Drying Wet Interior

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jeffindetail

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If you shampoo, extract, or steam an interior and are pressed for time and/or weather conditions are too poor to dry out the interior, you can speed this up by Turning on your heat setting. If it’s just the carpet, put on the floor setting. If it’s seats and carpet, put on the dual setting. Make sure your A/C control is off. Unbelievably the car doesn’t stink afterwards.

Also, if wetting the interior is part of the job, try to do that as early as possible.
 
jeffindetail said:
If you shampoo, extract, or steam an interior and are pressed for time and/or weather conditions are too poor to dry out the interior, you can speed this up by Turning on your heat setting. If it’s just the carpet, put on the floor setting. If it’s seats and carpet, put on the dual setting. Make sure your A/C control is off. Unbelievably the car doesn’t stink afterwards.

Also, if wetting the interior is part of the job, try to do that as early as possible.
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Yea but don't you have to have the car running in order to do that? If so, how long do you plan on having someone's car idling?

If I found out a detailer had my car idling for any amount of time, even as little as 5-10min. I'd be livid. There's 2 things that get me mad like no other... When mechanics rev my engine in Park. And when they mess around and let my car idle. If anyone tempts my Cadillac with overheating I'll kill em! Lol.
 
I don't have this problem but if I did I'd try a little portable electric heater that you can get at Walmart or Target or that type of store for 10-15 bucks.

I agree with Eldorado... Prolonged idling of any vehicle is not a good thing and doing so to a customers car is just negligent in my opinion.

And finally, if you were to use your proposed method, I'd think that having the A/C control on would speed the drying process as it removes moisture from the circulating air.
 
The biggest negative of having to run the engine is fuel consumption. There’s something wrong with the cooling system if it overheats after 10-15 minutes of idling. That being said, running (and reving) the engine isn’t preferred, but necessary in many cases. Mechanics are testing & trying to replicate complaints. Aside from the trick I mentioned, we also must run the engine to perform A/C odor treatments. We encounter the livid customers when we don’t adequately dry their interior after detailing when they return days later complaining of the musty smell.
 
Problem with an electric heater is you’re unlikely to reach all the damp areas without having to move it around. Also have to worry about the immediate areas around the heater. The heater may be too hot and singe carpet fibers. At least using the car’s heater settings you know it won’t do that.

Unfortunately, we’ve forgotten to turn the a/c control off before and have returned to find the interior is still wet and we just wasted time. You don’t want to re-circulate the same damn air.
 
jeffindetail said:
The biggest negative of having to run the engine is fuel consumption. There’s something wrong with the cooling system if it overheats after 10-15 minutes of idling. That being said, running (and reving) the engine isn’t preferred, but necessary in many cases. Mechanics are testing & trying to replicate complaints. Aside from the trick I mentioned, we also must run the engine to perform A/C odor treatments. We encounter the livid customers when we don’t adequately dry their interior after detailing when they return days later complaining of the musty smell.
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The thing is Cadillacs are some of the most finicky cars on earth, and I've ran into several situations with mechanics who've wound up doing more harm than good and some of them flat out couldn't even fix the problem that they're supposed to specialize in. [i.e. smog check, water pump, distributor] I've had the worst luck + most mechanics simply cannot fix these cars correctly, let alone treat them right. That's why these days my car goes to the dealer anytime something really goes wrong or needs the job done right.

As far as the mechanic needing to idle your car in order to find out what's wrong? Not necessarily, most of that is done with the diagnostic machine and the rest is common sense, it doesn't take your car sitting there idling for them to figure out what's wrong with it.

And then comes after the work's performed, I believe it's called a road test. A lazy mechanic might let your car idle [I found out Pep Boys did this to a previous Cad of mine for over 30min] Road test doesn't mean let my car idle for 30min...

My car wastes alot of premium gas and I don't mind that at all.. But if a Northstar engine overheats it may never be the same or even worse. And the last thing I need is some idiot to make that mistake for me. Odor treatments? On my car they get done with the car off, it's just not worth it.

I may sound crazy, but I've owned 5 of these cars and I know what sets them off. Idling in park for extended periods happens to be 1 of them. Lol.

Btw I use my Master Blaster Sidekick to help speed up the drying if I need to speed it up. It's not an instant dryer, but with a bit of patience over the area I'm always pleased with how much of a difference it can make.
 
