Feel like I was duped here with detailing and ceramic coating

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Donnation

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My first post here, hoping to get some clarity on this.

I have a 2017 Yukon that was by no means in bad condition paint wise, but taken through one too many brush washes by the previous owner. I looked around online and found a detailing shop near me. I spoke to the owner and he told me he could paint correct it and make it look like it was just off the showroom. He said that anything deep couldn’t be fixed, but that the swirl marks I had could be corrected easily and that he wanted to put a Ceramic Pro finish on it to protect it. The below video is what I got back. I literally see no indication that anything was corrected here. It cost a fortune and I feel like I didn’t get anything fixed here. I think it still looks terrible.

What do you guys think? He’s asked me to bring it back in to “correct it” but is he just going to make it worse? FYI this place had a lot of high end cars in it that they were working on and it was very fancy. But he never sent the photos he promised of my vehicle going through it’s process and I’m wondering if he did anything at all now besides wash and wax it. Any thoughts?

YouTube
 
I’d ask for all of my money back and choose another reputable detailer.
 
I’m afraid you got taken if and I repeat if you paid for paint correction. The problem with certain brands of coatings is they don’t care who installs the product as long as they paid the buy in fees. I would take it back and give them the chance to fix it. But I would have the owner look at the so called fancy cars with you and tell you what to expect in comparison. I don’t know what you paid, but in general if you weren’t in the $1000 range you didn’t pay for a full correction. We won’t coat a car unless we fully correct it first or you wind up with what you got. Good luck to you!
 
Mike lambert said:
I’m afraid you got taken if and I repeat if you paid for paint correction. The problem with certain brands of coatings is they don’t care who installs the product as long as they paid the buy in fees. I would take it back and give them the chance to fix it. But I would have the owner look at the so called fancy cars with you and tell you what to expect in comparison. I don’t know what you paid, but in general if you weren’t in the $1000 range you didn’t pay for a full correction. We won’t coat a car unless we fully correct it first or you wind up with what you got. Good luck to you!
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Thank you. I paid $1700 and it was supposed to include paint correction.
 
Donnation said:
My first post here, hoping to get some clarity on this.

I have a 2017 Yukon that was by no means in bad condition paint wise, but taken through one too many brush washes by the previous owner. I looked around online and found a detailing shop near me. I spoke to the owner and he told me he could paint correct it and make it look like it was just off the showroom. He said that anything deep couldn’t be fixed, but that the swirl marks I had could be corrected easily and that he wanted to put a Ceramic Pro finish on it to protect it. The below video is what I got back. I literally see no indication that anything was corrected here. It cost a fortune and I feel like I didn’t get anything fixed here. I think it still looks terrible.

What do you guys think? He’s asked me to bring it back in to “correct it” but is he just going to make it worse? FYI this place had a lot of high end cars in it that they were working on and it was very fancy. But he never sent the photos he promised of my vehicle going through it’s process and I’m wondering if he did anything at all now besides wash and wax it. Any thoughts?

YouTube
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I watched the video. It does look bad. What services did he tell you he preformed on your vehicle. I don’t know what your paint looked like before. But it’s pretty safe to say he did not touch the paint work on your vehicle. Nor did he use a coating.
As far as what to do. That’s completely up to you. I personally would go back and politely ask for a refund. It looks like he just straight up lied to you about the services he did the first time. So why bring it back? I’ve learned just because a shop has high end vehicles and equipment doesn’t mean that their skill level matches the environment they have setup.
Use the directory on here or ask around on the forum and you will find someone good to take care of vehicle.
Good luck and welcome to the forum.
 
He sent me this photo yesterday with and said “brought this beauty outside. Looks great, not a swirl.” I didn’t say anything but I can literally see what looks like swirl marks in the photo. I thought maybe it was just a bad angle and the clouds were reflecting so didn’t say anything. My wife picked it up and didn’t know what to look for. Damnit this really burns me up.

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Donnation said:
He sent me this photo yesterday with and said “brought this beauty outside. Looks great, not a swirl.” I didn’t say anything but I can literally see what looks like swirl marks in the photo. I thought maybe it was just a bad angle and the clouds were reflecting so didn’t say anything. My wife picked it up and didn’t know what to look for. Damnit this really burns me up.

67a470898887877df6085d3635cfbe3c.jpg
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You can make a swirled out vehicle look good with side angles.
 
Bring it back and show him under light the problem. I'd assume since he does correction, he has a well lit area? That is pretty bad and I'd be pissed if I paid $1700.
 
