Long detailing shop rant!

There is a local "classic car gallery" that put a Help Wanted ad on craigslist that my buddy forwarded to me. They talked about "only High-End detailers need apply" and "High-end this and that".

I went up there with a friend to walk around, see what they had, then fill out an application.

The place was kinda neat. they had a bunch of old classic cars such as Bently, RR, Ferrari, Cadillac (bigger than my F-150 LOL), Austin Healey, etc....

While my friend was looking at the cars thinking how cool they were, I was going up to them looking at the paint quality. It was quite poor. Pretty much every car had swirls, buffing marks... some of the cars even had strike-though that they sprayed clearcoat over (no swirls on the fresh clear coat though lol)

Now, not to sound like a pompous ass-hat or anything, but I consider myself to be a High-er-end detailer. I follow prep work like it should be and stick with all the rules. I'm by far nothing special compared to some of the work I see on here, but I think I still do a good job at the end of the day and confident that I have satisfied my customers.

I filled out the application then had a mini-interview with the head of the dept. He looked over the application and told me that they are interested in "entry level detailers". And that they do a lot of "Undercarriage restoration"... I inquired about what that includes and he said, "we pretty much have the detailers take the suspension and subframe pieces off, have paint them, then put them back on. then they will do some detailing."

Well, I dont want to paint, I want to detail... (I did not say that)...

I gave this guy too much credit because walking around, some of these cars are going for $250k plus and still have shotty polishing work.

I wanted to know how much this guy knows and cares about detailing. So I asked him some pretty basic questions:

Q:What kind of products do you use.
A: Meguairs. Some of the detailers come from using 3M, cuz thats the industry standard, then they they try Meguiars and never want to use anything else.

I told him, "sure some of Meguiars products are pretty nice, I myself am a fan of the M205, but I always follow up with some Menzerna/Adam's/P21s/1Z/ etc..."

(He put on a puzzled face)

Q: What kind of polishers do you guys use?
A: Ummmm.... Dewalt

I said, "oh well, I just ordered a Flex rotary polisher. I dont have too much experience with a rotary yet and have been using my Porter Cable 7424XP for over a year now. I get good results with it despite it being a DA, but the new polisher will be in before the end of the week and I will be practicing on my practice panel at home. So, I will be confident with one before next week"

(he put on a puzzled face)

Q: Ive walked around and taken a look at a lot of the cars you have here. Obviously, the car's clear coat isn't as modern as todays cars, Do you have/use a Paint Thickness Gauge?
A; ummmm well, ummmm, we do have one. But rarely use it unless we really suspect something is wrong with the car's paint

.... What I wanted to follow up with was, "well, you should use it more often..." or "well, Ive taken a walk around and some of the cars here are missing paint... you mad bro?"

but instead I just smiled and the interview ended shortly after. I walked over to my friend and said, "I doubt Ill get a call back. the guy probably thinks Im too "fancy" or over qualified. He's probably looking for some 16-year old kid to compound paint into oblivion for $8/hr"

BUT, I did get a call back and they said they wanted me to come in and show my polishing skills on a panel of a "test car". I asked if I could bring my own polisher because, (once again pointing out) I do not have much skill with a hi-speed rotary and would like to give it my best shot with my DA. He said it was fine.

I came in with my neatly organized bag complete with:
1. PC 7424XP
2. Nearly full line of Menzerna Polishes
3. M205
4. Adam's Polishes
5. few mf towels and soft thick ones
6. small LED flashlight
7. an array of polishing pads
8. clay
9. clay lube
10. blue tape

I figured I would stock up on stuff because I didnt know what I would be up against. I got there, and they pulled a 1956 Cadillac In the shop and wanted my to start working on it.

The shop manager said they washed it the day before. It rained during the night and was still wet, so he quickly pulled the water off with a jelly blade.

Then he made fun of my nice little Autogeek detailing bag saying it was too clean and looks like its never seen a shop before.

Then after some small talk he asked if I wanted to use one of their rotary polishers. I politely refused and told him that I brought my own. I pulled it out of the bag and he started laughing at me calling it a "no-good polisher that is only good for applying wax. You'll be here all day with that thing"... this angered me a bit and said, "Well, I dont have much experience at all with a rotary and wool pads, so I would just like to give it my best shot with what I brought. Ive been using this for a while and have gotten pretty good with it."

