Feel like I was duped here with detailing and ceramic coating

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Why dont you spray some water on it and make a video. Depending on how it beads/repels we will be able to tell if its been coated or not.

I hope he fixes his mistake.
 
Donnation said:
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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Where do you live? Perhaps forum members can lend a hand. Of course it can be fixed...


Please excuse the typos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
bryanviper said:
Why dont you spray some water on it and make a video. Depending on how it beads/repels we will be able to tell if its been coated or not.

I hope he fixes his mistake.
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I actually thought about doing that. But I think it’s safe to say it doesn’t really matter because the paint looks so bad. And I don’t want him accusing me of wiping it down causing any scratches.

Thank you for the kind words.
 
OCD-tailing said:
Donnation,
I am in Louisville and I would be happy to look at your vehicle if you would like to give me a call. Please see this forum thread about another member I helped with his Kia SUV. I do this as a side job and I only do one vehicle at a time.

https://www.autogeekonline.net/foru...ome.html?highlight=detailer+in+louisville,+ky

Thanks,
Alan
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Oh yes, that would be fantastic!! Can you send me a private message and I can give you a call tomorrow? Also, do you do both paint correction and the ceramic coating?
 
Donnation said:
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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Yeah I would ask to see those photos. It looks like your car got passed over and somehow they thought they could get it by you without you noticing. That’s insane that anyone would accept that as a $1700 correction job. But as someone mentioned on here. If you can not get anywhere with them when you take it back. I would file a complaint with his ceramic coating provider. It might get you somewhere. Or it might not. But it would be worth a shot.
 
Here is another video showing the hood. Also, the dust all over the car is how I received it. It was completely covered in it and my wife drive straight home and put it in the garage.

YouTube
 
That looks so bad it’s almost like he took your $1700 and drove your car to the nearest car wash, drove through and paid $10 for that, returned to you hoping you’d never notice.
 
Get your money back. I am not saying this to upset you but that job isn't worth $200 let alone what you paid. One of our forum members is in your area. I am sure he will do a much better job - and that is what you deserve.

Keep us posted and god,luck
ScottH
 
Thank you all for the help here.

One other question. Here is the list of services that was claimed to be done on my vehicle. Is there anything specific I should tell him, or just more of “look at my paint.”

Presidential Treatment:

Gentle hand wash and dry using our “Presidential Detail” techniques to prevent swirls and micro-marring of the paint.
❖ Interior Detail Package (Click here to see more information)
❖ The Green Interior Clean Treatment (Click here to see more information)
❖ Clay treatment to remove embedded contaminants in the paint and on exterior glass surfaces.
❖ Full paintwork decontamination process for ultimate paint smoothness.
❖ Paintwork receives a multi-point visual inspection at different angles under special lighting conditions and is professionally measured for thickness.
❖ 3-4 stage paint correction by machine polishing with Studio A Paint DNA #1,2,3, and 4 to remove all swirls, micro-marring, light-medium scratches, haze, holograms, bird stains, sanding marks, acid rain and tree sap stains, and all but the deepest of scratches (requires wet sand and buff).
​
❖ Machine application of Studio A Paint DNA Treatment to further enhance color, texture, and gloss, while adding a very durable (multi-layer) treatment of aviation grade paint protection against all Mother Nature has to offer.
❖ Under The Hood Detail.
❖ Polish exterior brightwork.
❖ Polish exhaust tips.
❖ Polish and clean inside

Then I also added the ceramic coating. Man I feel stupid.
 
I am gonna go against the flow here and put up some arguments you might not have thought of.

First, we don't have pictures of the paint before the detailer worked on the vehicle. So it's very hard to know what level of work and correction was done. You did say he informed you that the deeper stuff could not be removed, so to me that is a red flag that you might have very thin paint on your car, or/and that there was extensive damage on the paint. The video you are showing only show very slight swirl marks that could be on the coating from improper wash after the coating was done. It is not showing major damage anywhere, nor deep swirls. So to me, if the paint was horible to start with, it is clear work was done to correct it. I don't know the level of correction that was discussed but if he did a one step correction on super damaged paint, the result you got is consistent with that. This is like 90% perfect paint from what I can see in the video. Doing 100% correction on thin paint is risky and not safe. So again, before picture/video would be needed to make a correct jugement on this.

