High Volume Shop Hacks Up Car in Houston. Should they Pay?

[Bullitt]

O.K, I`m not going to name any names here, but I think my client deserves some justice to be done. I`m not going to flame the company that is involved in this, just state the facts and see what everyone thinks should happen here.
One of my clients, whom I did a full correction for in August(I returned her car to her August 14 with perfect paint) works in an high rise office building in The Woodlands and a Detailing company has a detailing kiosk in the parking garage along with 4 other kiosk around the city(They also offer mobile detailing) and claim to be the best(That`s what it say`s on their site). Long story short, the client took the car to them and instructed the manager to just vacuum it out and wash the wheels, then said she would take care of the rest(I gave her instructions about proper wash methods and car care when I delivered the car back to her in August. I told her to use two buckets, she uses three, blows the car off, pats it dry, and then when she knows she has every spec of dirt and debris off the car, she`s been using AW after the washes. She works 5 miles from work and her car is garage kept and has only seen rain recently when she was stuck in it, so it hasn`t been washed that many times since August. This is a very upstanding lady so I take her word for it.) So she drops the car off to them, and even gets a copy of the ticket stating just a vacuum and wheels. Well, you guessed it, they washed the car and marred it all up in my honest opinion. They missed just about every spot on the car and looks like they washed it with dirt. I actually spoke with the manager and he said they use two buckets, but they had 12 cars there and I know they couldn`t have changed water every time. They don`t think they owe this customer, and think they did nothing wrong. They also told me there`s no way you can marr or swirl a car with one wash. The owner of the company will be coming to my shop soon to try and resolve the issue, but they`ve already made it clear their going to do everything possible not to pay for me to fix it. I`ll let the pictures speak for themselves, and you guys tell me what you think they should offer. With their methods, they put about a years worth of washing into the vehicle in one wash, if not more, so I think they owe her what I have to fix, but I want other opinions. Here are the pics. Keep in mind that this is a freshly washed car.

This one I noticed when I picked the car up. Just an example of missed spots that they didn`t wash but you can see the towel/shammy marks over the dirt so I know it had to transfer.


More missed spots

Ok, heres what plagues the whole car and leads me to believe that the marring and superficial scratches could have happened with their wash. You can clearly see the dried on dirt from their towel trails going in all different directions. This shows that they were drying a contaminated car, no? Actually looks more like ShamWow marks or a chamois.

Ok, this is getting old, more missed spots that a towel would pick up, if you want to see the rest of the missed spots I`ll place the album link at the bottom.





Ok, do you guys think these marks could be made from basically sanding all that dirt in with a chamois or towel?


They ran a mitt right over the tip and kept on going to the paint in my opinion


Here`s a perfect example of the damage I think they are liable for?


This is a shot of the hood, I`ve cleaned up alot of other detailers buffer trails, but towel trails?

Here was what they were actually asked to detail.

Top View of Hood

One more view of hood


Here`s what it looked like when I finished it back in August
This one is more of a reflection shot, but the sun shot is next, I wish I could find all the shots from under the halogens.


I stopped off while driving it back to the client because the sun came out and snapped these two sun shots. A little road rash up front.




My question is (And keep in mind that she specifically told them to leave the paint alone because she keeps it in mint condition, and there`s a ticket to prove it.)
1. I know after 6 months no matter what you do you will have some swirls here and there, but could one really bad wash do enough damage to warrant a refund.
2. Should they just reimburse her the wash
3. Should they pay to have me at least strip the LSP and put a finishing polish back on it to get it back in shape?
4. Can they just do nothing, and she have to pay me herself.

Ok, that`s it. If you want to see the whole horrible wash, and it does get alot worse. go to this linkPicasa Web Albums - Detail Authority - BMW 325i Afte...

Well guys, sorry for such a long write up, but I just want opinions from other pros, or even consumers, or even if you run a high volume shop and take pride in producing stellar results, I want your opinions on this situation.
Thanks for looking.

