Lets hear the funny Detailing Stories. An old lady calls me up and wants to know the price of a full detail for a 2005 Jaguar S-Type. I tell her I would stop by and take a look at it and give her an estimate after an inspection of the car. She makes arrangements for me to come look at the car the next day and we hang up. The next morning I show up at the house to see the car. She answers the door and she is probably in her late 60's to early 70's or so and lives in a SERIOUS McMansion that I am sure she paid well over a Mil for. Anyway, we go out to the car and take a look. I do a typical walk through inspection of the car (beatiful car). The car was definately in need of a bath and she had some "halos" in the clear coat (a previous detail gone bad most likely) on the exterior. The interior was in pretty good shape with the exception of what looked to be dog hair most likely from the little yappy dog that she was holding when she answered the door. I walked back over to talk with her, gave her my assessment and a price that I felt was a fairly good price considering the length of time the job would have taken me. After I gave her the estimate she looked at me dumb founded. Like I had kicked her dog or something. I asked her if she had any questions and she said, "why do you charge so much? I only pay $25.00 to get my car washed at the car wash I normally go to." Being a professional I tried to explain to her the process that would be done, the products that I used and the time it would take to perform the detail. To make a long story short she refused to that much to have her car done and said that she would be willing to give me $50.00 to detail the car. I turned to her shook her hand and politely declined. She then had the nerve to start lecturing me about wasting her time and that I was trying to take advantage of her and continued to lecture me for nearly 10 minutes and then promptly asked me to leave. I apologized for wasting her time and left. For the life in me I could not understand how this woman lived in a million dollar house, drove a $60,000.00 Jag and after being explained of the process and the amount of time it would take to detail her car (Estimated 5-6 hours) would actally offer me $50.00 to do the work. I still laugh everytime I think of that day. Especially the part of standing there for 10minutes and being lectured of me trying to take advantage of her. Anyway, lets hear some of the stories that you have had to go through while detailing. I'm sure there are plenty. Pooter
oh boy.. I dunno if this is a funny one but... I polished a black 2003 Mercedes C230, that was one of the worst i ever had. I think that he used a tree branch and gravel to wash it. When I was done I parked it outside and he came by a few hours later. He looked at it, went into the shop and paid came out, looked at it again, and took the sleeve of his winter jacket and proceeded to wipe off the little bit of dust that was on the hood. He just swept his whole arm back and forth accross the hood. I was floored. What a perfectly good waste of Carbon. LOL
I detailed one of my co-workers vehicles. I saw the car a few weeks later and it was clean from a distance(after some rain fall). I asked him how the car was doing and he said good. He just ran it through a car wash. (not even touchless!) I was pretty upset.
welll you dont get rich by spending everything you have.. if you can ge as good of a job for cheaper then why not? i kno its not as good of a job as would have been done, however she thought it was.... plus shes old
I have a friend in Monroe, Washington that has an old 49 Ford nostalga car. He drives it on sunny days to aid him in reliving his youth. He decided to paint the vehicle a metalic light blue to help hide the panel imperfections of the car. He decided to wax his vehicle with a well now OTC paste wax. He applied it in the sun and the product (which was applied way to thick) quickly dried up and became a problem to remove. thus affecting the look of the paint on the car. He was unaware of the problems that he had created for himself. He was just very glad to have protected his little play car with a wax. I was on my way to Alaska so I stopped in to visit and offered to do a spot on his vehicle which was sitting right beside my truck that I was cleaning up for the trip to Alaska. He said, "Go ahead. I doubt very much that it will make any difference. I just finished waxing the vehicle the other day." I set about to do the trunk lid of his 49 Ford. I used a chemical cleaner polish and a PC with a white pad to prep the paint for my LSP. It took 15 minutes to prep the hood and apply a sealant. While we were waiting for the LSP to dry he talked about how much work it had been to put the paste wax on and how it had dried and was all but impossible to take off completely. But it was worth it as far as he was concerned sinse now his new paint was protected. I had noticed that while he was talking he had his eye on the trunk. He would shake his head and continue talking to me. Then he would glance again at the trunk and his head would begin to shake again. I was beginning to get worried that I had done something to make him mad or unhappy. Once the sealant hazed over and was dry I simply used a good MF towels to wipe away the product. The result was very good. All of the previous wax had been removed. So was the yellowish tint that the other product had created on the rest of the vehicle so it was very noticeable. My friend stood about 15 ft. from the vehicle with his arms folded across his chest shaking his head back and forth very slowly with a look on his face that could have been construed to be consternation. I asked him, "What is wrong, Don?" He said, "It looks as if the rest of the car had nothing done to it. I know what I am going to do with the wax I used on the car." I said, "What are you going to do, Don?" He said with a playful little chuckle, "Why I am going to give that can of wax I used to someone that I do not like as a present." We both got a laugh out of it and went to work and detailed his whole car. It turned into an annual event until my retirement. Now we joke about it in our bi-weekly telephone conversations .