Second, the fact you come to a forum instead of talking to the detailer is a second red flag to me. If something was not to your liking, why did you not tell him that when you picked the vehicle up? Those swirl marks are visible. I don't know about you, but when I pay almost 2 grand for something, I do make sure I get what I paid for. So assuming you did not notice, why not contact the detailer on the next day and have him have a look?

I hate when people on forum act as judges when they only have part of the information and one side of the story. It is possible the guy did not do what he was supposed to, but it is also possible he did the best that could be done in this situation. My advice is to go see him and review the situation with him.

As for the price, I know that ceramic pro is super expensive. Especially when they start laying down 3-5 coats of it. So most of the price you pay if that that. One of the reasons I have no interest in the product. It's very time consuming to apply and the product itself is very expensive. As for the correction part, this is a large vehicle, so any kind of correction on it will be expensive too. My guess is the guy probably spent 6 to 10 hours doing a single step correction with sanding of the most extensive defects. The detailer could tell you what he did, but since there are swirls left (and assuming they are on the paint, not on the coating), it's unlikelly he did a 2 step correction.

Anyways, as I said, all we can do is speculate since we don't have all the facts. Not every detail is a 100% paint correction, for many reasons, so again, talking to the detailer will give you the answers, we can't.
 
Did he supply you with the paint measurements? 3-4 stage paint correction? Wow.
 
Donnation said:
Thank you all for the help here.

One other question. Here is the list of services that was claimed to be done on my vehicle. Is there anything specific I should tell him, or just more of “look at my paint.”

Presidential Treatment:

Gentle hand wash and dry using our “Presidential Detail” techniques to prevent swirls and micro-marring of the paint.
❖ Interior Detail Package (Click here to see more information)
❖ The Green Interior Clean Treatment (Click here to see more information)
❖ Clay treatment to remove embedded contaminants in the paint and on exterior glass surfaces.
❖ Full paintwork decontamination process for ultimate paint smoothness.
❖ Paintwork receives a multi-point visual inspection at different angles under special lighting conditions and is professionally measured for thickness.
❖ 3-4 stage paint correction by machine polishing with Studio A Paint DNA #1,2,3, and 4 to remove all swirls, micro-marring, light-medium scratches, haze, holograms, bird stains, sanding marks, acid rain and tree sap stains, and all but the deepest of scratches (requires wet sand and buff).
​
❖ Machine application of Studio A Paint DNA Treatment to further enhance color, texture, and gloss, while adding a very durable (multi-layer) treatment of aviation grade paint protection against all Mother Nature has to offer.
❖ Under The Hood Detail.
❖ Polish exterior brightwork.
❖ Polish exhaust tips.
❖ Polish and clean inside

Then I also added the ceramic coating. Man I feel stupid.
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Now we are getting more info.

From that list, I can tell you that this detailer looks like someone who knows what he is doing.

A part of the price you paid was for a complete interior detail, probably about 250-450$ worth of work on a vehicle that size. Also the guy does 3-4 stage correction, that means that unless the paint is super thin, it should come perfect. Which leads me to believe the swirls are on the coating.
 
MikeC78 said:
Did he supply you with the paint measurements? 3-4 stage paint correction? Wow.
Click to expand...

4 step can be anything. If the paint is super thin it could be 3000 grit sanding, heavy cut compound, medium cut compound and then finishing polish. On thick paint it could be 1500 grit sanding, 2500 grit sanding, heavy cut compound and finishing polish... All that means is that he does 3 or 4 steps depending on the need and paint.

Again, from what the OP said in his initial post, the detailer told him the deeper scratches would not be removed, so that point to either super deep scratches and/or very thin paint.
 
Calendyr said:
I am gonna go against the flow here and put up some arguments you might not have thought of.

First, we don't have pictures of the paint before the detailer worked on the vehicle. So it's very hard to know what level of work and correction was done. You did say he informed you that the deeper stuff could not be removed, so to me that is a red flag that you might have very thin paint on your car, or/and that there was extensive damage on the paint. The video you are showing only show very slight swirl marks that could be on the coating from improper wash after the coating was done. It is not showing major damage anywhere, nor deep swirls. So to me, if the paint was horible to start with, it is clear work was done to correct it. I don't know the level of correction that was discussed but if he did a one step correction on super damaged paint, the result you got is consistent with that. This is like 90% perfect paint from what I can see in the video. Doing 100% correction on thin paint is risky and not safe. So again, before picture/video would be needed to make a correct jugement on this.

