8 years detailing and still rookie status. lol

[Beersix]

So I just found out I’m a rookie detailer after 8 years of detailing cars!!! Lol!!

Hope you guys read the whole story. I know it’s kind of long but it has some good info for those of you that are going to apply for a job at a dealership!



I’ve submitted an application to work at a MB dealership and the manager called me right away to be interviewed the same day. I went there and was taken on a quick tour of the detailing department. The place looked clean and decent, not what I expected for a MB dealer but it was decent. The manager decided to put me to the test and quickly provided me with a Dewalt polisher, yellow pad and some polishing compound.



Then he takes me to a dirty 2011 AMG E63 and tells me show me what you can do! My reaction was to ask >> shouldn’t the car be washed first?? Or at least clean that area that I’m going to work on? The guy laughed and looked at me funny. My second question was to ask for a claybar and some detailing lube. The guy looks at me and laughs again and tells his friend that I`m being so technical! He tells me just do it and don’t worry about the dirt on the car. He also made a remark saying>> you know that’s a 80,000 dollar vehicle right there<< I laughed and responded >> Mercedes tend to be overpriced so I’m not surprised<<



I proceeded to go against my detailer principles and put some compound on the pad and went ahead and introduce swirl marks on the paint because of the thick layer of dirt covering the car. Thankfully I looked at the speed setting on the machine before I activated it because the manager decided to be a funny guy and handed me the polisher on the highest speed. By the time I was finished, the manager tells me that from what he saw, He can tell that� I don’t know what I’m doing� and I need training. I looked at him at told him that I’ve been doing this for almost 8 years and my clients never complained about my service. I told him what tools and products I normally use and he responded that what I’ve been using all these years can’t compare to what they use at the dealership. I laughed! He offered me the job but at a really low rate.



According to the manager that dealership has many detailing awards in NJ and has a reputation of being the best. I told him that I didn’t know there was such thing as awards for detailing. lol bunch of BS. The dealership has its own carwash machine with the big rollers that introduce swirl marks instead of cleaning. According to the manager they have to detail between 15 to 20 cars a day and they all have to be done before 5pm. :think:I was laughing inside my head to all the things he was saying. Detailing 15 cars in a day? Impossible. What’s possible it’s a regular cleaning but not a real detail job!



Detailing takes a good 6-8 hours to deliver an acceptable product, how can the MB dealership call detailing to simple automatic wash and wax?? What a rip off!! What I was really amazed about was the fact that the dealership was so busy and cars coming in&out the auto washing machine. I guess rich people in NJ didn’t get affected by the recession because they’re paying a good 500 dollars every time they have their cars washed at the dealership.



Even though I was offered the job, they never called me back to give me a date when to start. Lol.

:tape:

[[SS]Shooter]

The dealerships always THINK they know everything about everything, but they are typically the worst car care people around. They can`t even WASH a car at most dealerships, much less detail it.



Whenever I take my car in, I always have the service guy write real big on the ticket `DO NOT WASH`.



It sounds like you know what you are talking about, so I`m sure the guy mistook your advanced skills for a lack of hack skills; when he, in fact, is the one that sucks. Keep lookin` man.

[Scottwax]

Dealerships are the last place to expect quality detailing.

[BigAl3]

quantity over quality = dealerships

[15951]

People that act overly confident, refuse to learn anything, and claim to know everything are usually very insecure. I find this to be true of virtually everyone I`ve met in sales and management at car dealers.



If you`re desperate for the job, go for it, but you`re going to be trying to control your gag reflex every time you see a "detailed" car roll out of there.

[Beersix]

People that act overly confident, refuse to learn anything, and claim to know everything are usually very insecure. I find this to be true of virtually everyone I`ve met in sales and management at car dealers.



If you`re desperate for the job, go for it, but you`re going to be trying to control your gag reflex every time you see a "detailed" car roll out of there.

I agree with you. However I`m not desparate to get that job. The only reason I`ve applied was the fact that they have excellent benefits. I`m almost done with college and possibly will open up a detailing center in a different country since the american market its too saturated. :biggrin:

[Beersix]

The dealerships always THINK they know everything about everything, but they are typically the worst car care people around. They can`t even WASH a car at most dealerships, much less detail it.



Whenever I take my car in, I always have the service guy write real big on the ticket `DO NOT WASH`.



It sounds like you know what you are talking about, so I`m sure the guy mistook your advanced skills for a lack of hack skills; when he, in fact, is the one that sucks. Keep lookin` man.

Yeah, this guy was bragging about the awards received tha past years and how his 4 people crew is tha best around. lol. If he conciders my skills to be less than a rookie then i wonder what`s his idea of a pro??

