late 80s. All of the foreign cars back then came coated with that WWII protective gunk called cosmoline. There were a variety of ways to remove it, at the time solvents worked best. Eventually a more eco friendly product composed of melamine citrus base was preferred. One of my guys was using a 00 steel wool pad on the glass panels and didn`t realize he picked up a rock along the way. By the time he discovered what was going on he had completely destroyed all of the glass including sunroofs on 4 brand new Hondas:shocked. You should have seen the look on the face of the customer, man was he ticked off:bat. That bill was pretty hefty.



Needless to say there were others, but the above two stand out.

[Rob Tomlin]

http://www.autopia.org/forum/1329588-post41.html

[evn62719]

Gotta keep this one alive



When I was in the Marines and lived in the barracks I would have to take my Mustang and bucket to the carwash and just use the sprayer as a hose...



Filled my bucket up and put some soap in. Started wahing the roof and I noticed it wasnt making any suds. Looked back at the "soap" and it was my megs tire shine gel bottle that was the same shape as the soap bottle. Left a nice filmy looking spot on my roof for a while.



Then I was in a hurry to leave because there were 3 or 4 cars in line behind me. As I was pulling out the sprayer line that was hanging from the ceiling caught my rear spoiler and snapped off at the handle. Those people behind me were PISSED! I`ll never forget the look on that guys face, haha. Also left a nice scuff on my rear bumper.

[PhatHoodDetail]

i shared a place with a tire shop which i had 2 bays. i moved the car to my dry bay and 1 of kids of the owner put the handle of the jack pointed right at the driver door as soon as i pulled in, which i didnt see so i open the door and bam. $300 detail down the drain.

[BigAl3]

that`s the beauty of discovering Autopia, most/many of us didn`t know any better about car care. there are so many talented detailers (learning about other things non-detail related as well) and just good people on here. to be able to learn from others on here and for free, is PRICELESS....

[Final Touch]

I`ve made quite a few of the mistakes already mentioned over the years esp the burns and getting grit caught in the pads. They`re easy to do with a moments inattention and if you do it long enough it`s almost bound to happen.

The worst real mistake I`ve made was masking the edges of the plexiglass rear window on a limited edition Lotus Exige I was working on (the window didn`t really need taping - we were just showing off really and trying to make an example of how much care we take...) When we pulled off the tape the outer tinted laminate pulled off the window leaving a nice clean strip for the customer. They don`t carry spares of these anywhere in the world it seems... Cost me $1000 in insurance excess but I guess that`s cheaper than the $2500 that the `Ex Lotus Factory Expert` charged to fix it.



There are a few quite memorable moments from over the years though.



I caught a monsoon shield with the edge of my rotary once and almost shot the customer with the piece that broke off and flung across his workshop. Thankfully the vehicle was already missing one and being a fresh import that he was prepping for sale he`d been toying with the idea of taking them off anyway but hadn`t wanted to pay us to do it. In the end we removed them all for him.



Retractable aerials are great until you`re leaning over a bonnet wiping a stray bit of dust and one of the team jumps in and turns on the key. Darned thing stabbed me in the neck and near lifted me off the ground.



Putting your head under a hood of a vehicle with airhorns while a team member is at the wheel. The temptation will always be to great for them.



I dropped a rotary polisher right beside a limited edition Ford Falcon XR8 one day with the trigger lock on and it turned right up. The polisher danced around like Rumplestiltzkin and I couldn`t catch it. Then I couldn`t decide whether to stay and try to catch it or run the 30 metres to pull the plug from the wall. This went on for what seemed like quite some time while others stood and laughed, I panicked and the polisher danced all about alongside of the car, thankfully one of the team had mercy and pulled the plug before any real damage was done to anything other than my pride.



But the most memorable by far didn`t actually happen to me thankfully.... One of the team was polishing away with the rotary on a white ex tradesmans pickup that had been shipped back to the dealership via rail, the truck was covered in rail dust and it was really pitted as a result so he was fair grinding away with a wool pad and having to put a bit of muscle in. (it was an ugly job) He leaned in too close to his pad and wrapped his shirt around it. Yep with the trigger lock on and the polisher was ripped out of his hands. With the polish pad neatly enfolded in his shirt the body of the polisher continued to spin freely and every time it spun north is whacked him in the face. Eventually we composed ourselves enough to pull the plug for him. It was one of the funniest things I`d ever seen but we were lucky he wasn`t seriously hurt.

[04impala]

one day i was using some QD just to frehen up the paint. it wasnt until i was done and put the bottle down that i realized i had actually sprayed protectant over the entire vehicle.

[(901)]

Wow, I have many over 30 years....Lets see, how about the time back in 1988/1989 when I backed out of my garage and tore the LR door off a brand new 560SEL. Or how about the time I was polishing a 72 Stingray and burned thru the paint on a fender edge (LF). Or how about just last year when I was doing touch-up repair(which I have done hundreds of times)and sanded thru the clear



Oh, I better stop now or you will all think I`m a hack

[fergnation]

I was polishing a black Bentley GT spending about twenty hours on four stages of polish. When i was wiping off the final polish a small piece of tape came off and stuck to the towel. I didn`t notice and went around the whole car doing a final wipe before washing the car. When I got done I looked at the car in the lights and noticed that I scratched the whole car with that one little piece of tape. The CC was so soft that I had to completely redo the car.



But the worst mistake of all was when a 8 foot ladder standing up against the wall fell over on the fender of a BMW Z8. This was one of the actual cars used in the James Bond movie. I have no idea how much it cost to repair since the customer thankfully blamed it on the person that put the ladder up againt a wall with $200,000 car sitting there.

[GatorJ]

Drove to a beach condo in the peak of love bug season to start a week`s vacay. There were no car wash facilities and I didn`t want to leave the bugs on my car for a week. I learned the nylon net covered sponge they supplied in the kitchen to clean pots and pans with only RESEMBLED the car products that are sold for that purpose.