The best thing I learned from Mike

Yes we did, as well as we did to the dealer, GM and the body shop.
 
heckhole said:
Why wouldn't you glaze it and at least make it look 10x better and not worry about removing any clear?

That's absolutely horrific work the dealer did, but don't blame GM. They didn't do that. The dealer did.
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Gm rules the franchise,if gm dealer hires a detail guy who represents the dealer it will ultimately fall back on gm the corp,cause they control the dealers every move .He is gonna have to fight tooth and nail to win this victory,and if I was the owner I would retain a lawyer to sit on the sideline just in case there's a promblem.This more than likely will be a court involved situation ,we're talking big money here,and the victim in this case will have to prove the detailer took a lot of paint thickness off.maybe I could be wrong.and they will just eat it hope so.
 
NextLevelDtail said:
Its a shame cause its so easy to fix yet, its dumb cause there's so little paint
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Tell me about it,those swirls look shallow.Idont know how they took off so much paint I think there wasn't much to begin with.
 
Fixing it is not the problem this is what you tell your client.

Let him try to get a new truck after they took half of the paint off this truck, this paint is supposed to last the majority of this trucks life. And they just accelerated that life depletion drastically on a black car of all colors.


If he does not get a new truck. Tell him you can fix the swirls it is quite easy to fix the swirls.

Just write out a waiver of the situation that the paint is low and you and the client both understand and agree that there is risk involved and you tried to help him get a new truck and this is last resort nlah blah blah you get it make him sign it.

Try a really light polish like ultimate polish on a finishing pad see if it gets them out.

However that's not the issue the issue is those dealers took more then 50% of the life span of that paint job.
 
I don't see the dealer eating the cost of a replacement truck when it could be sprayed in their booth @ cost for less than 1500.

But on the customers side there are a ton of downsides to this. Orange peel, they won't mask properly and it will have heavy edges, overspray, most likely runs and the clear will not be as durable.

This is a horrible no-win situation. If they only have the option of re-clearing, I would hope they come back to you for help.

I've managed to remove what appeared to be horrid rotary wool pad swirls with a light polish and then applied a coating. IMO, If it were me in this situation that is the route I'd go and just be extremely diligent about re-coating.

If I were the customer, I'd fight tooth and nail to have another body shop do the work and make sure to lay out the quality of work you expect.
 
I can assure you that I can fix the swirl so, the problem is how much clear has been removed. The unmolested roof had 5.5 mils as did the untouched center of the hood. They buffed it twice and removed an exceptional amount of clear. A waiver will do you no good in court when you know better! The states attorney is involved at this point also.
 
Mike lambert said:
At the risk of a picture rant, I will show these. This client was referred to me after the dealership tried to fix a couple of factory defects. They decided to "buff" the entire truck!

After doing quite a few measurements they had taken off almost a full 1.0 to 1.5 mills in several areas. I advised the client I wouldn't touch this truck! We sent him back to the dealer who for some reason sent it to their body shop and you guessed it, they did it again!

He then brought it back to me to check as it "looked worse" .

Now we have generally have a decrease anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 mills! Some areas measure 2.5 total!


So the lesson is know when to say no and walk away! You need to know you cannot fix everything!

As of today the situation is in the hands of GM.
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Thanks for sharing this experience.

I do teach in my classes the learned skill of knowing when to take on a job and when to turn a job down. The class you attended where I taught this was back in 2006, almost 10 years ago and I still teach the same thing.

While you could have polished the paint and removed the swirls successfully you also could have been the guy that burned through a thin spot caused by the other guys but you would have been blamed.

I've seen this type of damage inflicted into the paint on cars and trucks at dealerships all my life and there's really no reason for it.

To me this is in the same league as Property Damage. I should write an article about this because it happens often enough that I need something to simply reference instead of typing this out freehand each time the topic comes up but here's the jist of this crime.

Paint is thin. The clear layer is thinner than a 3M Post-it Note.

When someone at a dealership, a body shop or a detail shop buffs out the paint incorrectly and leaves hologram scratches in the paint they have needlessly removed good paint and left scratches or "voids" behind in the paint.

Now to fix the problem someone else has to remove MORE paint because the way you remove scratches in paint is to level the paint via an abrading process until the surface of the paint is level or equal to the lowest depths of the scratches you're removing.

What started out as factory thin paint is now even thinner and will forever be more prone to damage and failure over the service life of the car.

And it was all for nothing because the person doing the work was either supplied inferior pads, products and tools or the person doing the work didn't know any better and chose inferior pads, products and tools.

This is where some form of training and yes, certification could change the industry and put a stop to this type of property damage.

Thanks for sharing Mike...


:)
 
Mike lambert;1316301 The states attorney is involved at this point also. [/QUOTE said:
Through the forum I've helped people that have had their brand new cars hacked up by dealerships return their car for either their money back or a different car that the dealerships has not destroyed.

About time dealerships got on board and start training their staff or farm the work out to trained detailers.


:)
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