I remember mentioning menzerna and CG to the guy and he didn`t know their products. He affirmed that the products he uses don`t dry-out. The funny part is that i`ve never heard of the products he uses.lol

[Beersix]

quantity over quality = dealerships

Not only dealerships but also car washing places that offer "detailing" services for 100 dollars or less.

There`s this place where my GF gets her oil changed that also offers washing and "detailing". I look at what the "detailers" do to every car they`re working on and feel sorry for the customer that`s paying 120 dollars to have someone apply wax and dress tires. These people also have people going in&out everyday. The only reason for this to happen is the fact that customers don`t really know what`s involved when doing a real detailing job.

Some of my customers think I`m overpriced because they compare me to these kind of places where they pay 100 dollars or less and they also get their car back in less than an hour. lol. I normally have to explain to them why do i take so long doing paint correction and washing the car twice by hand before delivery. I also tell them that i could do the same thing those places do for 40 dollars since they`re only washing and waxing the car. and i could do it in less time than they typically do.

[Beersix]

Dealerships are the last place to expect quality detailing.

I always tell this to my customers that come to me complaining that they pay so much money to have their car "detailed" at the dealership and the shine doesn`t last more than a couple of weeks. From my last experience with the MB dealership, my suspicions are confirmed and I can tell that they do less than a half a$$ job, prolly a quarter of an a$$ and that`s being nice. lol

[smokinfastlegen]

what were the products they mentioned they used?

[Bigpoppa3346]

Working in the detail dept. at the local Lexus dealer (I don`t like it, but it`s just a summer job), I can confirm that every bad detailing habit/hack technique that one can think of occurs every single day. Virtually no customer will recieve the detail packages/work they pay for, and the mentality is all about getting them in and out (not that we Autopians didn`t already know that). Even the "experienced" ones have no clue what paint correction actually means (they think they are "moving paint around" when buffing), will cut corners wherever possible, the garbage products used would have been considered outdated 10 years ago, etc.



It is pathetic, and they give detailers a bad name. *However*, if one is stupid enough to have their car detailed at a dealership (and I`m sorry, but if you get your car detailed at a dealership then you are an idiot) then you probably don`t care enough about your car to pay for "real" detailing. There is a market for hack work, and there is a market for quality (ie. Autopians), and the garbage the dealership hacks put out helps distinguish the real detailers.

[Scottwax]

I always tell this to my customers that come to me complaining that they pay so much money to have their car "detailed" at the dealership and the shine doesn`t last more than a couple of weeks. From my last experience with the MB dealership, my suspicions are confirmed and I can tell that they do less than a half a$$ job, prolly a quarter of an a$$ and that`s being nice. lol

I detailed a C class for a lady about a year ago. She had it "detailed" at the Mercedes dealership a few months prior for $200 and they didn`t even clean the back of the front seats. Nor did they do anything about the plethora of spider swirls all over her car. She was really happy after I got done and every square inch of the interior had been properly cleaned before dressing and that her paint looked much blacker than when they had done it. She said she was going to take the car to the manager of the detailing department and show them the car so they could see what a real detail looked like. :lol



No idea if she actually did though, she never called me back to let me know what they said.

[Dan]

The thing that irritates me the most about all these hacks is every customer would be better served by them spending that same amount of time with a quick clay and an AIO via DA. Why do they give them rotaries, wool and compound.....

[Beersix]

what were the products they mentioned they used?

I can`t even remeber. Some brand I`ve never heard of in my life.

[Beersix]

Working in the detail dept. at the local Lexus dealer (I don`t like it, but it`s just a summer job), I can confirm that every bad detailing habit/hack technique that one can think of occurs every single day. Virtually no customer will recieve the detail packages/work they pay for, and the mentality is all about getting them in and out (not that we Autopians didn`t already know that). Even the "experienced" ones have no clue what paint correction actually means (they think they are "moving paint around" when buffing), will cut corners wherever possible, the garbage products used would have been considered outdated 10 years ago, etc.



It is pathetic, and they give detailers a bad name. *However*, if one is stupid enough to have their car detailed at a dealership (and I`m sorry, but if you get your car detailed at a dealership then you are an idiot) then you probably don`t care enough about your car to pay for "real" detailing. There is a market for hack work, and there is a market for quality (ie. Autopians), and the garbage the dealership hacks put out helps distinguish the real detailers.

I don`t think customers are the ones to blame due to the fact that they don`t even know what`s involved in the detailing process. They tend to fall for whatever BS promises the dealer offers them and they blindly trust the dealership. But yeah, if the customers keep bringing back their car to the dealer even though their were never satisfied with the work the dealer did, then they should be concidered idiots.:biggrin: