Lets be honest

A

AntonV

New member
Okay, I was wondering if all of you feel the same way, or am I just a low down, bad guy.



Being an Autopian, I try to educate other people about keeping their cars clean, using the right products & methods, and how certain blemishes can be fixed with the right stuff.



Most of my friends are "car guys", and certainly appreciate the amount of work put into detailing a car" Were all young professionals, and drive good cars...MB, Porsche, BMW, Infiniti...etc. I will gladly take time and help any of my friends clean, polish, and lend products.



Now there are the others.....Someone who likes the idea of cleaning cars, after hearing me preach for 30 mins. They want me to offer help/time or advice. Ill give my 2 cents all day long, as I love talking about this stuff. But, if you want my physical help........well, I really dont want to help you.



Usually, the others have a car that is in terrible shape. Total neglect outside and inside. I would NEVER let any of my mitts/mf's touch that car. Honestly, I don't even want to use my good products on it. Id rather just use dawn soap, one bucket, my old wheel mitt(on the paint), apc on the wheels, a wet towel for the interior, and old shirts to dry it.



I did it on my gf's car yesterday. It still looks a 100 times better than it usually does. The best part is.....she thinks her car got the same treatment mine gets.



I cant be the only one who feels this way. Chime in Autopians!!
 
Interesting...



I have a friend who I've known for more than 15 years now. Last month, he bought a reasonably nice, used Mustang. Over dinner one day we were talking about getting it cleaned up and such because he wanted to go to some Mustang shows.



I mentioned some things I use when detailing cars. He stopped short, looked at me, and said, "I didn't know you detail cars." I said, "You drove a minivan."
 
I can see your point in all of this. After all "time is money" and to spend your time physically helping someone is taking away time that you can be making money. I love to talk about detailing and helping people choose the right products just like you do. I even offer some tips and advice on the process to use and how to go about certain things.



That being said, I am going to contradict my own beliefs here once because it is a special circumstance. My brother-in-law just bought a 2010 Chevy Z71 in black (cool color, since the black has some flake in it). Anyway, he was asking my advice on products, etc...so I typed out a list of must haves and would be nice to have. He is asking me a ton of questions since everything he does, he has to be a perfectionist about (which I like). Anyway, he showed me all the acid rain etching spots on his brand new truck. Since I know he wants to keep it pristine and is interested in learning how to keep his vehicle in great shape, I offered to detail it for free, with him watching and helping a little as well as offering a ton of advice. Now, you may ask why I would do this for free...well, he has helped me and my wife several times over the years on putting a new deck on our house, helped in cutting down several trees in our yard, helped in building a new shed on our property and the list goes on and on and on...so I figured the least I can do is this for him. He's a great guy, and I know that he would never take advantage of this by asking me to do it over and over and over again...so I armed him with some knowledge, a very limited amount of experience, and some great products to get him started. So, to answer your question, I don't think you are a bad guy...especially when it comes to friends. If you do it for one, you may be "expected" to do it for all.
 
can see where you are coming from. I mean for the close buddies that's one thing but to be shooting the **** with some random car people and have them expect to get your knowledge and help for free is off the wall.



BTW you should treat your girlfriends car the same as yours. I would think you would want to take care of her vehicle as you do yours since that is your significant other ya know.



I would just let her know that if she is going to be driving it through the local tunnel wash that you won't be polishing the car.
 
SCoach said:
I mentioned some things I use when detailing cars. He stopped short, looked at me, and said, "I didn't know you detail cars." I said, "You drove a minivan."
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:har:



I give advice and tips all day long, but when they start asking for actual help I hand them a card and tell them to make an appointment. :p
 
I also try to teach my client on how to properly detail they car so after it is corrected they can maintain it. Most of them take my advice and buy the products I recommend.



But since I have educated my girlfriend she notices that her car has swirls on it and want me to correct it. Don’t get me wrong, I wash, clay, seal, and wax the car every 4-6 months and do a full detail on the interior it take me about 2 hours but I don’t want to spend all freaking day correcting her DD..... I can see where your coming from sometime you just don’t want to do it
 
I totally feel ya. I don't care what kind of car it is, but if I can tell they have no real interest in the true condition of the paint and have no interest in doing their best to maintain a flawless or near flawless finish, I don't even offer advice, much less offer to help them. Take my parents, for instance. They want me to detail their cars and my dad often asks me what car wash to use or what wax to use. I used to give him recommendations and tell him how to properly wash the car, but then he goes and takes it through the swirl wash because "it was filthy and he couldn't take it to work like that" and when asked why he didn't wash it himself, "he didn't have time." Well if you aren't going to listen to me, I'm not going to waste my time giving you advice and definitely not going to do any work for you (unpaid).



So if I can tell (and it's usually pretty obvious) that the person in question is just going to take it through the swirl wash or that they don't really care enough to spend the time and effort on doing things the right way and are just trying to get me to make their car "shiny" for them- sorry. No help from me.
 
sullysdetailing said:
I also try to teach my client on how to properly detail they car so after it is corrected they can maintain it. Most of them take my advice and buy the products I recommend.



But since I have educated my girlfriend she notices that her car has swirls on it and want me to correct it. Don’t get me wrong, I wash, clay, seal, and wax the car every 4-6 months and do a full detail on the interior it take me about 2 hours but I don’t want to spend all freaking day correcting her DD..... I can see where your coming from sometime you just don’t want to do it
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why not just give her your tools and let her do it?



obviously not a rotary buffer but a like a porter cable or something she cant mess up her paint with?
 
