Have you ever messed up a customers car?

LOL funny jokes Ciera....i like em :)

To Christian and Dubbin...wow thats crazy that you could burn with a PC using 205 in one case...and a white pad in the other case. Guess its good to be cautious. If I had my own place i'd really consider a junk pannel to practice on...but being that I DONT at the moment I dont want to litter the yard with a hood or a trunk pannel lol. But considering the doors on that Taurus i'm gonna be working on are from the junk yard after my mom got in an accident...I guess that KINDA counts right:props:

These are some really good replies and I think more should be out there about how PC's can in some rare cases burn the paint...cause when I first bought mine all I ever read was how it was 'burn proof' or 'dummy proof' or whatever other names were attached to it saying basically you cant **** up....

How often do you guys (if ever) use a paint thickness gauge...how accurate are they and do you really need to spend $400 on one?
 
Once so far in my detailing career. Was working on a Foxbody Mustang with a fiberglass hood. In one small nickle size area, the paint I guess did not adhere to well to the hood because as soon as my rotary with a fLC White Foam pad hit it at about 1500 rpms it lifted the paint and moved it creating two small quarter inch tears in the paint.

That one thing though was enough to badly screw over my reputation thanks to the owners not dealing with me about getting my insurance to pay for it and there friends proceeding to trash my name as much as possible over the course of a year.
 
I messed up my partners G35. We were trying to get a scratch out on his Plastic bumper and we made a little burn spot. Someone backed into him and then it was fixed lol. That the only thing I can think of.
 
MrWillsi3 said:
To Christian and Dubbin...wow thats crazy that you could burn with a PC using 205 in one case...and a white pad in the other case. Guess its good to be cautious. If I had my own place i'd really consider a junk pannel to practice on...but being that I DONT at the moment I dont want to litter the yard with a hood or a trunk pannel lol. But considering the doors on that Taurus i'm gonna be working on are from the junk yard after my mom got in an accident...I guess that KINDA counts right:props:

These are some really good replies and I think more should be out there about how PC's can in some rare cases burn the paint...cause when I first bought mine all I ever read was how it was 'burn proof' or 'dummy proof' or whatever other names were attached to it saying basically you cant **** up....

How often do you guys (if ever) use a paint thickness gauge...how accurate are they and do you really need to spend $400 on one?
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Most paint thickness gauges around that price level only tell you the total film thickness i.e. this includes the primer, base coat, and clear coat as one total thickness. This means that you can't tell exactly how much clear coat you have, but you can estimate by taking the paint thickness in the inside of your door as it only recieves one coat of clear at the factory.


I was very mad at myself for burning my paint because I was in a tight spot and was trying to lessen the severity of a scratch which is when that happened at low speed and with a finishing polish and pad. For 95% of cars, it is highly likely that you will never come close to burning the paint with a PC but the problem is that remaining 5% of cars or cases where you don't have a lot of paint left either throughout the car or in isolated areas such as edges and body lines. Even a paint gauge will not be able to measure those edges and corners so it is really just the luck of the draw sometimes. It is a very safe machine, but sometimes you just can't help damage if it occurs in rare cases.
 
Mirror Detailing said:
Once so far in my detailing career. Was working on a Foxbody Mustang with a fiberglass hood. In one small nickle size area, the paint I guess did not adhere to well to the hood because as soon as my rotary with a fLC White Foam pad hit it at about 1500 rpms it lifted the paint and moved it creating two small quarter inch tears in the paint.

That one thing though was enough to badly screw over my reputation thanks to the owners not dealing with me about getting my insurance to pay for it and there friends proceeding to trash my name as much as possible over the course of a year.
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Wow thats messed up...mistakes do happen and if you had insureance to cover it than things should have been fine. Had you talked to them before hand about the possibliity of this happening or no?

Have you been able to build your reputation back up yet....funny how one bad apple (the owners of the mustang in this case) can really spoil things even if you've done 100 cars before them with no problems.
 
christian900se said:
Most paint thickness gauges around that price level only tell you the total film thickness i.e. this includes the primer, base coat, and clear coat as one total thickness. This means that you can't tell exactly how much clear coat you have, but you can estimate by taking the paint thickness in the inside of your door as it only recieves one coat of clear at the factory.


I was very mad at myself for burning my paint because I was in a tight spot and was trying to lessen the severity of a scratch which is when that happened at low speed and with a finishing polish and pad. For 95% of cars, it is highly likely that you will never come close to burning the paint with a PC but the problem is that remaining 5% of cars or cases where you don't have a lot of paint left either throughout the car or in isolated areas such as edges and body lines. Even a paint gauge will not be able to measure those edges and corners so it is really just the luck of the draw sometimes. It is a very safe machine, but sometimes you just can't help damage if it occurs in rare cases.
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Good advice about the thickness inside the door area. They really only do 1 coat there? How many coats does the rest of the car typically get? I guess its true you can never be too careful...I just wish these guys would put a little more clear on for us to work with...seems like doing detailing is like doing surgury....except at 1500 rpm lol:buffing:
 
Have I ever messed up a customers car? NOPE! (but I've never had a "customer" :p)
 
I was detailing a 98 GMC Jimmy for a customer, on the way back to give it to him I flipped it on accident.
 
Screwed up my own SUV this week. Had water spots on the hood and driver's door from the dang blasted sprinkler. Grabbed TSR and a yellow pad, gave it a quick going over, then wham! sun came up and it was an absolute mess! Laughed at myself for doing a rush job. Wound up polishing the whole truck ( 8-1/2 hrs). Can't do a rush job on anything, always winds up biting you in the ars.
 
Haven't messed one up yet but I have a bad luck with dropping my clay bar on the ground!
 
