Paintwork & Detailer Recommendation?

[tracydeedance]

www.ctwvaleting.co.uk
Always got time to give advice for after care.

[Slippydiff]

all2ofme said:

Hee hee - good post, Tony.

I had some excellent work done by Kelly and co. but a less enjoyable experience a few weeks later when I dropped in hoping to buy some bits and get some advice on what to do after 4k miles and all sorts of abuse.

Kelly was ten feet away working on a car and we had an odd ten minutes conversing through a chap sitting between us. "Tell him that I'm really busy, please." "Tell him that he'll have to come back." "Tell him that we've got to get this car done by the end of the day." "Tell him that unless there are prices on things we can't sell them to him." etc.

I'd have been happier if Kelly had said "Sorry, really busy - could I call you later?"

Felt a bit unusual, as did not being able to buy anything because no-one knew how much things were supposed to cost.

My car looks great, though

(Hope the other car went out lovely and shiny, Kelly.)

Hi Ben, I seem to recall a previous thread about Kelly where others had "suffered" similar behaviour. Over the years I've found that many true artisans can lack people skills. I'm sure Kelly didn't mean to be rude, more likely he was (and gets) very focused on the job in hand. Once a real artisan is in "the zone" they don't like to be disturbed. Difficult for the rest of us to understand perhaps, but that's the way it is

If you want someone "easy" to work with, I can thoroughly recommend Dave from Sportscar protection.

Here's the job he did on my Manthey car (text from the original PPCGB thread I started) :

Having washed the car on a couple of occasions it became clear that the paintwork needed some TLC (the car is all original panel) I made some enquiries and a name cropped up, that of Dave Bowerman at Sports Car Protection.

http://www.sportscarprotection.com/

A date for the paint correction and detail was fixed, Dave rolled up at 8.30am ready for the challenge that lay ahead . . . . .

Once the car had been jetwashed, it was given the snowfoam treatment :



Then followed the removal of the front and rear light clusters, side repeaters, roof rails, engine cover and hinges to allow thorough cleaning in all those hard to get at places :





















Once these items had been removed and cleaned, the wheels came off for cleaning, polishing and sealing :















The inner arches and associated hardware where also given the DB treatment :









Then Dave got down to the nitty gritty. I should perhaps mention that this particular paint correction/detail took Dave four days, the reasons for which will become clear.

Dave survives on a diet of coffee and biscuits, anyone considering using his services should factor in the costs of these essential items . . . . .



Dave rolls up at 8.30 every morning, then spends ten minutes on the phone in his van before setting to with a vengeance for the next twelve hours, more often than not without a break.

So on to the paint correction process.

To the casual observer the paintwork looked black and shiny, however, once under the detailers "lamp of doom", a very different picture emerged . . .



























Nothing gets left "undetailed" :





After four days of hard graft the end result looks stunning :

Edited by Slippydiff on Friday 7th September 18:59

[bigee]

Great work.....can only say what i've seen and for that Kelly gets my vote again.Without any hesitation. At all.

[Acf69]

Wow is all I can say re the work done on your car slippydiff, hate to think what it cost seeing it took four days, but I am sure it was worth it

[Fl0pp3r]

Slippydiff said:

all2ofme said:

Hee hee - good post, Tony.

I had some excellent work done by Kelly and co. but a less enjoyable experience a few weeks later when I dropped in hoping to buy some bits and get some advice on what to do after 4k miles and all sorts of abuse.

Kelly was ten feet away working on a car and we had an odd ten minutes conversing through a chap sitting between us. "Tell him that I'm really busy, please." "Tell him that he'll have to come back." "Tell him that we've got to get this car done by the end of the day." "Tell him that unless there are prices on things we can't sell them to him." etc.

I'd have been happier if Kelly had said "Sorry, really busy - could I call you later?"

Felt a bit unusual, as did not being able to buy anything because no-one knew how much things were supposed to cost.

My car looks great, though

(Hope the other car went out lovely and shiny, Kelly.)

Hi Ben, I seem to recall a previous thread about Kelly where others had "suffered" similar behaviour. Over the years I've found that many true artisans can lack people skills. I'm sure Kelly didn't mean to be rude, more likely he was (and gets) very focused on the job in hand. Once a real artisan is in "the zone" they don't like to be disturbed. Difficult for the rest of us to understand perhaps, but that's the way it is

If you want someone "easy" to work with, I can thoroughly recommend Dave from Sportscar protection.

Here's the job he did on my Manthey car (text from the original PPCGB thread I started) :

Having washed the car on a couple of occasions it became clear that the paintwork needed some TLC (the car is all original panel) I made some enquiries and a name cropped up, that of Dave Bowerman at Sports Car Protection.

http://www.sportscarprotection.com/

Edited by Slippydiff on Friday 7th September 18:59

Sorry guys, I can't agree with you.

I've just had my car detailed at KDS and am absolutely stunned at the quality of their work and found Kelly to be extremely personable, and giving of his time. You must have caught him on an off-moment!

You can read what I think about KDS on the following thread:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[rog007]

Fl0pp3r said:

Sorry guys, I can't agree with you.

I've just had my car detailed at KDS and am absolutely stunned at the quality of their work and found Kelly to be extremely personable, and giving of his time. You must have caught him on an off-moment!

You can read what I think about KDS on the following thread:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

He must be good to bring you out from Lurckerland!

[neil-f]

+ another for Dave, he does an excellent job my Speed Yellow GT3 is looking like new thanks to Dave.