He and a few other detailers working just started laughing...

I asked him what kind of paint the car had. he thought about it for a worryingly long amount of time and said, "umm It MIGHT be single stage, or laquer, Its all the same..."

Cool he doesn't know, and I havent really dealt with either.... though Im confident it was laquer due to the high gloss as opposed to my friends 73 Cougar which does have single stage...

I started off by clay barring the area (it was in desperate need of it), masked off a test box with some tape and started going at. Tried a few combinations, inspecting the paint between polishes, found a good combo, and pulled the tape off. You could see a pretty good improvement in color and clarity.

One of the detailers looked over my shoulder. I asked him what he thought, and he said in a real ass-hat kind of tone. "HA there is no difference! It looks the same as every other panel...

At this point, Im really nervous and admittedly my confidence was shot quite low...

Another applicant for the position, joined in and started doing another panel on the car. He looked at it, put a glob on M205 on it and started going at it (not the most consistent with the trigger and the panel was still a bit wet and dirty)

i finished my panel and the head of the shop came over and said, "yeah, were really looking for someone with more polishing experience."

I said, "That's fine, I understand. I have a Flex rotary polisher coming in the mail this week, and by the weekend, I should be fairly confident with one. I brought what I had and did the best job I could. Its better that I apply what I know instead of possibly harming a car with what I don't. So there is nothing more I can do for you. Have a nice day"

I packed my stuff up and went home. I now have a 1/4 tank of gas less, and gotta clean some pads.

Just wanted to give my experience from today.

END RANT!

 

Dude, you should have taken pictures. If we notice a difference then should they. People have really have to start to adapting to new technologies, because as we see here. The detailing world changes everyday.

 

sounds like a bunch of assholes man, prolly not the type of people you would want to work for any ways. you gave them your best shot and they kept being like that towards you, thats not very proffesional. i wouldent worry to much about it, take it as a life lession and move on. you handled it much better than any one else would have.

 

Lol, yeah if they caller me back and said that the other kid burnt the paint and rather hire me, I probably wouldn't take them up on it (depending on pay lol)

One thing that irritated me the most is that they were smoking in the shop. I'm a smoker and will walk down the drive way then wash my hands because I know better...

 

I give you a lot of credit to go out of your element and put yourself on the spot to perform with other "detailers" looking over your shoulder and for the one detailer to make that jackass comment is more of a reflection of him than you. You will laugh at this experience later. Good job.

 

I'll echo what the others have said, it doesn't sound like a place that you would want to work at. You came off professional and gave it your best, you should be very proud of yourself!

 

These people all sound like bodyshop rejects to me. They hung around poor quality body shops, screwed things up until they got fired, (and the bar is set really low here) and that's all they can bring to the table.
Yes, yes, they will use Rotary Power, because every bodyshop in the world uses it, and they use it because it is faster and will give you incredibly corrected paint when used correctly. Obviously they don't have a clue how to use one very well either.

I recently was in Vegas for July 4th, and went to the Harrah's collection of cars, to see what was there, and to see how good they were done compared to my standards.
Their "detailer/s" suck big time there too. About every car there was swirled, scratched, hologrammed, all of them looked like crap. I would never allow that kind of work to leave my shop - ever -...

It seems like the bigger the place and the larger the amount of very nice, expensive vehicles for display, the cheaper they go on the most important thing - how they look on the outside.. Its really too bad. I also thought about maybe finding out who is in charge of this mess here and possibly see if I can hire on to fix this, but later, after seeing a few of the people there, decided it would be a big pain in the butt.

I figure - if the people in charge of all these beautiful rolling pieces of history and art cant see the defects now, how are they ever going to be able to see the difference ? Its just not a priority. They just want them dusted off daily/weekly/etc., and call it good..

Would you be happy taking the bottoms of the cars apart on a Rotisserie, and cleaning them and painting them with powdercoating? Probably not. All these places work on some type of seniority system, so you would have all the crap jobs for a long time, and all those A$$Clowns would be trying to sabotage your work until you took them all outside behind the woodshed, one at a time.
Sounds like at the highest level of this place, they cant see the paint defects themselves, and/or don't really care if they have defects..
Another bunch of bottom feeders, too bad, eh?

