lain09

8 weeks?

doublejeopardy

California

I think this speaks for itself and echoes the opinions I received on a separate forum. For a shop that calls itself and upcharges for "Perfection," I am not impressed. I think Moe's asleep at the wheel.
I'm not sure why this shop has such great reviews on this forum. Had I expected this outcome, I would not have gone there.

Thank you, I did not realize orange peel would remain after polishing.
This makes me second guess giving Moe a second chance.

If not resolved to my satisfaction, that's my next step.

Moe reached out after seeing this thread. I will update on the outcome.

Greg Fishman

To me this job looks like they used it as a training exercise for their newbie installer. Not good at all. One of these issues is no big deal and a good shop would take care of right away. But adding all of these up, and especially after keeping the car for 8 weeks, would not give me much confidence that they will fix it right.

islandsnow

For what you paid and I know this place is not cheap, that's a horrible job then no customer service afterwards? WOW!

manifold danger

Yeah this is kind of a surprise as I've seen many happy testimonials of this shop on this forum. They're on the other side of the country and I think I've found my guy anyway but I'm curious to see how this plays out...

All that being said and personal curiosity aside, shouldn't we see what the shop/owner has to say on how this will be resolved? I think it makes a lot more sense to allow the shop to correct the issues before cutting and running, right? Especially since this appears to possibly be an anomaly?

rasetsu

That's what I would do and have done in the past. It's possible the installer had an off day or assigned it to an apprentice. 8 week wait times sounds like they were over their head on bookings so may have rushed through as a result. I let the installer who botched the PPF on my Macan hood have a second chance but after the second try was only marginally better, I cut my losses. I let it be for over a year until I couldn't stand it anymore. Fortunately, it's just cosmetic as the paint is still protected. It just looks bad up close which kind of defeats some of the purpose of PPF which is to keep the car looking new.

Clark_Kent

Let's see how this plays. The shop responded to this thread, so that's a good first step. After many bad experiences over many years with vendors held in high esteem, the best way to rate them is by how they respond to poor customer experiences. In my humble opinion, that's the true test. Happy path tells you nothing about character and values.

Bxstr

This was also incredibly surprising to me. I've been following detailing forums and threads for ten years and in that time Moe has always been on the top. I've seen what appears to only be happy clients from him. So I'd hope that this is an anomaly. I actually believe people ship cars to him from all over the country.

Regarding the wait time, surprisingly enough, this is not unheard of. I'm not going to go into details in my own experience with another shop but this is not the first time I've heard of this from myself and others that have went to the same shop I went to.

Zhao

I'll play devil's advocate on this one: People are too quick to jump to conclusions with only one side of the story. Minor issues that can be corrected. Unknown timeline on when he complained and emailed and how many attempts he made and how long of a time period it was to constitute 'ghosting'. OP dropped 10g? and didn't inspect the vehicle before he drove it away from the shop? was it raining or something? OP didn't drive back to the shop but chose to do things by email and crappy pictures and then didn't drive down there or call when they didn't respond? How anti social and weird do you have to be to do that? They can't ghost you if you're in their office talking in person...

But the red flag I can't wrap my head around is why would a shop want a car to sit in their possession for 8 weeks before they can touch it for a simple 2-3 day job? Every day a car sits at a shop is a day something can go wrong with it so why would a shop want that liability. Space is also a premium. I don't know if that red flag applies to the shop or the customer but there is some vital information with that answer imo as to who's mostly at fault here.

I doubt your laws differ except in minor details so I'm betting a shop has a right to correct their error in your area and beyond that it would need to go to court. Disputing those charges will only work for so long on an amount that big and can lead to consequences. I can tell you if you pulled that crap where I am, I'd garage lien your vehicle, hire a bailiff, and auction it off and cut yourself or your financing company a cheque for the amount left after the cost of the job, the bailiffs charges, and the auction house's charges are deducted.

My advice would be to delete your negativity to the installer to give him some incentive to correct the issues, or consider terry's advice of going elsewhere. I think with a lot of things it's best to cut your losses least they do more damage and create more headaches, but this is just PPF and the guy has a good rep, so I think what's the risk in letting him do his thing? No shop is perfect on every job and anyone thinking that is possible is nuts so it's completely logical no matter how good this guy is, he's going to do a sub par job occasionally. Personally I can't understand you guys paying way over 10g for this stuff when its a 2 day install and <$500 in materials. I'd be even madder on the inside personally knowing that stuff is like 3g-4500 here (I paid 1500 but got a decent discount on it and mine isn't 100% perfect either, but the couple edges of mine that have slight lift are so minor it doesn't even bother me).

Clark_Kent

Happens all the time with shops in my area. They over commit in an effort to earn the business. As a business, you have effectively secured that revenue once you take a car in. Most people won't come get their car after a few extra days. The mindset of most is: "I don't mind waiting a little longer so long as the job is well done."

adsingl

I had my whole car done - at about 3900 miles, expel in May I have no exposed corners, no lifts, no bubbles (after a week in the sun).
3 shops I spoke with said do NOT do ceramic where you're going to cover with PPF, it won't stick well. So not sure if this is what happened here or not, but "THE" high end detailer in town is one who told me don't do ceramic under ppf. He doesn't do ppf so he has zero to gain giving this recommendation.
I can feel seems at edge of outer radiator areas to the fender piece, but no lift. My car has 5300 miles on the film, over 90% of the miles are driving to track or pretty aggressive fun runs with lots of stuff thrown up by sticky tires in front of me. My vendor - as most do now - uses template cut pieces. The job you got if poor in my opinion. I'd formally notify your vendor of the issues with a return receipt email or similar and dispute the charges - especially if paid via CC.
I'd also tell them if they don't fix to your satisfaction or refund you expect you can cost them way more than their costs in the job when you post the project on car club/social media and the like and ask them if that's the reputation they want displayed, but ... check with an atty; I sometimes take risks others wouldn't in these situations.
Good luck

SoCal-NSX

8 weeks for a job that should have never even taken more than 8 days is insane and a huge red flag for starters... $10K for that hack job is also insane..a great shop that actually dismantles should only cost you $5K ...that looks like a they didn't even bother taking off the bumper with all those exposed seams

sorry you had to go through this, but hopefully it gets resolved

adsingl

Wowza! Hadn't even seen these details. My job was scheduled about 2 weeks out, had the car back in about 4.5 days. right at $5500 for the whole car. That said I'm in a metro area of about 330k people; no comparison to labor rate on either coast or other hot spots. Pretty sure my bumpers weren't removed, still hard to see edges. It isn't flawless, but ... I guess nearly so compared to the OP's pics!
ADS

Flexipino

I agree 8 weeks is way too long and the work is subpar. Out here in Cali I was not comfortable with anyone to wrap a P car in the area of $5k. Sorry you're going thru this man and best of luck for a fair resolution.

Had my whole car wrapped stealth + ceramic in 10 days for $8500. Flawless work. They would also include pickup and return via flatbed. But the shop I went to has a reputation for doing sports/exotic/hyper cars daily.