[MirrorDetailing]

Honestly, other than looking like it was dirty and someone sprayed water on it and dried it, you really can not see any scratches. Yes on some shots you can make out a few light swirls in the paint that would be there from 6 months time. You would need to rewash the car get some pure shop light, halogen or sun shots of the paint to really see the damage.

Also your first shots really dont know anything more than reflection shots. So you really dont have much of a comparison other than clean vs. dirty. Until you can find your first light/sun shots vs. it rewashed and under some lights/sun.

[Bullitt]

I respect your opinion, but the angle and lighting I used was to capture how the car was basically washed with a bucket full of dirt and glass. If you look above the door handle you can`t see the damage. That wasn`t there before. Also see the sun gleaming off the hood in one of the shots from the side. The sun was high in the sky and burning on the car when those were taken. If she had told them to wash it and knew better than it would be different, even though anyone putting out work like that should quit the business asap. I have plenty of shots that show the new defects and I`ll post them when I get to my computer. Another thing is the guys who washed it looked at it in that condition and stood by there work saying they use the best products. I hope you can understand why I`m a more than a little heated over this, sorry If I`m coming off rude, no offense.

[mrclean81]

It looks like they gave it what I call a whores bath. They sprayed it down and dryed it. The prob is it looks like they did it with a muddy chamios, and the mud is what did the damage. You and I both know these super high volume shops don`t have time to rinse out their chamios and wash buckets after every vehical they do. As for them paying for the damage...unless the lady gets a lawyer and takes the case to court, it probobly won`t happen. If they were an upstanding company they would do everything they could to keep this from getting out and risking their reputation over something like this, not to mention a thing called customer satisfaction, no matter how big or small the job was.

[(901)]

Why are you even getting involved. If She was such a great customer you would have all Her business

[Bullitt]

It looks like they gave it what I call a whores bath. They sprayed it down and dryed it. The prob is it looks like they did it with a muddy chamios, and the mud is what did the damage. You and I both know these super high volume shops don`t have time to rinse out their chamios and wash buckets after every vehical they do. As for them paying for the damage...unless the lady gets a lawyer and takes the case to court, it probobly won`t happen. If they were an upstanding company they would do everything they could to keep this from getting out and risking their reputation over something like this, not to mention a thing called customer satisfaction, no matter how big or small the job was.

Exactly my thoughts, you hit it right on the nail. Whether they pay or she pays, she`s a loyal client so I`m not losing money(I`m actually making double). I just care enough about my clients to stick up for them. She knows she made a mistake. That`s what I`m thinking of telling the company owner tomorrow. Depending on how he handles this it could be on every forum from here to Egypt to warn people of people like this.

[JPS51830]

IMHO, there are several shots that look like poor wash/drying technique induced marring/scratching. A friend of mine just did the same thing to his show car and it all looks like what you have above. I had did a full detail on the car for him in November and he decided it needed a wash. Almost immediately after, he called and I went over and looked at it and it looks almost like what you have posted. Albeit, he did clean it better than what`s in your shots.

As far as the other detailer goes, your client should push them to pay for the correction. I doubt seriously they will and there`s not much she can do short of small claims court which is probably more of a hassle than it`s worth. But if they have a kiosk in her building she can gently remind them that word of mouth bad publicity does and will hurt their business. And she has every right to give her opinion to anyone who wants to listen about how poor the service was she recieved.

[RTexasF]

Let her deal with it. They owe her a refund but nothing more. If she wants it back to perfect she can pay you to do it. Since it is impossible to show the condition the car was in just prior to them messing with it there`s nothing more to do or say.
Just one of life`s little lessons for the owner.