[tomw2000]

When I first got my seal grey 2006 997.1 C2S - I had Gucharn from Elite detailing come and sort the exterior for me:

http://www.elitedetailing.co.uk/

The results were gobsmackingly good and I would definitely recommend him.

I've spent a bit of time on Detailing World and I have also only heard good things about the KDS Keltec guy.

Nowadays I have a local guy come a sort it for me. Less pricey and of course less 'perfect' results - but I'm very happy with it.

[rosino]

I can also vouch for Gurcharn, he's a big hit in the Porsche community (see some posts on 911.uk).

http://www.elitedetailing.co.uk/

He did my V8 M3 when i bought it, full paint correction and orange peel reduction. Very impressive results. I will use him for my Aqua Blue 991, doesnt need much correction at all but a good protection always a must.

Again, not the cheapest around, but the results are there so would definitely use him for the "proper" paint correction big job.

[stevod]

Great experience with James Richardson from Sportscar Protection yesterday - helpful, enthusiastic, and a pleasure to deal with. He did a new car protection on my 981 at their facility at Universal Classic Cars near Farnborough (also an enjoyable place to visit) - http://www.sportscarprotection.com/index.php/our-t... - and it looked utterly fabulous afterwards.

Currently showing as the most recent pic here:
http://www.facebook.com/SportscarProtectionSurrey

S

[TIGA84]

http://www.supercardetailing.com/

give Rob a call.

[MDT48]

Robbie at http://www.valetmagic.com/ just did an amazing job on my Focus RS.

Believe me when I say that the car was in a horrendously neglected state (it's my daily driver, and had to live on the street under a tree for over a year!), but when I picked it up it looked better than new.

I'll be letting him weave his magic on the Cayman R in the spring, although that won't be anywhere near as tough a job as the Focus was

Here's the before and after pics - you'll need a strong stomach for the "before" shots though!

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.p...

[911devo]

dreamer75 said:

Hi all

I bought a 6 year old 997 from a dealer, and while the car is fine, the paintwork is swirly and marred.

I'd like to get it professionally sorted out so it looks its best, plus a general all round proper detailing.

Can anybody recommend a good detailer in the South East (I'm in Surrey but near Hampshire/Berkshire too)?

Thanks!

Hey,

I've just used http://www.max-protect.co.uk based over in Kings Langley, Herts. They did a superb job & offer lots of different levels of treatment.. The contrast from before & after is literally night & day!!..

[MrC986]

MDT48 said:

Robbie at http://www.valetmagic.com/ just did an amazing job on my Focus RS.

Believe me when I say that the car was in a horrendously neglected state (it's my daily driver, and had to live on the street under a tree for over a year!), but when I picked it up it looked better than new.

I'll be letting him weave his magic on the Cayman R in the spring, although that won't be anywhere near as tough a job as the Focus was

Here's the before and after pics - you'll need a strong stomach for the "before" shots though!

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.p...

.....I guess you had your 'monies worth' from that visit!? It does raise the question whether you should just drive the cars and periodically give them a proper clean/detail

[dreamer75]

Hi all, I finally got this sorted - thanks for all the recommendations

I went with Miracle Detail in the end - really chuffed with the results! I don't have the full set of before/after shots yet, but you can take it from me the paintwork was awful - really swirled to the point it was stripy in sunlight with all the hologramming. Plus a few other bits and bobs like badly scuffed sills and gear knob (previous owner).

Now it's like a mirror and it is a different colour - much bluer and sparklier than it was before

Couple of gratuitous shots

[MadMark911]

burwoodman said:

From what I have seen KDS is top drawer. Some other celebrity detailers aren't that interested in ordinary cars like M3's and standard 911's. They would rather do Veyrons and CGT's.

I once had a brand new car detailed by a certain celebrity detailer(at least tried to). Fours hours in he was still taking photos then told me the paint was st and i should reject it, however he could sort it out over a 3 days detail at his premises, can i have the keys. Got to dash now as a customers bentley just has a bird poo on it and it must be removed within 90 minutes.

Not the ex.chauffeur per chance?

I used someone local to me for a quote and he then offered me "a last minute cancellation" at a substantially reduced price (2 day paint correction detail). But then he had to dash off to Paris to "polish out a scratch" on one of Bentleys press cars.
I swear he only devoted a small amount of time to my car as he got out only about 50% of the swirls / feathering, despite having it for 2 days and to take the wheels off and clean / seal them was an extra £110!
When I left he suggested the wheels would need re-torquing, but what he didn't say was that they were only finger tight and he let me drive off like that! Also he'd taken the exhaust tails off to polish them (very nicely), but he'd broken a clamp on one to get it loose (and then it wouldn't do up again), but he'd not tightened the other one at all (or at least the person actually doing the cleaning work on my car).

[dreamer75]

A few more pics here: http://miracledetail.co.uk/gallery/#/Sports%20Cars...

If you are interested and mention my name when booking/enquiring, you should get a decent discount

[A D C]

+ another 1 for sportscar protection.

The 993 in their gallery entitled "Carrera S Polar Silver Restoration Detail 2" is mine and I was totally delighted with the output at the time. 9 months later the quality of the finish and the ease with keeping it clean are remarkable.

Cheers.

[dreamer75]

Cool video too - really shows how bad the paintwork was to start with, which the static cameras don't really show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeLdC9IaQnw&fea...

[MadMark911]

dreamer75 said:

Cool video too - really shows how bad the paintwork was to start with, which the static cameras don't really show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeLdC9IaQnw&fea...

I have to say the results look stunning! It looks a smooth as glass afterwards and it's a far nicer colour ..... but I hate to think what it cost!