# Cowboy facebook detailers



## Hereisphilly (Nov 17, 2014)

Saw this gem of a post on Facebook










Full 3 stage machine polish for £70!!

Now Scrim-1- and I thought those correction shots looked amazing, too amazing so decided to do a bit of digging.....

And found these the same photos on the first page of Google images, the cheeky *******!



















I'd love to see that chaps work for £70, Christ!

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## Soul boy 68 (Sep 8, 2013)

A real bargain for those who take their car to the £5 hand car washes.


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## Luke M (Jul 1, 2013)

Nothing wrong there. He's clearly showing the before and afters. Just not the way round we would expect:lol:


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## danwel (Feb 18, 2007)

If you're gonna use fake pictures at least get them form another page and not the first page lol


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## AdamC (Jan 31, 2013)

Haha that's terrible. Going to be some dissapointed customers I think.


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## PugIain (Jun 28, 2006)

Hmm, the name rings a bell. Possibly from a Rover forum, from a long time ago. AndBerg or something?


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## Scrim-1- (Oct 8, 2008)

PugIain said:


> Hmm, the name rings a bell. Possibly from a Rover forum, from a long time ago. AndBerg or something?


I think I might know who your talking about, it's not him.


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## Ross (Apr 25, 2007)

Is it Balieys?


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## Kenan (Sep 7, 2015)

Guys at work got a detail for £45 (25% discount fro the normal £60), claimed machine polish, full inside job with a wet-vac, leather treated etc.

Went to look at the car and to my surprise it looked like a good job (I am no pro mind).


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## stangalang (Nov 27, 2009)

Why do you think every Facebook page is full of people asking to see your best beading shot or 50/50 shot. Look at what they post then check their profile. 

If i was a tax inspector i know i wouldn't leave my house, in fact, i wouldn't leave Facebook. Just keep letting them build my case for me whilst i get another brew, then boom. 

The cream will rise to the top. But i definitely think the original owners should be informed of the image use


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## Bod42 (Jun 4, 2009)

Same on my side of the world, people offering full details for 50quid where in fact they just smash the car with wool on a rotary, then glaze the hell out of it but owners are happy with the results as they dont know any better.


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## Kimo (Jun 7, 2013)

Cheap details get results like that through hacking through the clear rather than removing as little as possible too

Few out there who do nice 50/50s but in truth have used a waaaaay too heavy combo


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## pajd (Sep 17, 2014)

Theres a guy up the road from me. Car washed, machine polished and waxed for £18 

Another guy on FB that I contacted to see if he could sell me some fallout remover as he was a "detailer" and I was out of Iron Out. He had never heard of fall out remover. He had never heard of iron fallout on cars before and was stumped how it got there.
He suggested using petrol to get rid of the fallout


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## MikeK (Dec 4, 2015)

I'll bet they have top notch insurance in place too :thumb:


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## Hereisphilly (Nov 17, 2014)

golftdi said:


> Theres a guy up the road from me. Car washed, machine polished and waxed for £18
> 
> Another guy on FB that I contacted to see if he could sell me some fallout remover as he was a "detailer" and I was out of Iron Out. He had never heard of fall out remover. He had never heard of iron fallout on cars before and was stumped how it got there.
> He suggested using petrol to get rid of the fallout


£18!!! How long does that take him? can't be good either way

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## EliteCarCare (Aug 25, 2006)

If the guy in the original post could detail a car to that level for just £70.00 I would happily give him a job! :lol:

So many professional detailer's images I see popping up on random FB adverts, we've had ours taken, Polished Bliss and so many others...


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## Mugwump (Feb 17, 2008)

PugIain said:


> Hmm, the name rings a bell. Possibly from a Rover forum, from a long time ago. AndBerg or something?


Don't think it's andburg - he's in Rotherham as far as I know.