[Bullitt]

Why are you even getting involved. If She was such a great customer you would have all Her business

As for why I`m getting involved, because the client wants them to pay, like I said, I make money either way. She called the Company Owner and he`s coming to my shop so he can see what his boys did, so I have to be involved. I didn`t interject and call them, my client did. And besides the "You would have all her business remark" being an uncalled for one and a low blow, I don`t think she`s going to send her car 65 miles one way to have the wheels cleaned and a vacuum. These people have a kiosk in the parking garage at her office. I guess she figured you can`t mess up a vacuum, but she learned the hard way and now it`s 65 miles away again. This is where the ignore list comes in handy; I just explained in my post I wanted professional opinions, not one line, hiding behind my computer jabs.

[Dtrick.22]

I think she is screwed...if the only pictures she can prove of the car not having those marks is from 6 months previous, that shop will probably deny it because they know nobody wants the hassle of going to court over something small like that. It really sucks that people can`t learn to wash right. I hate seeing cars I`ve done full corrections on coming out of the swirl-a-trons a month later. I`ve really been cracking down on telling the customers to keep it out of there, but nobody has the time to leave it for me to wash...they all think of it as 1 minute or 45 minutes? most of them pick the one minute swirl machine and just don`t get it...I guess its something I`ll never understand

[Tex Star Detail]

Hard to look at that. I don`t have any advise, but it looks like you explained. Like they wet it down and dried it. Once the water, that they missed of course, dried, it left some nice dirt streaks. I`m sure it marred the paint....

[JaredPointer]

I think she ought to pay you to have it corrected and learn from her mistake. She needs to take responsibility for paying (and allowing) a hack to touch her car. While I agree that they did a terrible disservice to her, I think people should have to live with the choices they make. Maybe the owner of the "detail" kiosk will see something and decide to help her out, but I think that would be a case of good will instead of entitlement. Keep in mind most folks don`t view a vehicle, the paint finish, or a detail like most of the people who frequent a detail board would. While most folks would probably agree that was a bad wash job, that`s all they would see it as.

[Richard@BlackWOW]

The wash job is pretty poor by our standards but pretty much par for the course for production work. Maybe they ARE the "best" around compared to other production car washers, but that`s really not saying much. I`ve corrected MANY cars that were subjected to so called "best" detailers.

Your customer at most, is due a refund and she might try to take the car washers to court, but they will likely file bankruptcy or something else to get out from paying anything. Maybe that`s a good thing, but they will just resurface under a different name.

I think the client needs to use this as a learning lesson to NEVER let anyone touch her car, not the dealership, and certainly not some car wash guys in her business park. If a car goes in for servicing, it has signs taped to the steering wheel in English and Spanish and on the work order stating DO NOT WASH. Maybe she should have done that with this company too?

Even though your client was looking for clean wheels and a vacuum, there is always the possibility of "good intentions" going awry. Btw, think about what a vacuum hose can do to the finish if it`s rubbing against the paint.

Besides, those wheels are easy to clean with a spray on solution like Meguiar`s Wheel Brightener...spray it on, hose it off.

[cwcad]

The detailing company or dealer or whatever is guilty of trying to impress and failed epically. If they refund the charge she will be lucky.

IF it has been six months since last correction I think she needs to have it done again. Nothing that the bad wash job did caused damage that could not be corrected with a good detail session as you did six months previous. I think she was due for a detail and the bad wash job only exacerbated what was already needed.

[Gus-Gus]

The detailing company or dealer or whatever is guilty of trying to impress and failed epically. If they refund the charge she will be lucky.

IF it has been six months since last correction I think she needs to have it done again. Nothing that the bad wash job did caused damage that could not be corrected with a good detail session as you did six months previous. I think she was due for a detail and the bad wash job only exacerbated what was already needed.

I couldn`t have put it better myself.. and as for the reply you had to 901 i sort of see where he is coming from... you said its 70 miles to detail her car.. but in the end she has to make the drive anyhow... she could have saved herself a headache if she just called you to have it cleaned up.. we all live and learn.. i just think the tact of the post could have been changed slightly