Thank you guys for these responses. I’m pretty upset over this and am taking it back in the morning. I highly sought he will give a refund but I’m going to ask to have it fixed.

Question though, won’t they have to remove the ceramic coating (if there even is one)?
 
Yes. That needs to be redone and corrected to be proper. However, I wouldn't have that guy touch mine with a 10' microfiber pole. lol
 
Yes they will have to remove it during polishing, if they even installed it in the first place. Personally, I wouldn't let a hack like that continue to grind away on my paint. If they couldn't get it right the first time why would they get it right the second time?
 
I think it’s time to find someone else also, I would contact Ceramic Pro also, don’t know if it’ll do any good but a company that is quality oriented would want to know. However I’ve seen this with a lot of they’re installers.
 
So Mike Phillips has a line that he uses frequently, and I'll try to embellish or paraphrase here... If you trusted them and paid them to do a job the first time, and they didn't do it, why would you bring it back to the same people to let them not do it right again.

It happens all too often, someone goes in for a coating and they don't bother doing any form of prep work. How I explain it to my customers is, it's like painting a room. You spend 8 hours taping, masking off, laying down paper/tarps, filling holes, sanding them down... priming and the last hour is painting.

Preparation meets opportunity, if it's not prepped, the LSP doesn't matter... I would ask for your money, and give your location (not exact address but city/state) on this forum and maybe a forum member will chime in and give you a helping hand.... :)

By the way, welcome to the forum!!! :)
 
LSNAutoDetailing said:
So Mike Phillips has a line that he uses frequently, and I'll try to embellish or paraphrase here... If you trusted them and paid them to do a job the first time, and they didn't do it, why would you bring it back to the same people to let them not do it right again.

It happens all too often, someone goes in for a coating and they don't bother doing any form of prep work. How I explain it to my customers is, it's like painting a room. You spend 8 hours taping, masking off, laying down paper/tarps, filling holes, sanding them down... priming and the last hour is painting.

Preparation meets opportunity, if it's not prepped, the LSP doesn't matter... I would ask for your money, and give your location (not exact address but city/state) on this forum and maybe a forum member will chime in and give you a helping hand.... :)

By the way, welcome to the forum!!! :)
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Thank you for the welcome. I just wonder if I can get a refund here. He’s already started with the “Black paint is very hard to get perfect.”

I’m in Louisville, KY.
 
I absolutely love that reason! I fix a lot of those! Besides it’s not black it’s clear. I hope it turns out well for you!
 
Donnation said:
Thank you for the welcome. I just wonder if I can get a refund here. He’s already started with the “Black paint is very hard to get perfect.”

I’m in Louisville, KY.
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I've been doing this on the side for a while now and I've had one person ask me to come back out and fix something that I didn't catch. He was super nice about it and just asked if something should look the way it did; I owned up to the mistake and refunded him a chunk of his money no questions asked because he had to take time out of another day to deal with it and he didn't get what he paid for the first time. It was far less than $1700, but the principle applies.

If this guy doesn't make the offer first and you have to push, I'd get the written refusal and do the rest through your bank/credit card company(unless you paid cash or something)but you shouldn't be the one that is trying to make things right here. I firmly believe that both sides share a responsibility during any kind of business and he is falling flat on his face when it comes to his side. I'd also agree with the other posters here saying not to take it back to him if you still have issues. You get two chances with me when it comes to stuff like this because I get that everyone has a bad day, but as soon as the excuses start or it comes back wrong the second time I prefer to just get someone else to perform the service. I'm really sorry you are getting the runaround with a detailer because it makes the rest of us look bad.
 
Wow, sorry to hear about this. Stories like yours are what made me invest the money of one job and buy all the equipment and learn how to do it myself. I’d be so mad if I paid someone big bucks and got a lousy job like that. At least when I do something, if it’s not perfect then it’s on me and not someone that took my money and screwed up.
 
Thanks for all the responses here. It gives me hope that I wasn’t being one of those types of picky customers and also that there is hope that my paint can in fact be corrected.

The other thing that bothers me is that he said he was going to send me photos of the vehicle as it was being prepped and taken through the paint correction process. He never sent one single photo. When I asked him about it he said “Oh I’m sorry we forgot to send them.” The whole thing seems shady now. He does have a large factory where he is prepping other cars, but I’m getting the feeling since i walked in and didn’t have some fancy Tesla like some of his other cars that mine was kind of skipped over.

This whole thing has now made me feel sick. I paid a lot for this vehicle and hope it can be fixed.
 
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