Oh Boy

My best friend turned me on to this one man operation 10 minutes from where I live. So I go there this morning and he has a couple of cars out front all finished. Impeccable results, I really couldn't believe it. So I am looking at this huge Doge Ram glistening in the sun, all shinny, smooth as glass. I say wow that looks really nice and he says oh that is my regular detail, wash, clay bar and hand wax and refresh the whole interior $50! He then says for my car, wash, clay bar, rotary polish and hand wax $90 with interior. I said to him are you sure you know how to use a rotary, and he gave me that like are you fuckn kidding me look. He said I have been detailing cars for 20 years, do not worry your car will come perfect. I said you sold me, Friday at 9:00am. Will post some before and after pics when done.

BWF07

Well not sure how he makes any money at that price. If he really knows how to use the buffer you may luck out, but if not you may end up at the very least holograms swirls that really show when the sun hits the paint at the right angles. Or you may not have paint on the sharp edges of the car. A wash, clay and no polish sounds a little strange. Even cars right off the dealers lot need to be polished before waxing. I would love to see pictures when he is done, and not the 10 footy away pictures. what he is doing sounds more like a looks great from 10 feet.
Good luck

HBsurfer

Some people are just not good businessmen. Does not mean he can't detail a car. He probably does not account for overhead and adds minimal profit, if he is doing any estimating at all.
As long as you saw some of his completed work, you should be fine.

Oh Boy

So if anything, everybody that walks into Auto Zone, Advance etc.. and buys a jar of paste wax is supposed to polish their car before applying paste wax? That I never heard of. However everything you mentioned I also touched base with him about (holograms, swirl marks, burning). I have swirl marks now, hence why I am having it done. I am also a realist and even if the amount of correction comes out to 60-70% and I get a good clay and wax sealer out of the deal I still feel it is a great deal. But judging by the cars I seen and up close this guy knows what he doing, I hope. I will get close ups.

jimijam

enventr

Best of luck but it sounds awful cheap. Very curious when you pick it up - will he remove swirls?

Jstan2014

Oh Boy

FRI morning in at 9 and he said it will be ready by 12. He said the swirls will be taken out. This is one of those too good to be true's, but I seen his work, it looks really good. This baffles me also, but this guy has been here a long time from what I'm told. So people must keep coming back.

enventr

It cost me 3 years ago for a paint correction and full detail $700. It took 2.5 days.

1Willy1

that's the thing, not coming down on you just the shop itself cause I see this all the time, did it REALLY take them 2.5 days or did they just have the car in the shop for that long ? $700 is reasonable though.

The trades are rife with high prices and overcharging, I know all too well because im also in there. My competition, the regular mainstream industry guys all say it takes 2-3 days, or 2-3 weeks to do a certain job, and I can literally do it at the customers home in a few hours.

This guy doing the polishing wash and wax for $90 sounds crazy I agree, but I could polish a whole car in 2 hours or so if I was trying to be fast, and that's with a dual action not a rotary, (rotarys are much faster) so maybe hes just looking at it from that point of view. Making $30-$40 per hour , he can corner the market in his area , make sure hes bringing home the bacon each day and building his clientele up day by day.

Hes either crazy desperate, or crazy like a fox, we shall find out soon.

enventr

It really took 2.5 days as it was a special deal . Mike Phillips friend Robert( auto geek) located next to auto geek did my car. They both help each other. They also did many friends cars. A few old 1970’s cars were Done for free by auto geek ( mike Phillips) they do the best job ever.

JerriVette

Im in the NY metro area in northern NJ.

post up his contact info as I might try him.

i use an orbital polisher and it takes about an hour to di my car....

im not a professional yet the corvette looks awesome.

i dont detail the interior too often ...

but $90 worth of time sounds about right..l

post up how much you are glad you tried this guys service out..

Grzldvt1

For $90 bux there is no way in hell this car is having a good paint correction. As a pro detailer that had a reputation as Silicon Valley's best(I sold the shop to a competitor) what I suspect is he has a wax that fills in the swirls and looks good for a couple weeks, maybe a few months if it is a garage queen. I have seen this so many times it is beyond comprehension. I had one shop in my area pulling that crap and when the customer complained they told him he screwed up the detail with the last wash... Total scam. Can't say this is happening here, and it may be wonderful, but I seriously doubt it.
To do true paint correction at a minimum is 6 hours if light, 8+ if heavy. That puts the guy at $11/hour...
Crap my mini detail,was to buff a C6 in 30 minutes with Zaino's All-In-One and have it look really good for the normal consumer, who is clueless, but that did not get rid of all the swirls, just the very, very light surface marks and cleaned up what the Clay bar didn't get and it shined like nobody's business by adding a 5 minute Clear Seal coat.
Customer drove away ecstatic and gave me 5 stars on Yelp. In reality when I put my detailing lights on it it was a mess. But what the customer was willing to pay, was a big part of what was done, and darlinks we always went above and beyond.

Scuba Ghost

You saw his work on the vehicles in his yard and you were impressed. What's the problem?

wayback

For that money it should be a decent job for a daily driver. Do not expect a show quality finish.

If you were happy with what you saw then go for it.

My son's neighbor does detailing at his house. He gives my son a discount....charges him $50 for a wash n wax with interior cleaning no polishing. He makes his car look so much better than when he started. My son has no clue how to detail a car and does not want to know how. Worth every penny to him.

fake

My son details with a complete inside and outside !A corvette $250.00 at least and thats eight hours labor and you have to make an appointment. Some cars as high as $500.00 . There are wax and there is polish and he says store bought is crap!

cmonkey713

Just figure the time it takes to do a proper detail. Usually about eight hours for paint correction, seal and wax to say nothing of what the products cost. If you washed and used a single step polish/cleaner wax the vehicle would look better than when it came in but no way but no where close to a proper detail. In the detailing world you get what you pay for in almost all cases. I did a new black BMW 535i with 17 miles on the clock and it took 14 hours due to the micro scratching from sitting on the lot and washing by the dealer.

endus

I had a $200 detail done once. The results were less than stellar.

I had a $600 detail done by a place that works on exotics, and that was up to my standards. Maybe you could find some place somewhere in the middle, but I doubt $90 will do it.

That said, I'm in the boston area. It depends on the market.

Bruze

Just to expand on the red part:

I don't do this kind of work, but I do build industrial tooling.

Except in an emergency or as a favor, shops don't drop what they're doing, tear down a set-up, and do a small job for someone just because they ask. A customer may have to wait several days to get a 4-hour job returned to them so we can schedule it in without disrupting what we are in the middle of at the time.

The busier we are, the longer the turn-around time may be.

BWF07

I never said anything about what you have to do wand what you don't have to do. I was simply stating that the price for a wash, clay polish and had wax seems extremely low, but if he does a good job and you are happy that is really all that matters.

Now with that said, I just did what I consider a complete detail on my C6 getting it ready for a large Corvette show. It involved first a strip wax wash, then a complete clay of the car. I followed that up with first a machine correction polish followed by a machine finishing polish. Next step was a coat of glaze (not really required but I think it helps) and finished with a coat of had applied wax. Now this was only the painted surface. I still had the interior to do which meant removing the floor mats and cargo mat. vacuuming the interior completely and also the three mats. Washing down the seats and dash with warm water cleaning the inside of windshield and the inside of the rear hatch glass. What I just did was almost three days work. I did not mention the engine bay or the wheels and tires and wheel well as you did not say he was doing that. If he does everything I just list as to what he is doing on yours and only charges $90 and you are happy with it then I would put his name and phone number in your address book.

Here is how it came out.