Old School Technique. Saves time!

I just don't understand how you could use a rotary, wool pad, M105 and then follow up by just "lightly polishing" or "spot polishing" the lower panels that have been hit with such an aggresive step.

You must be leaving behind some serious haze or other marks if you arent getting it with your second step, particularly on the lower panels.

I understand that most people wont notice but most people wont notice a lot of things that detailers spend time doing. I just wouldnt feel good about that.
 
Preaching production over perfection in this forum is a tough sell. Most people here, myself included, take pride in doing quality work whether it's a quick AIO or a full 3 step correction.
 
Go to the junk yard and pick up a scratched up, oxidized hood and hit it with a wool pad, m105 and proper technique. The difference is night and day.

What if you had only hit it with wax? You'd be wasting the wax.

If a dealer brings you a $4000, scratched, swirled and oxidized Ford Focus and is paying $150, you need to make that car look good. He wants you to work a "miracle." He needs to sell that car and he is relying on you to make it look good.

You are also thinking in your head that you can't work on it more than 5 hours for that price, and make money...something that a lot of guys don't understand (no offense). If you spend 4 or 5 hours on it you can still fit another car in, that evening...maybe a high paying job.

I have absolutely blown dealers away with the previous technique and it's why I have steady work coming in from them. They also keep me going during the winter. You won't blow a dealer away by only waxing his car, and you will loose the business.


About the lower panels. I do what I have to do to make them look good. If the car came in looking like a terd, and you spot compound small scartches, scuffs, etc off the lower panels and then lightly polish, the customer will always be happy.

You have to take everything into consideration, the quality and price of the car, the customer, and how much they are paying you. Any good business person does this.

I would like to mention that if a customer comes in with a ford focus and it is their pride and joy, has been well taken care of, and the customer is paying full price. I will treat it just the same as if I was doing a show car, but if he pays me $100...he's gonna get a $100 job.
 
A lot of things change when you are relying on detailing to fund everything in your life, including the detail shop, related costs of doing business and Uncle Sam. Balance between what is proper and what is necessary has to be found and it sometimes sways from one side to the other. As soon as I saw your initial post in this thread, I could relate to it but....I knew it was going to be a turbulent thread. In the end, your customers have to agree with your work. Not a bunch of detailers on a forum. Do what you got to do to get paid and keep getting paid. You should see the look on some of the people's face when I say low side $300-high side $800.:eek:

Try doing commercial vehicles and see how many high end detailers would grimace at some of the techniques and products used to get them done in time to make a profit. Most used car dealers want hack work done and that's all they're willing to pay for. The good thing for the few used car dealers that I do work for is that I learned show car detailing first (and still do a good deal of it) so the hack jobs that the used car dealers pay me to do, look way better than the other detailers' in my local area.

I have a reputation to uphold so I always put a little extra in even the hack jobs that these guys want done, and I suppose speaking so frankly on a public forum doesn't do much for that reputation but so be it. As far as show car detailing goes, given the time and the right dollar figure, I'm sure I could hold my own beside most of the best detailers on these forums. I offer details and paint corrections from $100 up to in excess of $1000 and in my area there are very few $1000 bills coming my way. They get what they pay for and I have no problem telling them how much I want to do it.

I'm done babbling now.
 
IMO, it all comes down to what the CUSTOMER wants. Many customers can't tell the difference between a $100 correction job (done with the methods listed in the first post) and a $400 correction job. Because they can't tell the difference, they don't want a $400 job. They want a $100 job. I've been in that situation before. Car was only worth $2k and needed a paint job. I got price quotes and everybody was over $1,000. I would've been completely happy with a $300 Econo Spray hack job. At the time, I couldn't have been able to tell much of a difference, and if the paint held up for just 2 years, I would've been happy. The point is, a cheap "hack job" would've been a big improvement over what I had, a "hack job" was all I could afford, and a "hack job" was what I wanted.

Now if a customer has a piece of junk car but wants a high end paint correction job (and is willing to pay for it) then they should be given high quality work, regardless of whether or not they can spot a hack job.. But if the customer just wants a car cleaned up as cheaply as possible, there's nothing wrong with giving the customer what they want.
 
davidc11291 said:
IMO, it all comes down to what the CUSTOMER wants. Many customers can't tell the difference between a $100 correction job (done with the methods listed in the first post) and a $400 correction job. Because they can't tell the difference, they don't want a $400 job. They want a $100 job. I've been in that situation before. Car was only worth $2k and needed a paint job. I got price quotes and everybody was over $1,000. I would've been completely happy with a $300 Econo Spray hack job. At the time, I couldn't have been able to tell much of a difference, and if the paint held up for just 2 years, I would've been happy. The point is, a cheap "hack job" would've been a big improvement over what I had, a "hack job" was all I could afford, and a "hack job" was what I wanted.