From his name, I imagine the chap in Grimsby is an 'import'


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## euge07 (Jan 15, 2011)

I see this on my facebook, why would you even want to work for such little money, it makes no sense??


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## SamD (Oct 24, 2015)

euge07 said:


> I see this on my facebook, why would you even want to work for such little money, it makes no sense??


My friend is a fantastic detailer his prices are fair, yet he gets undercut by people offering a mobile car wash for as little as £15.
80% of people don't know the difference from a detailer and a John the dirty bucket.


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## Spike85 (May 22, 2016)

That's the problem, people say why would I pay £150 for a detail when I could pay £10 at the local Acid Wash.


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## Matt_Nic (Apr 15, 2011)

Bod42 said:


> Same on my side of the world, people offering full details for 50quid where in fact they just smash the car with wool on a rotary, then glaze the hell out of it but owners are happy with the results as they dont know any better.


As much as I'm a detailing fan and a fan of doing it right......
I can't actually see what is wrong with a happy customer who is getting an above average polish job for less than some local hand washes charge to actually **** your paint up.

If one of us, on here that know a thing or two paid that money we'd probably see that it's not a full on correction job but then we'd have paid about a 12th of what a detailer charges.

And lets not overlook the fact that it could well be an ameteur detailer, possibly even from here that's doing a good job cheaply to get their portfolio up.


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## Hereisphilly (Nov 17, 2014)

Matt_Nic said:


> As much as I'm a detailing fan and a fan of doing it right......
> I can't actually see what is wrong with a happy customer who is getting an above average polish job for less than some local hand washes charge to actually **** your paint up.
> 
> If one of us, on here that know a thing or two paid that money we'd probably see that it's not a full on correction job but then we'd have paid about a 12th of what a detailer charges.
> ...


The issue I have is the use of photos that aren't actually of the service offered

Fair dos if this guy is building his portfolio or whatever, but it's lying to the customer, as what they think they are going to get may not match what's actually happening

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## Matt_Nic (Apr 15, 2011)

I can't disagree about stealing photo's. Especially if the detailer in question is simply using an electric buffer which will never remove surface imperfections. 
The only time it's "tolerable" is if they simply can't get pictures of their own results. It's still wrong but at least gives customers an idea of what they're getting. 
The problem is, most cars aren't as bad as the ones being used by any stretch.


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## euge07 (Jan 15, 2011)

even if the fella is doing a rush job, im sure he is still taking 6 hours, at £18 thats £3 per hour including product. why even bother :/


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## Hereisphilly (Nov 17, 2014)

euge07 said:


> even if the fella is doing a rush job, im sure he is still taking 6 hours, at £18 thats £3 per hour including product. why even bother :/


And that doesn't cover any costs too
Of those 6 hours, I bet only 4 would be machine time, god knows what quality that work will be

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## euge07 (Jan 15, 2011)

Hereisphilly said:


> And that doesn't cover any costs too
> Of those 6 hours, I bet only 4 would be machine time, god knows what quality that work will be
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


I used to read some of the thread on here from the pros, and I used to see them write the hours spent on each car and I thought to myself they were taking the hand,

Then when I got into it more and more and realised the amount of hours goes into it to do it properly,

I did a single stage paint enhancement and mini interior valet last week on an audi a4 and I spent 15hours on it:buffer:


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## Kerr (Mar 27, 2012)

euge07 said:


> I see this on my facebook, why would you even want to work for such little money, it makes no sense??


There's far too many car cleaners on the go now. Everywhere I look there's someone willing to do a dodgy job on the side for cash in hand.

It's a race to the bottom for many.


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## Matt_Nic (Apr 15, 2011)

I used to do some paint correction jobs on mates cars for this kind of money (£70) 
It covered my petrol, products and a couple of pints in the pub after. 
Some people just enjoy it. 

I have a wife and baby now. She wouldn't let me out unless I was charging hundreds lol


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## Toto (Oct 6, 2014)

It's not totally theft proof but I have software on my website like many do so my pictures can't be clicked and copied and there also watermarked, but again not 100 %.