I think this is one of most annoying things I have come across while detailing. You spend hours getting a paint's finish as close to perfect for a client only to find out the next week that they took it through the "swirl-a-matic" and completely destroyed all of your hard work. All and all I think alot of clients don't realize the effort that goes into taking a car to a certain level. When they see 10 guys wiping a car outside a local car wash with old dirty towels...they wonder why you can't do the same thing for $50.00.
You know, this is something I have a hard time with as well. I do cars for friends and family, but am not a pro. I will ONLY correct a car to 85% plus if I know I can convert the owner to washing the car correctly. If I know they aren't going to maintain it properly, I will use an all-in-one type product via the rotary or PC, then use a sealand or wax with fillers on top of the AIO. Now in these cases, I disclose to the owner that I have used a filler product (and explain what that means) instead of doing a full correction since I knew they were going to continue to use the local carwash, instead of maintaining it properly. They appreciate this, as I am able to keep them from wasting money for a service/product they aren't going to maintain, and it keeps me from wasting my time when they aren't going to apprectiate and maintain what I have done anyways. It took me a while to get past the thing of having to make every car I touch perfect. I now try to assess the owner and the level of effort they are going to put forth after the detail to then determine what exactly I am going to do. If I were a pro, and this was my only job, I could set a lot of these people up on year long maintenance plans, but I just don't have the time now to maintain every car that friends and family bring me to detail.
You guys have to get over what clients do with their own cars. You can take pride in what you do, but to get upset with what a customer does is really out of your control. These are not your cars, even though you put so much effort into them. Do your best and appriciate your results. You are doing this as a career. Get your money and move on. You are not curing cancer. What people do with their own money is not your business. If customers were to come online and see this, what would they think? I don't want a detailer that thinks he can manage my finances. I want someone that does good work, period.
I would have problems with this as a pro detailer. The reason is that I am known for my quality work and covering up to me is not quality. I guess it is the difference between the type of customers that you take on. I would not know how to market or advertise the two differet types of work. I could see my fliers now: Cover up job 125.00 Fixing the problem 400.00 Priceless - Call for estimates HEHEHE!!!!:shakehead:
Funny cwcad, In other words he said you suck cause I was proud of my work until you came along and screwed it all up....hehehe Then went on and blamed the product instead of the application....LOL
Exactly, it is the difference in the customer you see, and the ones I see. Again, most of the cars I do belong to family members (I am not a pro). If I have a family member that brings a car to me (that is in bad shape), and says make it look good, and I know they are just going to continue to wash it with the brush at the local car wash and dry it with an old bath towel, what sense does it make for me to spend 12 hours compounding, polishing, etc? If it is a car that they are going to keep for a long time, and they bring it to me every 6 months or so, and it is hacked up from these types of washing techniques, and I compound it each time with the rotary, eventually it is going to get to the point where there isn't enough clear left for me to be able to do anything with it. However, if someone brings a car to me that they just bought, that is in bad shape, and I know they will properly take care of it, I will correct it to the best of my ability.
Well that is one way of looking at it. I took it as a compliment to my work and his inability as a detailer. He is a logger. A true faller of trees. He doesn't have a finesse bone in his body.
