Ramon

Can't say I've ever paid more than $300 for all that, and the job was good enough that my hands would slip off the door as I tried to close it when exiting the vehicle.

Fizzboy7

The lessons learned here is to never let your dealer wash your car.

Second, always have the service writer or porter document the condition of your car before you hand over the keys. This is a standard thing many dealerships already do, to prevent false claims.

Now that you are in a pickle, all you can do is go back to your dealership and plead your case. Most will want good customer relations after a sale and offer to fix the problem. If you get stuck there, go back to your salesperson and explain the story. After spending all that coin and giving the dealership good marks, mention how disappointed you are. If you had a decent relationship with him/her during the sale, the least he/she can do is have the service department buff out the paint. I've seen this offered countless times, because countless people have their cars washed and scratched. Your situation is quite common.

So forget about spending money. Go back and talk to your service guy and start there. You should be taken care of. And don't worry about the reduction of the clearcoat. They have detailers there who do high-end work on LS's and expensive cars.... they won't be doing a basic, cheap job like they did for your wash.

SW17LS

Totally depends on where you are, in CA detailers have a lot of competition. Here, $500 is not unusual for that work from a great detailer.

The dealer WILL NEVER detail your car the way you want it detailed. Just look around on here and on detailing sites about horror stories about dealers detailing cars...ask bnlexus on the 4GS forum how it turned out for him when he let the dealer polish his GS against my and a few other people's advice.

Make the dealer pay for a professional detail using someone of your choosing.

doctorttt

Great advice everyone. I will keep that in mind, making sure that Lexus won't screw it up when it's time for service.

Fizzboy7

The odds of a dealer giving you money to have your car detailed eslewhere are slim to nothing. They will offer to fix the problem, and should have the ability to do so. If they are selling LFA's, they should know how to polish a car. (Whether they can or not, I can't predict.) I've had good luck at my SoCal dealers with any cleaning service above the standard car wash.
Good luck!

SW17LS

There are many instances where that has been done on the GS forum. A Lexus dealer gave me $400 to have my car professionally detailed one time when they swirled it washing it. They don't want to, but you have to insist. When I detailed cars professionally I repaired the paint on brand new cars from dealer prep and from courtesy washes ALL THE TIME, many times at the dealers expense.

You have to stay firm, if they cannot wash the car how can they possibly polish it? They use glazes and crap like that to make the car look good until they wear away and their hackery comes through. These things take real skill, just anybody with a buffer can't get your finish where you want it to be. Dealers do not pay enough to keep ANY competent detailer on staff. Its some kid back there and with a rotary polisher he can screw up your car I promise you. Good detailers are making $50-$60 an hour working for private clients, and finding clients isn't too hard actually.

You have to remember most clients don't care...so the dealer doesn't care. YOU care, so NEVER, EVER let the dealer touch your car's paint. If they screw it up, DO NOT let them fix it. I promise you they will make it worse.

SW17LS

Read this thread:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...ealership.html

He didn't listen to those of us who urged him to force the dealer to pay for an outside detail when the dealer swirled his car up during a courtesy wash. This is what he said to my question as to whether I got to him in time:

After they "detailed it":

After he requested a voucher for a professional detailer:

If you read on in the thread you will see that once the detailer got into it he found the damage caused by the dealer's "detail" was quite bad, and on the fender it was too deep to polish out safely and will have to remain:

This is after the detail, this is permanent damage:



This is what he said:

If you care about your car's finish. PLEASE listen to me and never let the dealer wash it, if they do and swirl it up which they will, MAKE THEM PAY A PROFESSIONAL TO FIX IT, don't let them "try to fix it".

TXDriver

This has happened to me twice, once at BMW, once at Acura. Telling the dealership not to wash your car doesn't always work, it seems to be part of their normal process and often they do it anyway.

The BMW dealership swirled the hell out of my car 2 weeks after I drove it off the lot. I had not even washed it myself. I was livid. They hired some stupid kid to wash cars and he was using a dried out chamois and swirled every car that day. The dealer brought in a professional detailer to polish out the swirls and apply a protective coating (this was way back in 2000) and it looked good as new and there were no long term issues with it.

Acura did the same thing with my car but this time I just polished it myself with a DA polisher and the appropriate pads and compounds. Harbor Freight now sells a DA polisher that gets good reviews. Pads and a swirl remover or light compound are not that expensive.

I recently applied Opti-coat 2.0 on both our cars after a good polish and it works great. Not really a wax, it is an epoxy like coating that is supposed to last for years. A little pricey but I did 2 cars using only half of the product.

Best of luck.

SW17LS

I watched a dealership wash kid washing cars with a big wide floor broom one time

Joe Z

iTrader: (10)

NO DEALER WASH....

Never had it, Never will..!!!

~ Joe Z

Bayman

The service advisor may note your request not to wash the car, but I took the extra step of printing two pages that read "NO WASH" in font size 80 and placed them on the windshield. This ensures that everyone sees the note.

doctorttt

I like this idea. lol

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

even if they swirled your car how would you prove it? Unless somehow you demonstrated before the service that there were no swirls

SW17LS

The fact that you told them not to wash it...and they washed it...and now it's swirled is proof enough. If you push it the dealership won't give you a hard time, especially a luxury brand dealership.

This happens all the time, and dealers pay for outside details afterwards all the time.

doctorttt

I thought that a service manager would always look at the car for damage prior taking it to service. That's what I remember when I had my 2IS - he spoke with me for a little; looked at my car; did some paperwork; etc. Moving forward, I will just tell the service manager and have him to make note that my cars don't have swirls whatsoever.