Now if a customer has a piece of junk car but wants a high end paint correction job (and is willing to pay for it) then they should be given high quality work, regardless of whether or not they can spot a hack job.. But if the customer just wants a car cleaned up as cheaply as possible, there's nothing wrong with giving the customer what they want.
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Thank you. You said what I was trying to say, but much more eloquently. Just so everybody knows, I would never spot compound or use any other "hack" methods if the customer truly wanted quality work. If they couldn't afford what they were asking for, I would have to turn them away. I never want to risk having an unhappy customer.
 
I have recently timed myself while waxing a 2011 Ford Expedition with Collinite 845, applying with my PC7424XP w/Meg's 8" Finishing Pad. With application to entire vehicle, then wipeoff with a microfiber, it took me 18 minutes 35 seconds. This is after clay and cleaner wax. The results were beautiful, and I don't see getting much faster than this safely possible. Just my .02
 
These threads and the other thread in Introduce Yourself forum from some poor guy in Florida who went to 3 different "detailers" who all left hologram central on his car are why I decided to learn how to do this myself.

But I agree with the OP. If his customer is happy then who cares if its a sloppy 50% done hack job? If someone who cares about doing it 100% right later buys that car then they can pay to get it done right. That being said I wouldn't go to the OPs shop for a correction...not even for your "premium" service. No offense.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using AG Online
 
Just going to throw this out there..
When I got my car from the dealer, the used a place called miracle detail. They washed the car and polished the driver's side door and hood, then polished around the handle and on the edges of all the other doors. On the hatch, the only polished the bottom 6 inches where you would grab it to close it. The rest of the car wasn't even clayed and I would bet that they polished without claying too.

Now that I know they do half ass work, I will never ever take my car near them, nor would I suggest anyone do the same. I think you should make it clear to your lesser paying customers what you do and what they will get if they pay more. Because I would be upset if I paid for what I thought was a full detail and got a half detail - I'd be upset, would never go back, and would even recommend others to stay away.
 
weekendwarrior said:
That being said I wouldn't go to the OPs shop for a correction...not even for your "premium" service.
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Why not? Do you not like the fact that he will give you exactly what you ask for, whether that's a cheap, quick, clean up job or a true show car detail?

If I'm the customer, then what I want is what's important, and if someone isn't willing to sell me what I want, then I'll go to someone else who will.

I just don't see how you can fault a business man who sells his customers exactly what they want.
 
davidc11291 said:
Why not? Do you not like the fact that he will give you exactly what you ask for, whether that's a cheap, quick, clean up job or a true show car detail?

If I'm the customer, then what I want is what's important, and if someone isn't willing to sell me what I want, then I'll go to someone else who will.

I just don't see how you can fault a business man who sells his customers exactly what they want.
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Re-read my post. I'm not faulting him, I said I agree with him, if his customers are happy then who cares? Me personally I would not go to him, his business is production oriented. Not detail oriented. In my experience you get two types of work done on cars, homes, software, whatever it is. You get hack jobs or you get great work. You generally pay accordingly. Can both be done by the same person/business? Sure. But many times a business/person gets into a routine way of "this is how its done" , either quick and cheap, or the right way, which takes time and costs $$$.

Just my two cents.
 
weekendwarrior said:
.....In my experience you get two types of work done on cars, homes, software, whatever it is. You get hack jobs or you get great work. You generally pay accordingly. Can both be done by the same person/business? Sure. But many times a business/person gets into a routine way of "this is how its done" , either quick and cheap, or the right way....
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That's a good point. I think that most professional detailers would much prefer to do only premium work, where the customer understands what it takes to do a full interior and exterior detail plus multi-step paint correction. But then the realities of earning a living, making the lease on a building, making the payments on a mobile unit, etc... demand that they also do some (or only) production work. There's a lot more people that are willing to pay $150 for an interior and exterior cleanup + $150 for a buff job than there are people who are willing to pay $600 for a full interior and exterior with multi-step correction. I would guess that most pros couldn't survive without their used car lots.

What really makes me mad (in any business) is if I go in paying for premium work, and they promise premium work, but then they're either too lazy or to unskilled to deliver.
 
weekendwarrior said:
These threads and the other thread in Introduce Yourself forum from some poor guy in Florida who went to 3 different "detailers" who all left hologram central on his car are why I decided to learn how to do this myself.

