Dealer horribly swirled my new car, what should I do?

[kcarter]

I took my brand spankin' new Audi back to the dealer to to have him buff out some clearcoat scratches and take care of some ugly gunk on both wheel wells that I could not remove with Bug and Tar. I took delivery of the car with both problems.



I get it back, and it looks like they used Scotchbrite on the wheel well. It is actually dull. The rest of the car is swirled to hell. I mean, you can see the individual passes that the buffer made up and down the hood. Bascially, they f*cked up the car big time.



They have agreed to have a detailer do the car for me (I told them that they weren't touching it again).



What should I look for when I get the car back? I expect to be absolutely perfect - Clearcoat smooth, no scratchs, absolutely bright. Is that unreasonable?

 

[Nebraska99]

Just ask the detailer politely what processes and products he will use and make it clear to him what you expect. If he is a professional he will gladly oblige. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[chrisd]

Kcarter, I can sympathize with you. I had the exact same thing happen to me a few years back. An idiot detailer swirled the hell out my dark blue 5.0 Mustang. I couldn't believe how bad he swirled it. Of course, the swirls didn't show up until I washed the car a few times and all the wax fillers were removed. This was the incident that really got me interested in detailing. There was no way in hell I was going to take that car back to the detailer and ask him to fix it, so that left me two choices: try to fix it myself or do my homework and find an experience, highly respected detailer. I didn't have the experience or confidence to use a rotary buffer (which I new this fix would require since the swirls were so deep), so I went the second route. The guy new what he was doing and got my paint smooth as glass. I hate to think how much clear coat thickness I lost in this whole debacle, but at least it was fixed. Now the only one who polishes my paint is me. I firmly believe this industry needs some kind of licensing, regulation, or whatever to let the good detailers make a living and get the idiots out (you need a license to cut hair, and unlike paint, that grows back in a few weeks!). Good luck and keep us informed.