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## phazer (Apr 3, 2011)

Toto said:


> It's not totally theft proof but I have software on my website like many do so my pictures can't be clicked and copied and there also watermarked, but again not 100 %.


Snake oil. If it's been displayed it's already in the browser cache, no need to even try and manually right click and save. The purveyor of that software is as bad as the reason for this thread 

I hope the watermarking you use is of the very visible type rather than "digital".


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## Mugwump (Feb 17, 2008)

Toto said:


> It's not totally theft proof but I have software on my website like many do so my pictures can't be clicked and copied .......


_'PrtSc SysRq'_, open paint, edit>paste, crop to suit>save as...


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## supraGZaerotop (Jun 23, 2008)

im a valeter and it takes anywhere from 5-10hrs depending, average car is about 6.5-7hrs, its bloodly hard work and a right sweatfest sometimes. full valets, £35, machine work £18 lol, WTF, not a chance, if im going to spend near enough all day I want to be paid well for what I do. Im way to cheap at the minute but I charge between £60-100 and that il give it a full hit, fully brushed out and hovered and wet vac interior, carpets, seats, headlining, dash , glass, wheels, boot, engine bay, depending on the car I may or may not do machine work, if it don't really need it I wont waste my time. if a car is obviously in need to machine work I always toalk to the customer and most of them realise its going to cost extra for that lvl of time spent machine polishing, with a good 2 stage polish and full valet I charge up to about £120

some of my work


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## mcglynn (Jul 27, 2011)

That lad on facebook is washing, de tarring & running the polisher over the paint with autofinesse tripple (& loads of it) - it isnt a proper machine/correction job by any accounts but he is showing what he does lol.










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## J306TD (May 19, 2008)

mcglynn said:


> That lad on facebook is washing, de tarring & running the polisher over the paint with autofinesse tripple (& loads of it) - it isnt a proper machine/correction job by any accounts but he is showing what he does lol.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Jeez how much has he applied and literary everywhere. That's one hell of a poor job. A little bit of Tripple goes along way

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## Summit Detailing (Oct 9, 2006)

mcglynn said:


> That lad on facebook is washing, de tarring & running the polisher over the paint with autofinesse tripple (& loads of it) - it isnt a proper machine/correction job by any accounts but he is showing what he does lol.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Is that some sort of joke/wind up/photoshop?:lol::lol::lol:


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## Spike85 (May 22, 2016)

Jeeeeez that's some serious amount of tripple or any polish for that matter. And why do a whole car like that. He can have £18 as its going to take 3 hours to remove it all


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## fozzy (Oct 22, 2009)

Never mind what he's charging, there must be £300's worth of product on that car!


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## dave-g (Nov 14, 2009)

I like the windscreen bit the most. Top effort haha


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## Iptsoe (Jun 28, 2015)

dave-g said:


> I like the windscreen bit the most. Top effort haha


Must have had some minor stone chips that require fillers


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## Ross (Apr 25, 2007)

Must have used a whole 500ml bottle on that car lol


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## sevenfourate (Mar 23, 2013)

supraGZaerotop said:


> im a valeter and it takes anywhere from 5-10hrs depending, average car is about 6.5-7hrs, its bloodly hard work and a right sweatfest sometimes. full valets, £35, machine work £18 lol, WTF, not a chance, if im going to spend near enough all day I want to be paid well for what I do. Im way to cheap at the minute but I charge between £60-100 and that il give it a full hit, fully brushed out and hovered and wet vac interior, carpets, seats, headlining, dash , glass, wheels, boot, engine bay, depending on the car I may or may not do machine work, if it don't really need it I wont waste my time. if a car is obviously in need to machine work I always toalk to the customer and most of them realise its going to cost extra for that lvl of time spent machine polishing, with a good 2 stage polish and full valet I charge up to about £120
> 
> some of my work


Stunning transformations.

