Guess everyone makes mistakes?

[TTQ B4U]

My worst one was trying to get a little too far into the space between the rear of my cab and the truck bed. Chattered the metal part of my PC against the front edge of the bed panel. .

Yep....and be careful with that same thing happening around door handles.

[Breese147]

My worst screw up was on a engine bay cleaning for a close friend. I never do engine bay cleanings For customers only personal vehicles. But this was close friend and I decided screw jt. Welp first thing that happened was that his hood strut decided to give out 20 mins into the cleaning. Texted him about it he said no worries. Well then I finished the cleaning and was going to move it in to dress it. Well he had a k and n filter on his camaro and I totally forgot to remove the trash bag I had put over it to protect it! I started the car up and 2 seconds later I immediately remembered the bag was still on it! I turned off the car but the vacuum effect from the intake totally crush the k and N filter. Ordered a new one off of amazon and replaced it for him that same day. Very scary though .


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[asalesagent912]

I had one on a black Camaro last year. Spent a ton of time correcting it and coating it. He was out of town and asked if I could deliver it back to his place. No problem but it had to stay an extra day due to another job I was finishing up. So I had pulled the car outside to look it over then pulled it on my other bay and closed the door with no issues.

Well later on that day I went to open up the garage door and a bracket on the door caught the rear bumper and put a nice gouge in it. Only thing I can think of is that the car being a manual transmission must not have had the ebrake on and rolled close enough to the door after closing it.

Client was cool and told me to just get it fixed and all is good. So I got it fixed and took it on the chin lol.

It happens if you do this long enough!

I did the same thing with my own car. didn't pull it in enough and the handle on the garage door got caught on the bumper
when i closed the door. since then i took that handle off.lol.

[Maestro Sam]

If you’re going to try and drag my name into this conversation, then you should at least make sure to get your story straight, because your initial so called quote wasn’t for “a couple hundred dollars” it was for “$400 dollars”, and the only reason I called you out was because it somehow ended up with the customer wanting to pay you only $150 dollars which is alot less than half of your supposed initial quote.

And don’t try to deny it because I’m sure there’s plenty of people who will never forget your famous “$400 work van special”

There’s so much cringe in this thread...

I have not pointed you out and yes "couple hundred" dollars can be 200 300 400 and etc... There is a reason why I did not accept the detail after starting on it because the owner changed mines after our agreement. Agreements can be made and be broken by the clients. I have private message you numerous times to talk to you about our situation but I guess you don't understand that a agreement on a price can be altered, hence the reason why I denied detailing the vehicle even further. That Van was pretty hammered and a 5-6 hour job need more because my estimation was off. These cargo vans have rubber covering? on the back and I thought it would be a breeze to pressure was the interior. Boy I was wrong, the rubber trims were sautrated with oil, dirt, and greese from years of wheel chair transportation. The front of the cargo was pretty hammered.

[Maestro Sam]

I have polished through the clear with the Rupes 3" removing a dog claw scratch from a new van. I was removing the scratch for free.
I have stained glass with water spot remover by forgetting to wipe a spot off.
I have discolored leather with 91% IPA.
I have stained trim with wheel cleaner.
I have cut under the clear while removing bumper stickers.
I have gotten locked out of a customer car while it was running. I blame the car.
I have compounded through the clear a few times.
I have compounded through single stage a couple of times. I was set up.
I have scrubbed through the finish on leather.
I have burned a cloth seat cover scrubbing too hard/long with rotary.
I used tire dressing instead of mink on seats one time.
OOPS, I guess he asked for 1 mistake didn't he?

LOL! Some leather dressing and vice versa can be used on tires so I don't blame you. I do not use a rotary doing paint correction but you the rotary adapters on ibrid. I have not burned the paint with it but I think I almost did because I had a lot of smoke coming out of the pad? Did any of the errors cause you to lose a client or did everything resolve mutually?

Thankfully I've only had one boo boo and it was on a vehicle that I measured and warned the owner about. On average it came in at just over 3 mils total thickness. I did my very best with just a cleaner wax to get it spruced up and overall it came out great. There was however a small patch on one of the fenders/rockers that went through, then up on the a pillar too. Not big marks but noticable.

Client was fine and while I was still nervous about moving forward, I kept going and lucked out. After that I swore even with customer sign-off that if I'm ever not 100% confident or comfortable, I will not do it and will pass on the job.

That is good to hear that everything went smoothy. I purchased and paint guage device but I hardly ever use it since I never burned through the clear before. Think I should start using it !

My worst one was trying to get a little too far into the space between the rear of my cab and the truck bed. Chattered the metal part of my PC against the front edge of the bed panel.

Pow! 3 little spots down to the primer.

A trip to my buddy at the body shop and 50 bucks was the remedy.

Damn that sucks. Thats I use a 6 inch or a 4 inch pad on my rupes 15 or duetto to prevent the metal part of the pc or the backing plate from hitting the paint! I guess the owner did not know about the situation>

[Maestro Sam]

I will admit to my worst eff up keeping in mind that I'm relatively new to the business and haven't had a chance to screw much up yet. It was late, I was tired, we were trying to get the h out of there. I was finished with the car except for a machine applied coat of sealant. I grabbed the bottle of sealant and away I went. It's supposed to set up for 20-30 before you buff it off. After 20 minutes, I went to buff it off and it was not really what you'd call slick. It felt smooth but grabby. I went to check the bottle for instructions to make sure I applied it correctly. It had applied CG V.R.P. to the entire vehicle. Wash, rinse, dry, apply sealant. Probably cost me an hour.

Oh, and of course, I used that 20-30 minutes to pack up the trailer except for a couple buffing towels. Unload the pressure washer, unroll the hose, make a new cannon of soap, hook everything up. Yeah, that was awesome.

That sucks! I use C.G VRP and that is some really good stuff on the tires. In fact, I only use C.G VRP on the tires.

My worst screw up was on a engine bay cleaning for a close friend. I never do engine bay cleanings For customers only personal vehicles. But this was close friend and I decided screw jt. Welp first thing that happened was that his hood strut decided to give out 20 mins into the cleaning. Texted him about it he said no worries. Well then I finished the cleaning and was going to move it in to dress it. Well he had a k and n filter on his camaro and I totally forgot to remove the trash bag I had put over it to protect it! I started the car up and 2 seconds later I immediately remembered the bag was still on it! I turned off the car but the vacuum effect from the intake totally crush the k and N filter. Ordered a new one off of amazon and replaced it for him that same day. Very scary though .


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That is some scary stuff. I remember detailing a engine bay and one of my small brushes was dropped inside the bay and I could not find it. Even searching for 30 minutes, I could not find it and I was pretty worried that the brush might damage or catch on fire. Luckily I pulled the car out and the brush came out of the engine bay lol...

[Maestro Sam]

Not sure if this happen to anyone else but my friend and I were working on a car. Everytime we do paint correction, we mask all the rubber trims and chrome trims. After paint correction, I pulled on the masking tape and there was a transfer of chrome pieces left on the tape. There was not noticeably damage, but after that situation, I stopped using 3m green tape and starting using painters tape.

[briarpatch]

Biggest mistake I've made, besides closing the garage door on my own truck, was not taking time with a customer to go over the vehicle and capture their expectations. Interior (black) had dog hair, horse hair, people hair and beach sand....took me around 3.5 hours to get it clean. That did not leave enough time for an engine bay detail, which they thought was part of the deal. When I delivered the car, which looked amazing, they were very unhappy that I didn't get to the engine.

[Natron]

I/we resolved them. Some are still regulars and some are not. Our policy is always to disclose and accept the lumps.