If you are still really interested in making this happen, I would try to find out who is the top level person for that collection and try to get an appointment with this person.
After a few minutes talking to him/her, you would know if you would ever stand a chance of bringing a huge change to the look of all the vehicles there.
Yes, there will be a lot of single stage, nitrocellulose and acrylic lacquer, enamels, and so forth, and there is a little learning curve, but it's not all that difficult if you just apply all the disciplines you have learned from here and your own hands on experience. The question is - do you want to go through a bunch of hoops to get there?

Tell them you do Custom Detailing and not so much Production Detailing and see if that turns on a lightbulb, albeit a dim one...

Good luck,
Dan F

 

This head guy sounds just like someone I did a wholesale job for. One RV in August only really.

Always claiming "his products are "better", you could learn a lot from us, etc.

These guys are insecure with themselves and thats all there is to it.

Uneducated, cheap, & plagued with laziness.

 

Sounds like a high level of Douchery at that place, better to go out on your own and pound pavement and be your own boss........

 

This would be a situation I personally would challenge(professionally and politely) to put out some serious results on a black vehicle against whatever they can put out. Banging out 105/205/85RD on a DA on just a fender or hood half could be done in minutes and then you could easy just let them know how it really goes..

Sorry to hear about the situation, I think we all know what its like to run into people like this, or even just to waste fuel in travel for a potential "hit". Definitely expend your energy and supplies somewhere else worthwhile.

 

I wouldn't work there because of the people who works there. do you really want to part of that team?!

I work in the dealership as a tech, where cars get hacked everyday! yet the dealership detailer think im inexperienced because I take the whole day vs him 2-3 hrs. tho every co-work in the dealership comes to me for details and refer people to me. LOL and im 3x more expensive than the dealership charges.

 

I'm the biggest fan of DA polishers, so don't get me wrong. But I wouldn't consider myself a high-end detailer without being experienced with a rotary. They obviously don't understand what DA's are for and what they are good at. So keep doing what you're doing! And just a tip for when your mighty Flex comes in, get lots of practice on lots of cars, not just a test panel, before you say you're confident with it. It's very easy to take the paint right off a side mirror, plastic bumpers, door handles, etc without trying. The speed of my buffer is always changing as I move around various parts of the car.

Anyways.... best of luck with the situation!

 

Doesn't sound like someone you should associate with anyways. Great effort though! You deserve much better

 

This is why most people on db work for themselves.

Sadly, this is the way most detailers operate. Banging out volumes of cars and charging people who don't know any better.

If a detailer advertises "high-speed buff, glaze, and wax" you know they are old school fools.

 

hang in there man. you went out and tried your best to put yourself out there in front of the whole shop basically and they shot you down in an unprofessional manner. there's nothing wrong with proving them about how knowledgeable you are and your experience with a DA. they are just a bunch of "know it all's" that don't want a fresh meat to come in and take over.

 

Thanks guys.

The whole situation was just a shit-storm of irritation and fail (on their part)

After I clayed an 18" x 18" box on this car, my clay was almost black. I then tried different pad/polish combinations inspecting the paint in between different applications...etc...

While the other kid told them he never wet sanded and had SOME experience polishing, just picked up a polisher with a wool pad and M205 and started polishing.

The guy came up to me when I was done, barely looked at my section and told me essentially I didn't qualify. And that they are looking for someone who can polish a car in 40 minutes... Not little boxes at a time...

I tried telling him that was a test section but he just ignored it....

Either way, If that's how they want to go about working on cars, then I don't want my name on it.

 

Yeah. Given his stubbornness he will never understand what correct paint correction is.
Tell him to hold your info in case thief customers demand more.

 

Hey man, I know first hand how these a** hats operate. Ive worked for multiple recon companies. I dont even want to call them detailers, because they don't pay attention to a single detail. The only reason I worked for these companies is to make a living... barely. But Ive been fired or flat out quit because i take too long to do it the right way and/or i dont like damaging peoples cars.

But in the end if it wasn't for these recon companies and shotty bodyshops.. we wouldn't have business.

Ive put in my time and now I run my own detailing studio. So just keep doing what your doing and if your passionate about(which i know you are) you will be successful.

 

Keep your chip up.........................wish this place was "Close by" as I would have had a goodtime with the "Real experienced" crew in this shop...........................huge fish in a cup of water syndrome....unbelievable.

 

create a good portfolio and talk to the top cheese, versus the endtrails of the organization