PissedPuppy I haven't used him yet but Auto Concierge is supposed to be legit. He has a shop in Fremont I think but he also does mobile. I am gearing up for a detail in late spring early summer. If you use him let me know what you think.

http://www.justwaxed.net/index.htm

 

From what I understand, and read on forums, Bob is one of the best in NorCal.

 

It does, thanks Moe.

 

To the OP, a good detailer will charge much more than $300 to properly polish the paint. There are tons of hacks out there so do you're homework.

You can use the RO to touch up the car on occasion and work on your other cars or friends cars. It really is a great tool.

 

Price is not the determiner of quality. I had my car buffed out by a high quality detailer for $255. But I am sure that I could have paid more and gotten results that were "hack" quality. Also, it depends on the quality of the finish currently on your car, how many and deep are the scratches, and the amount of time the detailer is going to spend working on it.

My finish looked fair at the outset. He felt that a simple final polish would do wonders for it. The results are spectacular, and certainly met my expectations. He said that he would have liked to do a two stage polish. Honestly, the incremental improvement wouldn't have done anything for me, considering that this car is a DD. I felt that I was facing the law of diminishing return. Spend a lot more time for a little improvement. Not worth it at this time.

larry

 

From what I understand in reading this post, your detailer did a one-stage polish. If that's the case, your paint is either in amazing shape, or it's not properly corrected. 9/10 porsches we detail, always need a minimum of two stages for proper paint correction. In the rare case, your Porsche came from the factory, no one touched the car but a knowledgeable detailer, and it was maintained perfectly, can you get away with a one-stage polishing once a year.

Being the devil's advocate here, would you ever take your Porsche to get an oil change at Jiffy Lube? I for one take our's to the dealer since it's an 2010 and it's too many advanced things for me to do. The reason I bring this up is, a specialist will require proper tools, extensive knowledge of YOUR automobile, proper insurance, and much more. All this requires quite a bit of time and money to perfect. At $255, by the time you back out taxes, insurance, materials, fixed costs, variable costs, etc. how much is this detailer actually paying himself and re-investing back into the business?

Please don't take offense to this Larry and I mean no disrespect to your detailer. I only wish for a win-win for both of you. But, fact of the matter is, too many detailers start out charging this little, doing fine when they're by themself, but one day decide to get married, raise a family, buy a home, etc. You simply cannot run a profitable business and pay your personal and business bill on $255 a car. At the end of the day, if a proper one-stage polishing and exterior detail is done, it would take about 6 hours. I hope it wasn't a quick 2-3 hour job since in that span of time, it takes two of my techs to have washed, dried, clayed, and finished taping the car for polishing.

Too many times we see Porsches that were detailed improperly and the detailers are no longer in business. Just last week we got a GT3 and the clearcoat was improperly polished and we could see the buffer marks. Once we measured the paint, we realized it was polished down to a point where enough clear was taken down that we couldn't do a proper paint correction. I hope a little education and informing the consumer helps many of you avoid these situations.

 

+1 Afshin. You know first hand how much time and effort it takes to do a proper detail.

 

Moe:

I don't think that my detailer skimped on the service. He has a very low overhead operation, and I was limited in how much I was willing to spend. Couple that with the fact that this car is a DD, and having a garage queen polish didn't make sense. Here is a thread on the detail that I had done (don't know if you missed it.) Detail Larry's Turbo.

Ivan had wanted to do a two stage polish in a couple of areas, but I was cash constrained for now, and the results looked wonderful. He admitted that he spent a bit more time on the hood than normal, because I was getting a clear bra put on.

What you say about people "low bidding" their work is true, but it's not up to me to tell him what he needs to charge for his work. I hope that he's successful and continues to do work. He's a fair guy who does good quality work.

I am not sure what I'm going to do from here on out. I am washing it weekly, and waxed it last weekend. The car still looks great, and as long as I'm extra careful in the wash and dry department, it should make it through this year. Then I can decide what I want to do next year. But for right now, I don't think that I'll be buying a polisher.

larry

 

Everyone should have one of these.... If you have a hammer, you need a RO.

 

Larry I detail on the side and like Moe has already mentioned I rarely see a car that doesn't need two steps to have it done correctly. You mentioned that you were financially constrained at the time you had your car polished and the detailer you used tried to limit the work performed to stay within your budget. If he was allowed to do the job to his level he would have performed a second step and the results would have been better as he already stated. That second step would have added at least another $150 to the cost.

I typically don't polish DD's since it's not worth spending the time and $$, so I agree with your thinking. I personally haven't polished my 2 year old DD for the same reasons. The cars I polish are typically show/garage queen cars which are worth spending the money and time to generate the best results possible. I charge by the hour and usually give a range of how many hours it will take to complete a car. Costs can range from $500 to $1500 depending on what is being done. A full concours level detail can cost even more, especially if the customer wants the engine detailed.

 

Sorry to revive this thread from a few weeks ago, but does this recommendation still hold for using No Rinse wash solutions?

Thanks-Shawn

 

Yes. You can use a high quality lambs wool wash mitt and high quality mf towel with ONR.

http://www.glisteningperfectionstore...skin%2C/Detail

http://www.glisteningperfectionstore...owel%2C/Detail