Detailing job from hel....oops, heck

Scottwax

New member
I got a call today from the CFO of the guy who owns the topless bars (has the Lambo and Bentley) and he asked if I could clean Harry's wife's S600 either this evening or in the morning. I said it was already 5 PM and I was getting ready to knock off for the day and I had an Excursion to detail in the morning and a Mountaineer to detail in the afternoon and I would be done around 5 PM and would be about 5 minutes away from his house if he could wait until tomorrow afternoon. He said he'd call him and ask, then call me back.



He called back about 5 minutes later and said Harry needs you to come out to the house tonight. He wasn't sure what was so important I had to get to it this evening, but Harry sounded stressed when he talked to him. I've been detailing this guy's cars for almost 10 years now and between him, his parter and CFO, over that 10 years, they've probably given me $70,000-80,000 worth of business personally, not counting the customers I've picked up that have seen me detailing their cars and also become regulars. I weighed that against wanting to get in about 15 miles on my inlines tonight....and of course, taking care of a great regular customer comes first.



I get out to his house and he says his wife washed the S600 at their ranch and something must have been wrong with the water dionizer they have there and the car has horrible water spots. I go out to the garage and take a look.



:scared The whole car was just covered in hard water spots and rust deposits. He had it in earlier that day at the Mercedes dealer getting the a/c fixed and they had mentioned the way the car looked and if he wanted them to attempt to fix it. He told them to go ahead, but when he came to pick up the car, they said it was hopeless. He told them he'd have his detailer (me) see if it could be rescued. He said he got the distinct impression they were going to recommend repainting the car.



Anyway, the car had already been washed, so I QDed it real quick to make sure there was no dust on it. I first tried Vanilla Moose and it was working, but making slow progress, so I busted out the DACP and by hand, worked out all the rusty hard water stains on the paint and glass in about 75-90 minutes or so. It was also taking out a lot of the scratches his wife puts in it when she washes the car, using a long handle brush (like you'd use on RVs). I then followed with Vanilla Moose, which further deepened the shine and topped it with Carnauba Moose. Put in about 3.25 hours total on the car. I knocked on the door to let him know I had finished. He got about halfway out and his jaw dropped. He said something like "it didn't look that good the day I bought it".



:cool: He asked me how much, I told him and he peeled off the cash along with an extra $20. By this time, it was 9 PM, so no skating tonight, but I had a nice chunk of cash that more than made up for it.



I found out why he had to get the car done so quickly. He needed to drop off the S600 with his wife and get his Escalade back so he could trade it on on a brand new Mercedes AMG G55. Must be rough.
 
BTW, I did take pics, but I still have 10 more shots on this roll. It was dusk before I was making good progress, and while the lighting in his garage is good, I still had to use the flash, so I hope they turn out good.
 
emanon said:
Money is always a good excuse to avoid exercise:xyxthumbs



I did not avoid exercise. Try rubbing out an S Class Mercedes by hand with DACP...which as you know, has to be worked until it looks nearly clear and dry....and since the residue was literally falling off the car with the slightest wipe of the towel, it was worked long enough!
 
:showpics



All in favor of taking up a collection for Scottwax to buy a digital camera say "EYE"



[blue-sun]



Eye :lol



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it could be considered a tax write off for you, right. . .?
 
Is it better to remove water spots by hand than by PC? I guess I still need to get some of that DACP and Vanilla Moose stuff. Can you go into some detail on your application of the DACP, any tips or tricks by hand. The results are awesome. I want to see pics of the Mercedes staff who said it was hopeless when they see this car. That is a great story.
 
Jake11375 said:
Ditto, hope you got before and afters on that! :D



I got before and after shots and I hope they turn out okay because even though is garage has decent lighting, I still had to use the flash for the side of the car and I hope there was still enough light when I shot a few pics of the back end to show the extent of the spotting. I took 4 pics today, so only 6 shots left.



Aurora40 is right, I probably wouldn't use a digital for my pics. Unless I want to spend over $1000, I'm not going to get the quality I want, although being able to preview your pics is a handy feature.



Dinzdale40-I think for most people, using a PC would be better. I've been doing this by hand full time almost 10 years now and after this one, I was a bit tired out, especially since I had worked all day already and had to spend over an hour just with the DACP. You can find exactly how I work DACP by hand by doing a search of 'buffing by hand' or 'polishing by hand'.



love2shine-We had my brother's bachelor party at one of his clubs. They took very good care of us (sorry, no happy endings though :).
 
Question, how can a regular tap water a car so badly? Did she not dry the car? Cause I've used regular water on my car and I never had any hard water deposits or rust anywhere... Or maybe I do my eyes are just not trained to see them...
 
There is all kind of hard water levels in USA. Here in Houston we receive the water from water wells and it is incredibly hard water. I have to install a water softener the first week I moved to my new house. I had water stains in my sink, curtain shower, everywhere.





You are lucky don't have this kind of problems.



:D
 
OUCH said:
Question, how can a regular tap water a car so badly? Did she not dry the car? Cause I've used regular water on my car and I never had any hard water deposits or rust anywhere... Or maybe I do my eyes are just not trained to see them...



They have a small ranch south of the Dallas area and rely on well water which has a lot of minerals. They also have a water dionizer/reverse osmosis tank attached to their outdoor water supply for washing the cars (he has one at his office and his main house also...must be nice!). Usually, with such a system, you can let the car air dry and it will be spot free. For some reason, either something broke inside the tank or there was some other malfunction and the water she left on the car still had a ton of minerals in it.
 
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