The Mondeo made me "wow" the most.

Top work right there...........


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## pajd (Sep 17, 2014)

supraGZaerotop said:


> im a valeter and it takes anywhere from 5-10hrs depending, average car is about 6.5-7hrs, its bloodly hard work and a right sweatfest sometimes. full valets, £35, machine work £18 lol, WTF, not a chance, if im going to spend near enough all day I want to be paid well for what I do. Im way to cheap at the minute but I charge between £60-100 and that il give it a full hit, fully brushed out and hovered and wet vac interior, carpets, seats, headlining, dash , glass, wheels, boot, engine bay, depending on the car I may or may not do machine work, if it don't really need it I wont waste my time. if a car is obviously in need to machine work I always toalk to the customer and most of them realise its going to cost extra for that lvl of time spent machine polishing, with a good 2 stage polish and full valet I charge up to about £120
> 
> some of my work


What did you use on the interior? Looks great


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## M8ttB (May 22, 2016)

I am a beginner hobbiest/detailer and end up doing some jobs on relatives'/friends cars and tend to just call it £30 . In fairness it takes me a good 4 sometimes 5 hours to do a proper job but what I charge just covers my costs and some money for buying new stuff....I do it cos I enjoy but do wonder about 'rogue retailers'.....I read the other day that hand car washes use brick acid? WHY....!!! 


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## M8ttB (May 22, 2016)

Wonder if mobile rogues use brick acid lol!


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## Toto (Oct 6, 2014)

SamD said:


> My friend is a fantastic detailer his prices are fair, yet he gets undercut by people offering a mobile car wash for as little as £15.
> 80% of people don't know the difference from a detailer and a John the dirty bucket.


His valet is more expensive than his machine polish.


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## supraGZaerotop (Jun 23, 2008)

golftdi said:


> What did you use on the interior? Looks great


hi, all autoglym professional products used, mainly clean all-10:1 for the interior plastics carpets seats, headling etc, also use it in my wet vac machine, super sheen-dressing for the dash, door cards, any plastics/ vinyl areas , also use trim detailer for dressing hard to reach areas, autoglym heavy duty tfr for exterior, just car soap thru my foam lance when washing the body, also fallout remover for metal, and I use a lot of tar & glue on exterior and interior. thanks


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## Spinonit (Nov 10, 2013)

M8ttB said:


> ....I read the other day that hand car washes use brick acid? WHY....!!!


Literally because it is cheap to buy compared to commercial tfr and (they told me) they do not care whether their customers' cars are damaged or not, so long as it is quick and effective for their car washng purposes. Same can be said for the junk they use on tyres - normally some kind of petroleum distillate, as it leaves a shine. They told me that so long ss the car leaves their 'care' shiny, they dont care if the paint is dulled or the tyres degraded over a longer period of time, as a customer would find it near impossible to prove it was down to them (car wash) - and these are the nicer hand car washes!!


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## chongo (Jun 7, 2014)

supraGZaerotop said:


> hi, all autoglym professional products used, mainly clean all-10:1 for the interior plastics carpets seats, headling etc, also use it in my wet vac machine, super sheen-dressing for the dash, door cards, any plastics/ vinyl areas , also use trim detailer for dressing hard to reach areas, autoglym heavy duty tfr for exterior, just car soap thru my foam lance when washing the body, also fallout remover for metal, and I use a lot of tar & glue on exterior and interior. thanks


Nice finish mate:thumb:
You charge £120 for a valet and a 2 stage polish or is that just applying a glaze like the ford focus


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## supraGZaerotop (Jun 23, 2008)

chongo said:


> Nice finish mate:thumb:
> You charge £120 for a valet and a 2 stage polish or is that just applying a glaze like the ford focus


hi, typically I charge about £60-£75 for a full valet without any machine work unless I'm feeling generous ;-), I stock brand new mats which sometimes works my way and I charge an extra £10 for those. so yeah if I do machine work on a car plus a valet you be looking around £120. I not about to go detailing someones car, most people don't even know what that is. i get the job done to a good level, like i said I'm not about to spend countless hrs on someones car because they are not going to pay for it, that focus I'm sure i done parts 2 stage and some i got away with just finishing polish, i did add a filler polish after to make the most of it and topped with autoglyms liquid hardwax sealent


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## chongo (Jun 7, 2014)

The ford focus is an average size car, so say 6-10 hrs on a full valet and 2 stage polish at £120 with that amount of scratches, swirls, and holograms on the focus, surely you used a compound then refine the finish, or a single stage polish would take you more than one day to complete the job? For £120 your better of doing a full valet, and machine glaze and LSP for that price.


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## supraGZaerotop (Jun 23, 2008)

the focus was not actually in for a valet, that's why there no photos, i had it in for paint correction, the focus is average size car yes. did you see the pictures lol of the paint on the focus, you would not get away with a glaze on this! i caught him grinding on the paint with a drill and some awful mop attachment and color polish, so i went straight over to rescue the day lol, so i used m101 with a foam cutting pad and m205 with black finishing pads, but the roof and bonnet i got away with just m205 with a white polishing pad, i then applied a glaze over the whole car and topped it with liquid hardwax sealent if i remember . was a neighbour actually and didn't charge him very much. he had a good deal, he was goi ng to sell it, so i tidied it up for him, and guess what, he appears to have kept it ;-)


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## Mcpx (Mar 15, 2016)

A friend asked me to look at his pearl black Nissan Quishquosh last week for some advice. He bought it cheap because it was high mileage and not in the best cosmetic condition, so he paid someone 50 quid to do a full clean and polish on it. This was six weeks ago and it still had polish in the seams now, not to mention a good helping of water marks.

My advice was to clay the car (definitely had not been done) and see where that left him, before paying out for a proper machine polish. When I explained the correct process to him and the level of work involved he didn't seem that keen for some reason, but he was even less keen on paying me £25 to wash and clay it and £75 to polish it, even though those are ridiculously low token prices for a mate.

It is possible to make a car look quite good quite quickly, however as we here know only too well, that quite good quite quick will also look quite bad quite quick, but, and heres the rub, 99% of people either do not have the knowledge to tell the difference, or they simply do not care. Thats why the £5 handwash places are so busy, the muckiest of cars go in and comes out a few minutes later looking brilliant and that is what the people see, they don't see the long term damage done and they don't know that the cars are nowhere near their potential, they just know that they look shiny for a couple of days.


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## chongo (Jun 7, 2014)

supraGZaerotop said:


> the focus was not actually in for a valet, that's why there no photos, i had it in for paint correction, the focus is average size car yes. did you see the pictures lol of the paint on the focus, you would not get away with a glaze on this! i caught him grinding on the paint with a drill and some awful mop attachment and color polish, so i went straight over to rescue the day lol, so i used m101 with a foam cutting pad and m205 with black finishing pads, but the roof and bonnet i got away with just m205 with a white polishing pad, i then applied a glaze over the whole car and topped it with liquid hardwax sealent if i remember . was a neighbour actually and didn't charge him very much. he had a good deal, he was goi ng to sell it, so i tidied it up for him, and guess what, he appears to have kept it ;-)


Nice gesture mate:thumb: what's m101 like to work with, does it have a long working time.:thumb:


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## REVERSiN (Sep 28, 2015)

Sadly there are many people like this in our world. Iam on the other side of the world and I can say we have the same issues with so called "pro" doong works for less than the money we pay for materials only. Pretty simple as its not a quality job and has lots of cutting edges.

