Am I being unrealistic? Remaining scratches after professional detail

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c0rbin9

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I took my '93 Mazda RX-7 in for a professional detail from one of the top local detailers in my area (Houston). From the beginning I was much more concerned about preserving the clear coat rather than chasing down every last scratch, and I elected to go for a full front PPF plus what he calls a Stage 1 paint correction and ceramic coating, for a total cost of $3,400. The stage 1 correction is only a polish (no compounding or sanding) and obviously does not remove deeper scratches, and this is exactly what I wanted. The car only has 14k miles but the paint was full of swirls and a few RIDS from automatic washes.

When I picked up the car I noticed a few areas that are still more swirled/scratched than I would have thought, even with the correction being light. The rest of the paint has much fewer swirls and better clarity, and looks like what I would expect for a light polish. I brought this to the attention of the detailer and he said it is normal that there are some areas that won't correct as well as others. I understand that, but to me these areas just look like they weren't polished as much, as there are still the swirls and haziness that should be removed during a polish. Mostly these areas are on the rear passenger quarter panel and B-pillar.

Here are a few pics of the paint before:

View attachment 74829
View attachment 74830

And after:

View attachment 74832

View attachment 74831

View attachment 74833

For comparison, here is what most of the paint looks like (good):

View attachment 74834

Do you think the swirls in the after pics are acceptable after a light polish?
 
For THREE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS that's unacceptable, PPF install included or not. I'd like to think this is an opportunity for a shop to make a 14K ICON look it's very best and ask to use the pics on their website

They need to make this right, period!

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
 
You paid for what you got. You wanted a light polish to preserve the clear coat, but the detailer should have stoped there and gave you a call along with pictures to see if you wanted to go more aggressive.

You might use this as an excuse and see if he will re-do these areas.

I agree $3,450 on a Mazda RX7 is a little much.

How did the front PPF come out?
 
Rsurfer said:
You paid for what you got. You wanted a light polish to preserve the clear coat, but the detailer should have stoped there and gave you a call along with pictures to see if you wanted to go more aggressive.

You might use this as an excuse and see if he will re-do these areas.

I agree $3,450 on a Mazda RX7 is a little much.

How did the front PPF come out?
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If this was the level of polish I had paid for, I would expect the entire car to look like this. The rest of the car looks great though, it is only these areas which are still swirled. That suggests that these areas were simply overlooked rather than this being the level of correction of a light polish.

The front PPF is kind of a mixed bag. It seems to have been installed okay, but he installed it over 3 quite noticeable rock chips on the hood. These were supposed to be touched up with the Dr. Colorchip kit that I supplied, but the touch-up wouldn't stick. I understand old cars can be finicky, but the first I heard of this was AFTER he had already installed the PPF over the chips. I would have appreciated knowing before so I might have the opportunity to wait longer for the touch-up to dry, which I'm sure would have made the repair stay. He said he never had a problem before waiting 24 hours for touch-up to dry, but this is less than the directions recommend, and I should have at least been given the option to wait another few days before picking up the car so the touch-up would have to dry before installing the PPF. Now I have PPF installed over three ugly rock chips on the hood, and I don't want to take it off for fear of lifting the paint.

Engine bay was also supposed to be cleaned but still had dirt. So far this is the only thing he has agreed to rectify. This guy is supposed to be one of the top detailers in Houston, so I am a bit surprised by all this.
 
c0rbin9 said:
If this was the level of polish I had paid for, I would expect the entire car to look like this. The rest of the car looks great though, it is only these areas which are still swirled. That suggests that these areas were simply overlooked rather than this being the level of correction of a light polish.

The front PPF is kind of a mixed bag. It seems to have been installed okay, but he installed it over 3 quite noticeable rock chips on the hood. These were supposed to be touched up with the Dr. Colorchip kit that I supplied, but the touch-up wouldn't stick. I understand old cars can be finicky, but the first I heard of this was AFTER he had already installed the PPF over the chips. I would have appreciated knowing before so I might have the opportunity to wait longer for the touch-up to dry, which I'm sure would have made the repair stay. He said he never had a problem before waiting 24 hours for touch-up to dry, but this is less than the directions recommend, and I should have at least been given the option to wait another few days before picking up the car so the touch-up would have to dry before installing the PPF. Now I have PPF installed over three ugly rock chips on the hood, and I don't want to take it off for fear of lifting the paint.

Engine bay was also supposed to be cleaned but still had dirt. So far this is the only thing he has agreed to rectify. This guy is supposed to be one of the top detailers in Houston, so I am a bit surprised by all this.
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You may have to be more demanding. Tell him you have a large social media following and hate to having to write a bad review. For $3,450 I would expect a better job.
 
Rsurfer said:
You may have to be more demanding. Tell him you have a large social media following and hate to having to write a bad review. For $3,450 I would expect a better job.
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It’s too late for any of that now…
 
c0rbin9 said:
One week. I also had PPF put on the windshield for an additional charge during that time.

There was no breakdown by labor hours on the receipt.
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For an additional charge? That guys got some nerve…. I don’t mean to pile on, but even if it was a black Escalade EXT Platinum and got 100% correction along with protection it shouldn’t have cost $3,400+
That’s absurd.

It’s not Detail Groove, is it?
 
This is a great lesson for when you hire a detailer. A competent detailer with a good business record will give you a detailed analysis prior to him ever starting work. That includes his price for materials, his price for labor, approximate hours to be expended, all the details… Then you sign it , send it back and pay 50% upfront.

Also in this case if he couldn’t correct the rock dings in the front before he put the film on, he should’ve asked you to sign off on that, prior to doing it.
 
glen e said:
This is a great lesson for when you hire a detailer. A competent detailer with a good business record will give you a detailed analysis prior to him ever starting work. That includes his price for materials, his price for labor, approximate hours to be expended, all the details… Then you sign it , send it back and pay 50% upfront.

Also in this case if he couldn’t correct the rock dings in the front before he put the film on, he should’ve asked you to sign off on that, prior to doing it.
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For that much money, heck yea! Sheesh, he damn near should’ve included a loaner vehicle for that price.

And there better be some good coffee and beverages in the lobby. Lol
 
Rsurfer said:
So he should just stick his tail between his legs.
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It’s just that what’s done is done. He already paid, got his receipt.. I mean he sort of lost his leverage at this point. The money’s in the register, it’s tough to get it back out.
 
Damn, that paint is still pretty messed up. Unless you have super hard clear coat, even an AIO would have yielded much better results. You got scammed.
 
It is not Detail Groove. He said he would fix it, we'll see what happens. Thanks for the opinions all.
 
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