Great video and very timely as I just recently had a scare and learned a lesson that no detail wants to learn. Especially hard for me to have endured as I am most particular about inspecting vehicles as the come to me. This time however, I cut a corner and nearly paid the price.
Long story long, I had a vehicle come to me that was less than 30 days old and beautiful. The owner is a doctor and mildly a car-guy but wanted a full course of treatment for his new $140k car. Obviously he is a busy guy and thus dropped the car off at night. It was cold, his family was in the other vehicle waiting for him and he wasn't in a rush but was watching the clock as I began to cover the details of our agreement on work to be done.
That said, he pulled the vehicle into my garage and parked it, handed me the keys. As I finished covering the details of our agreement and just began the inspection his wife texted him that they had to leave. I made the mistake of stating that I would inspect the vehicle and contact him if necessary. Mind you, the car is less than 30 days old and wasn't driven much at all. Big mistake and it included my not gathering his signature on my work order and corresponding inspection form. I know, I know, I know, I know........dumber than a rock move. I own that.
I put-off the inspection until the next day and figured I would just go over it after I washed it as I really didn't expect to find anything. BIG mistake. I moved the vehicle out of my garage and re-positioned it on an angle inside near the center. It fit perfectly with room to spare. As I worked my way around washing the vehicle panel by panel I looked it over carefully for the first -pass. As I rounded the back on the rear corner of the hatch area I noticed a significant dent with corresponding scratches. OMG I gasped!! I KNEW it was nothing I did as I simply moved the vehicle and no one was out in the garge the night before or morning of. However, I did move it, I did wash it thus removing any trace evidence / dirt, etc.
What to do. Well, I am 100% that I would always stand up and note it on my inspection form, took photos and a video and then reached out to the client via a phone call directly. As you can imagine, the call could have gone well or it could have gone badly. His initial response was that he didn't recall damage on the car when he brought it to me. #$@#@$# as you can imagine my pulse raced. Thankfully, I have a close partner that works in the PDR business and he had seen my pics and noted that the fix would be easy in terms of moving the metal. That said the scratches were left to me "IF" they could even be addressed.
The customer wasn't angry, he didn't push the denial either and said he would appreciate if I simply continued the detail for the targeted pick up time. I put our conversation in writing via text and asked that he agree in his reply to our previously agreed upon price and process plan and he did. It put me a little at ease as he didn't argue and if he suspected I did it and was untrustworthy he likely wouldn't have agreed to have me continue. Was I being set-up? I didn't sense that. However, my senses were clearly not with me on this job as I dropped my own ball big-time.
Later that day I called him to tell him the vehicle was ready and to share that I had contacted a shop for him to consider using for the repair. I partially expected a response and perhaps push but to my surprise he fessed up that it was existing damage that his wife explained was there and how it happened.
It was and will continue to be a lesson learned on my part however.
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