We have a family buisness since many years, I came to know the competition very well and fully understand thw diffrence. Most of these avoid paying taxes. Work from home, they dont have the rent to pay the way we do. They often do half the job and run away then stop answering calls and disappear.
If you take into count what you could do for 6 months like this then its lots of money you didn't earn (just stole).
God help the poor customers which are attracted by price not knowing what a black hole this is...

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## chongo (Jun 7, 2014)

As above, it's mugging people off, it's just get on my nerves when they say this is what they have done in a time frame which is bull...., I have nothing against people doing valets, because they do a great job on cars that are not fit to sit in, but there is no need to big up your work on this forum! Just stick to what you know best.


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## Rían P (Jun 2, 2014)

euge07 said:


>


The best place on Fb to find a few rogues haha

Anyway, as others have said, these 'detailers' make the proper jobs more expensive, or at least seem it. Who (non-DWorlders) wants to pay £X for a job that some boy down the road can do for a quarter of the price? They don't know any better! I laugh at the 'detailers' who say a machine polish...' Is that single stage, two stage, or just SRP with a halfords buffer? I think the problem is information failure in services provided, and a lot of these Fb boys try to confuse their clients into believing it's the same quality of job only cheaper.


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## Mcpx (Mar 15, 2016)

Rían P said:


> The best place on Fb to find a few rogues haha
> 
> Anyway, as others have said, these 'detailers' make the proper jobs more expensive, or at least seem it. Who (non-DWorlders) wants to pay £X for a job that some boy down the road can do for a quarter of the price? They don't know any better! I laugh at the 'detailers' who say a machine polish...' Is that single stage, two stage, or just SRP with a halfords buffer? I think the problem is information failure in services provided, and a lot of these Fb boys try to confuse their clients into believing it's the same quality of job only cheaper.


Very true, there is a world of difference between me spending 2 hours washing and drying a car properly and the 10 minute scratch wash down the road, but I can guarantee that 95% of people would rather pay them the fiver than give me £25 for the real thing. When you think about it, that £25 is actually pretty good value for what you'd get, but why would you pay 5 times the price for what you perceive to be the same thing?

When I do friends and families cars I often get asked by passers by how much I'd charge only to get laughed at when I tell them, 'ha, they'll do a full valet down the road for 25 quid'. People really don't see the difference.


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## supraGZaerotop (Jun 23, 2008)

chongo said:


> Nice gesture mate:thumb: what's m101 like to work with, does it have a long working time.:thumb:


Yeah its really good mate. Better than 105 for sure, dont cake up as much. Working time is pretty good. I do all my work outside on my property at the moment in my spare time so it does dry quicker. I keep a bottle of detail spray or water and give it a very light mist to reactivate sometimes. Im no expert in machine polishing mate, but getting better like us all. Practice makes perfect. Been into cleaning cars since 18 years old, im 36 in july now, been machine polishing for maybe 3 years now , done hundreds of cars but still dont see myself as pro lol. But i think most of us are like that


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## Alpha Charlie (Nov 10, 2014)

supraGZaerotop said:


> some of my work


How long before someone quotes the entire post and replies with "Great turnaround mate"?


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## supraGZaerotop (Jun 23, 2008)

Mcpx said:


> Very true, there is a world of difference between me spending 2 hours washing and drying a car properly and the 10 minute scratch wash down the road, but I can guarantee that 95% of people would rather pay them the fiver than give me £25 for the real thing. When you think about it, that £25 is actually pretty good value for what you'd get, but why would you pay 5 times the price for what you perceive to be the same thing?
> 
> When I do friends and families cars I often get asked by passers by how much I'd charge only to get laughed at when I tell them, 'ha, they'll do a full valet down the road for 25 quid'. People really don't see the difference.


I know exactly what you mean and its really frustrating. Just people who havint got a clue. But thank fully there are plenty of people out there that do. Thats why i myself use facebook to show my work and so they can for they own eyes see the difference. I now get loads of work starting at 60 quid a pop. Which is still very cheap. I charge more whenever i can :thumb:


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