Used denatured alcohol to remove an ink stain from leather seat in a
Navigator--took the entire finish off. Went to the leather store and
got some tough-up to match
 
Wax Gorilla said:
Screwed up some flat black on a center stripe that was aftermarket paint. I paid to have it redone. Client still uses me 7 years later. The only people who never get in trouble for a mis-diagnosis are Doctors they just collect another co pay prescribe more pills - Give you a silly grin and say oh well that didnt work let's try this !
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The main difference between a doctor and a detailer when they make a mistake is this.
When doctors make mistakes they usually get buried....
 
Dang you flipped the Jimmy, were you ok...did the owner try to kill you after the crash didnt?

And yeah going slow is usually the best way to go fast...make up work is ALWAYS the hardest!
 
On my own car, I've burned through the paint in a couple of areas. Once on the leading edge of the driver's side fender, and on a spot where the clear coat flaked off (not surprising!). I use my car as my test subject (99 Nissan Sentra), I often get comments as to how I keep it looking so nice which really goes to show what the average person sees and what a detailer sees. My car has door dings galore, the plastic bumpers are significantly sun faded so as to be a different shade of red, and the clear coat has failed in spots all over the car.

On a clients car, I burned the clear bra (thank goodness it wasn't the paint!) on an '09 Porsche 911 Turbo. I had been attempting to remove/lessen some etching done by bug residue with my PC using Meg's UC on a 4" LC Orange pad to no avail, my friend whom I was detailing with suggested I use his 'new to him' Hitachi rotary. It had been a few months since I'd used a rotary, and my experience was fairly limited at that. I don't remember the speed I was using but I know I was using very slow passes. When I tried to remove what I thought to be haze from the polish I realized I had burned the plastic clear bra! The resulting haze was slightly larger than a quarter, right in the middle of the hood. I was very upset and spent several minutes pacing and cursing (thankfully the client wasn't around!). Eventually I had to leave so as not to be late for my part time job, and the client still hadn't returned, it was one of the most nerve wracking phone calls I've had to make to date. I kept myself composed over the phone and explained what had happened, to my shock the client didn't seem at all upset and said that he would take a look when he got back. The next day I returned to finish the car and face my mistake, the client laughed. Honestly, he thought it was funny the way I had described my mistake over the phone as if it was the end of world, as well as my antics that had been recorded on the garage's cameras.

Bottom line is I got lucky, it turns out all the clear bra on the car was going to be replaced soon anyways!
 
CH.Detailing said:
On my own car, I've burned through the paint in a couple of areas. Once on the leading edge of the driver's side fender, and on a spot where the clear coat flaked off (not surprising!). I use my car as my test subject (99 Nissan Sentra), I often get comments as to how I keep it looking so nice which really goes to show what the average person sees and what a detailer sees. My car has door dings galore, the plastic bumpers are significantly sun faded so as to be a different shade of red, and the clear coat has failed in spots all over the car.

On a clients car, I burned the clear bra (thank goodness it wasn't the paint!) on an '09 Porsche 911 Turbo. I had been attempting to remove/lessen some etching done by bug residue with my PC using Meg's UC on a 4" LC Orange pad to no avail, my friend whom I was detailing with suggested I use his 'new to him' Hitachi rotary. It had been a few months since I'd used a rotary, and my experience was fairly limited at that. I don't remember the speed I was using but I know I was using very slow passes. When I tried to remove what I thought to be haze from the polish I realized I had burned the plastic clear bra! The resulting haze was slightly larger than a quarter, right in the middle of the hood. I was very upset and spent several minutes pacing and cursing (thankfully the client wasn't around!). Eventually I had to leave so as not to be late for my part time job, and the client still hadn't returned, it was one of the most nerve wracking phone calls I've had to make to date. I kept myself composed over the phone and explained what had happened, to my shock the client didn't seem at all upset and said that he would take a look when he got back. The next day I returned to finish the car and face my mistake, the client laughed. Honestly, he thought it was funny the way I had described my mistake over the phone as if it was the end of world, as well as my antics that had been recorded on the garage's cameras.

Bottom line is I got lucky, it turns out all the clear bra on the car was going to be replaced soon anyways!
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lol wow...Not being mean but i bet that was pretty funny...you cursing and such i mean...probably because i can picture myself doing the same thing!

I'm kind of glad you brough up the clear bra subject...personally i dont like the things..but i was wondering what you would do if you come across one. I did a wash and wax for someone witha clear bra...it had bubbles galore under it and all sorts of rock chip hits on it too...plus there was a big difference..well not BIG but noticable difference between the red on the rest of the car and the red beneath the clear bra....sooooo i guess I'm wondering...what do you do when you run across one (other than not burn it lol)

By the way, glad your customer was cool...i wonder if he posted the garage camera footage on youtube...:props: lol
 
I no longer even attempt to do any sort of correction to clear bras, I only clean them. I don't like them either, but they do serve a purpose. A clear bra can take some serious abuse compared to paint, and although it might not look as nice on a day to day basis, you can rest assured that the paint underneath is still looking great if/when you sell the car.
 
CH.Detailing said:
I no longer even attempt to do any sort of correction to clear bras, I only clean them. I don't like them either, but they do serve a purpose. A clear bra can take some serious abuse compared to paint, and although it might not look as nice on a day to day basis, you can rest assured that the paint underneath is still looking great if/when you sell the car.
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Yes thats true...it care surely take a beating...I just personally dont want one but understand why some people do.

I see your new here (3 posts) and your 3 posts so far have been on threads I started so let me be the first to say WELCOME!

Where are you from, I'm assuming from your name on here you have a business?

I'm Wills...24, from Az...hope to be seeing many more posts from ya :xyxthumbs:
 
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