But I agree with the OP. If his customer is happy then who cares if its a sloppy 50% done hack job? If someone who cares about doing it 100% right later buys that car then they can pay to get it done right. That being said I wouldn't go to the OPs shop for a correction...not even for your "premium" service. No offense.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using AG Online
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I can assure you that even on my "hack jobs" I never leave holograms. I've been doing this for years and am very skilled in my trade. I know my tools and I know my products. I know what will and will not work...and I know what will kinda work, in order to make money on the insanely dirty ones...if you think those people are looking for swirls...you are wrong. I detailed a 2007, black shelby gt500 a couple days ago. Removed the wheels to clean the inner barrels, suspension, wheels wells, brakes, etc. That guy was definitely looking for swirls, and I didn't leave a any. He's a regular customer that takes his car to shows. He pays to get the swirls out...dealers don't. I'm done with this thread. It's getting ridiculous. I'm tired of being critiqued by guys who detail 10 cars a year and who think it's impossible to get swirls out without using a $400 flex polisher and 14 clean pads per panel. There are customers who want 20 hr plus, flawless details on their $100,000 exotic cars, but it was pretty obvious that the thread wasn't about that. I was obviously talking about quick production type work, but that definitely doesn't mean it's the only type of work I do. I didn't build a full time business doing sloppy work.
 
statusdetailing said:
I can assure you that even on my "hack jobs" I never leave holograms. I've been doing this for years and am very skilled in my trade. I know my tools and I know my products. I know what will and will not work...and I know what will kinda work, in order to make money on the insanely dirty ones...if you think those people are looking for swirls...you are wrong. I detailed a 2007, black shelby gt500 a couple days ago. Removed the wheels to clean the inner barrels, suspension, wheels wells, brakes, etc. That guy was definitely looking for swirls, and I didn't leave a any. He's a regular customer that takes his car to shows. He pays to get the swirls out...dealers don't. I'm done with this thread. It's getting ridiculous. I'm tired of being critiqued by guys who detail 10 cars a year and who think it's impossible to get swirls out without using a $400 flex polisher and 14 clean pads per panel. There are customers who want 20 hr plus, flawless details on their $100,000 exotic cars, but it was pretty obvious that the thread wasn't about that. I was obviously talking about quick production type work, but that definitely doesn't mean it's the only type of work I do. I didn't build a full time business doing sloppy work.
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You kind of asked for the critiques...js. However, I can see both sides of the coin. I am someone who tends to be a little too slow and very detailed. I usually wind up going the extra mile even for a low price because it makes me satisfied to see amazing turnarounds. Plus, the customers' jaws always drop, and I get repeat customers. I don't detail all that much though, only a few cars here and there during the summer. For someone trying to feed themselves off detailing, as you seem to be, volume can be very important. If you're dealing with customers who frequent the swirl-o-matic and just want their car to be "shiny" then you're ok charging a low price & giving a hack detail. On the other hand, someone in an old ford focus who expects no swirls should get no swirls. If they're paying for a premium service with 100% of swirls and defects removed, they should ALSO be paying for quality work and elbow grease. All this being said, I personally would never use the method you mentioned, even if I were hack detailing. It doesn't seem like a good idea to leave previous residue before waxing. Might as well apply wax with a wet towel on an unwashed, unclayed car. whats compounding dust from airborne dust? Just my $.02...
 
In my opinion, the reason people are upset with your OP is because it sounds like you are deceiving your customers.

If you tell them that you will hit it with something hard, then only spot finish parts as most people don't see them, and do the best to make the car look good for what they want to pay, I'm happy with what you are doing.

If on the other hand you are saying they get a 3 step, then decide how good a job you do based on what they pay, I think you are dishonest.

I personally would explain to people what I could do for what they wanted to pay, and let them make the informed decision.
 
There are two fundamental aspects of what has been discussed thus far. The product and process choice a business operates with and the meaning of the phrase "quality work done at a comfortable price".

StatusDetailing's approach is not what a detailing purist would consider acceptable. Even he acknowledges as much. Personally, I consider his stated process is, "highly normalized and compact". That doesn't make him a hack, or his work a hack-job. I suspect he mitigates the inherent risks with skill and technique.

Is what he describes a "complete" job? Well, therein lays the dilemma in this thread. Is he deceiving his customer-base? I don't think so but it is difficult for anyone to say that he is without inspecting the results of his work. In a world of daily drivers where .... well.... you all have seen how people take care of their vehicles....he certainly is not screwing them outright.

A dealer, a daily driver, a purist, and an obsessive-compulsive. These customer-types exist in any industry. They each define "quality at a comfortable price" very differently and many times inconsistently. I won't go into external factors that make this even more ambiguous, but suffice to say your location (the market), values, money, politics, and education are other factors.

I found it interesting that no one has responded unequivocally that StatusDetailing's approach truly harms the paint or the customer with a foundation of direct experience (using his approach or similar). Theoretically, there are risks and for the most part people are sounding off on "what may be" moreso than "what is". Trailblazers usually have their share of critics simply because they are different. What makes this a little notable is the fact that he had enough courage to share his thoughts to this community.
 
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