Second, the fact you come to a forum instead of talking to the detailer is a second red flag to me. If something was not to your liking, why did you not tell him that when you picked the vehicle up? Those swirl marks are visible. I don't know about you, but when I pay almost 2 grand for something, I do make sure I get what I paid for. So assuming you did not notice, why not contact the detailer on the next day and have him have a look?

I hate when people on forum act as judges when they only have part of the information and one side of the story. It is possible the guy did not do what he was supposed to, but it is also possible he did the best that could be done in this situation. My advice is to go see him and review the situation with him.

As for the price, I know that ceramic pro is super expensive. Especially when they start laying down 3-5 coats of it. So most of the price you pay if that that. One of the reasons I have no interest in the product. It's very time consuming to apply and the product itself is very expensive. As for the correction part, this is a large vehicle, so any kind of correction on it will be expensive too. My guess is the guy probably spent 6 to 10 hours doing a single step correction with sanding of the most extensive defects. The detailer could tell you what he did, but since there are swirls left (and assuming they are on the paint, not on the coating), it's unlikelly he did a 2 step correction.

Anyways, as I said, all we can do is speculate since we don't have all the facts. Not every detail is a 100% paint correction, for many reasons, so again, talking to the detailer will give you the answers, we can't.
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To a few of your points.

1. I didn’t pick up the vehicle, my wife did and she had no idea to even look for any issues. Secondly, I contacted the detailer the same day as soon as I got home and viewed the vehicle. It hasn’t been washed or touched by me as he said to keep it in my garage for two weeks to let the coating fully cure.

2. The paint looks like it did before I took it in. As I originally said, there were only swirl marks and no deep scratches. He told me over the phone and when I dropped it off that they would be removed and that only scratches you could physically feel would be left. He even said in that picture he sent me “Not a swirl.” That’s BS as it has the same amount of swirl marks as when i took it in.

I only got the single coat of ceramic pro. The light version.
 
Calendyr said:
4 step can be anything. If the paint is super thin it could be 3000 grit sanding, heavy cut compound, medium cut compound and then finishing polish. On thick paint it could be 1500 grit sanding, 2500 grit sanding, heavy cut compound and finishing polish... All that means is that he does 3 or 4 steps depending on the need and paint.

Again, from what the OP said in his initial post, the detailer told him the deeper scratches would not be removed, so that point to either super deep scratches and/or very thin paint.
Click to expand...

Let's not carried away quite yet. Anyone can copy and past these days, that doesn't mean make him a bonafide detailer.

Furthermore, to charge a customer $1700 and leave those swirls on the paint without consulting with the customer? Give me a break. Lets get real for a moment... unless that newer SUV was totally repainted, we all know factory GM usually has hard clear with plenty left over from the factory for correction. At least this has been my experience. Leaving those swirls that are in that video for $1700 is complete hack work. You know dang well, that a light polish usually fixes those. Keyword: Usually. Like I said, the guy said he supplies paint thickness readings. Where are they?
 
Calendyr said:
Now we are getting more info.

From that list, I can tell you that this detailer looks like someone who knows what he is doing.

A part of the price you paid was for a complete interior detail, probably about 250-450$ worth of work on a vehicle that size. Also the guy does 3-4 stage correction, that means that unless the paint is super thin, it should come perfect. Which leads me to believe the swirls are on the coating.
Click to expand...

The problem here is that he did no interior detail. I asked him about this and he said that due to the size of my vehicle he did not include the interior clean as it would have been several hundred more. When i looked inside it i could tell it was just as dirty as before when i dropped it off. I told him I was never told that and he said he would take care of the interior when I brought it back in. Honestly I wasn’t at all concerned with the interior but it is listed as part of the treatment i was supposed to get.
 
Calendyr said:
4 step can be anything. If the paint is super thin it could be 3000 grit sanding, heavy cut compound, medium cut compound and then finishing polish. On thick paint it could be 1500 grit sanding, 2500 grit sanding, heavy cut compound and finishing polish... All that means is that he does 3 or 4 steps depending on the need and paint.

Again, from what the OP said in his initial post, the detailer told him the deeper scratches would not be removed, so that point to either super deep scratches and/or very thin paint.
Click to expand...

When he was talking about deep scratches, he was saying this in general over the phone. When I brought it in he said he would be removing all the surface swirls as there weren’t any deep scratches that couldn’t be fixed.
 
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