Fortunately, I don’t work for a Caddy dealership. Have an uncle that had nothing, but problems with his Escalade and the dealership couldn’t fix them. Was able to get out of it and get a Suburban. I know; GM, same car. Lol, but he hasn’t had issues with the Suburban.

As for road tests, mechanics do that to. Many times a customer can only give limited info on their issue, but will say the car will do such and such at certain period of time and often the best starting point is to try to duplicate the issue by running the engine.

For odor treatment, you seem to take very good care of your vehicle. Others, not so much. Their bad habits result in extremely invasive odors that circulate through the a/c. Best way to clear them is to run odor eliminators through them or using an ozone machine while frequently fluctuating the a/c settings to treat all vents.

At dealerships, it’s speed speed speed. Time is money and all that. Most used cars that we can retail are 2-5 years old and the vehicles are lucky if they were washed and vacuumed once in that time. A ton has to be done to them in a very short time for anyone to even consider buying them. Unfortunately, time and budget means we can’t do everything we’d like to the car.
 
jeffindetail said:
Fortunately, I don’t work for a Caddy dealership. Have an uncle that had nothing, but problems with his Escalade and the dealership couldn’t fix them. Was able to get out of it and get a Suburban. I know; GM, same car. Lol, but he hasn’t had issues with the Suburban.
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Well that's because the Escalade isn't a "real" Cadillac, never was and never will be... So if the technicians at the dealer couldn't fix it right, it's probably because they treat the Escalade the same way I do, like a red headed stepchild imposter Cadillac that's actually a Suburban. lol. J/k but not really... I hate the Escalade.
 
There is heaters made for cars to use in the winters and there is fans in them. 2 of those and the windows roled down a little bit for the cords and a high heat on. If I would have to dry the inside of the car that's what I would do. And the condensation from the water can get out from the car from the little opening in the windows. It gets hot quickly and no need of idleing the motor. And you can use it to worm up and de-ice cars in the winters to.
 
majsmith said:
Best cure for the Northstar is ditch it and get a Blackwing !!
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Yea good luck. What’d they produce maybe 2000 at its height and 200 per year in the end? It’s already gotten to point where some owners are ditching the car already because in just a few years it’ll be next to impossible to buy replacement parts rendering the car a totaled if god forbid a crucial component needs replacing and it happens to be made of unobtainium.

They’re predicting the Blackwing will be a worse nightmare than the Cadillac XLR which a simple tailight replacement can cost upwards of $6,000 dollars per lens cover. Good luck with that. Lol.

I was talking to a guy who just sold his Blackwing for that very same reason. It’s a great car but he knew if it broke it could very well be totaled so he sold it while it’s still hot.
 
Eldorado2k said:
Yea good luck. What’d they produce maybe 2000 at its height and 200 per year in the end? It’s already gotten to point where some owners are ditching the car already because in just a few years it’ll be next to impossible to buy replacement parts rendering the car a totaled if god forbid a crucial component needs replacing and it happens to be made of unobtainium.

They’re predicting the Blackwing will be a worse nightmare than the Cadillac XLR which a simple tailight replacement can cost upwards of $6,000 dollars per lens cover. Good luck with that. Lol.

I was talking to a guy who just sold his Blackwing for that very same reason. It’s a great car but he knew if it broke it could very well be totaled so he sold it while it’s still hot.
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That black wing will only go up in value… nice XLR’s are 50-80. Just gotta be careful I guess. If it’s a daily I would sell it but if it was a second toy car it’s a nice investment.


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Coatingsarecrack said:
That black wing will only go up in value… nice XLR’s are 50-80. Just gotta be careful I guess. If it’s a daily I would sell it but if it was a second toy car it’s a nice investment.


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This pretty much sums up the dilemma with owning an XLR.

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And that’s given the fairly substantial number of about 15,000 total XLR’s that were produced throughout its 6yr. run compared to what, maybe 2-3,000 Cadillac Blackwings? Also keep in mind all Blackwings aren’t the same model car, which narrows things down even more.

Imagine having arguably the most beastly horsepowered ICE engine ever conceived but regulating it to be a garage queen? Or drive the hell out of it and break something that renders the car basically totaled because you can’t find parts you need to replace. It’s crazy.
 
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