I have five sisters...they all drive nice cars. I do them a special, 100 bucks for any exterior. Two of them do their cars. The others wash and do their own. I do my wife's car 4 times per year as the manual recommends. As a whole I do little or NO charity work. I dont work unless I am making my labor rate. My labor rate is varied but I rarely work if its not respectable anywhere from 35 to 110 per hour depending on what I am doing. Correction increases my labor rate significantly! If your work is exceptional you can command these rates.
 
AntonV said:
I did it on my gf's car yesterday. It still looks a 100 times better than it usually does. The best part is.....she thinks her car got the same treatment mine gets.
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LMAO!



used a clay bar on my wife's car yesterday. did the front 1/2 to see how much gunk would come off. polished 2 sections where kind people from parking lots left their mark(s).



she didnt know marks were on her car until i told her. couldnt tell a difference from the front to the rear 1/2 unless she was touching the paint where the clay had been used.



also used 3 different waxes to see which will last the longest and came off the easiest.



i'm marking her car up as the guinea pig before starting on my truck.

chris<pixelmonkey>:D
 
I have taught my wife how to keep up with her car. She does admit it looks its best when I do it. I do agree with her. Her car is 11 years old and it looks great. I have talked her out of a new car. When she thinks she needs a new car, I polish it back up. She loves it again. This is a GREAT money saving tactic.
 
AntonV said:
Okay, I was wondering if all of you feel the same way, or am I just a low down, bad guy.



Being an Autopian, I try to educate other people about keeping their cars clean, using the right products & methods, and how certain blemishes can be fixed with the right stuff.



Most of my friends are "car guys", and certainly appreciate the amount of work put into detailing a car" Were all young professionals, and drive good cars...MB, Porsche, BMW, Infiniti...etc. I will gladly take time and help any of my friends clean, polish, and lend products.



Now there are the others.....Someone who likes the idea of cleaning cars, after hearing me preach for 30 mins. They want me to offer help/time or advice. Ill give my 2 cents all day long, as I love talking about this stuff. But, if you want my physical help........well, I really dont want to help you.



Usually, the others have a car that is in terrible shape. Total neglect outside and inside. I would NEVER let any of my mitts/mf's touch that car. Honestly, I don't even want to use my good products on it. Id rather just use dawn soap, one bucket, my old wheel mitt(on the paint), apc on the wheels, a wet towel for the interior, and old shirts to dry it.



I did it on my gf's car yesterday. It still looks a 100 times better than it usually does. The best part is.....she thinks her car got the same treatment mine gets.



I cant be the only one who feels this way. Chime in Autopians!!
Click to expand...



If they want your physical help, charge them. Say, you can pay me to do it, or you can pay me to educate you, so you can do it. To say you don't want to help them is the wrong attitude. Of course, charging them money so you can teach them how to do it might dissuade them. Depends on if they expect you do help them out for free or not.



If its totally neglected, and they want to learn how, give them a shopping list of stuff to buy, and when they have all the stuff, charge them money and show them how to do it. Its a bit shameful to say "I'd rather just use dawn soap, one bucket, my old wheel mitt(on the paint), apc on the wheels, a wet towel for the interior, and old shirts to dry it."
 
I'm retired....I have NO problem helping somebody with their vehicle. I won't put any more effort into their project than they do, but if they will roll up their sleeves, so will I. I've always lived by the creed that what goes around...comes around. Helping without an expectation of return has rewarded me 10 fold..... as it's only a matter of time until the roles may be reversed.
 
I don't even bother unless asked. People are always curious about what I do to make my cars look so clean/new, but when they find out the "secret" is lots of work, they lose interest fast. Its amazing how when I joke its some OTC product (TW for example), they light up, like "wow, now my car can look great too."
 
I think it's just the mind set that gets in our heads when we see these cars The mind set that we can't really get the car perfect because a lot of things can't be reversed. At least this is how it is for me. When I have a job and I see the car has potential to be perfect, it pushes me to get it there. But when a car is just trashed beyond belief, it brings down your morale to tell you the truth.



This is mostly interiors that I'm talking about though
 
AtlDetail said:
I think it's just the mind set that gets in our heads when we see these cars The mind set that we can't really get the car perfect because a lot of things can't be reversed. At least this is how it is for me. When I have a job and I see the car has potential to be perfect, it pushes me to get it there. But when a car is just trashed beyond belief, it brings down your morale to tell you the truth.



This is mostly interiors that I'm talking about though
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I think of it as more of a challenge. I mean anyone can make a good car look great, but it takes skill to take a trashed car and do the same. Of course you might not be able to get it back to 100%, but there can be a drastic improvement.
 
AeroCleanse said:
I think of it as more of a challenge. I mean anyone can make a good car look great, but it takes skill to take a trashed car and do the same. Of course you might not be able to get it back to 100%, but there can be a drastic improvement.
Click to expand...



It might be a challenge, but if the person that brings it to you is the same one that did the damage, its good to know, 9 times out of 10 it will end up the same way soon enough.
 
I only help if someone straight up says "what should I do here"



I've realized that b/c of the internet, everyone is a self-proclaimed expert and I try to avoid discussing topics that I feel i'm profecient on; in particular, LSx cars, car detailing and graphic design. Those subjects turn into pissing matches quickly and I've learned to avoid it. If someone actually asks me for help and is willing to throw what they've feel is correct out the window, then i'm willing to discuss things.
 
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