meem

i always take my cars to the best shops i can find, and pay top dollar to have work done by skilled professionals (whether they be mechanics, tint installers, clearbra installers, ...). all of these shops are great at what they do, but have no respect for the care i've put into my car's finish. as a result, i have to basically repolish the car every time i get my car back, which takes me upwards of a week to complete (yes, it's a long process).

i tell the shops to be careful. i tell them to not wash or touch anything they don't need to touch. i tell them that even <i>touching</i> a painted surface can leave micromarring. they all assure me that they're ultra-careful and i have nothing to worry about. then they trash my car -- and i have to <i>pay</i> them for the privilege of having them do this(!) it's absolutely infuriating. it's getting to the point where i am tempted to go over the car with my sun gun as part of dropping the car off, and then doing the same at pick-up so that they can see what they've done. however, then they might try to fix it and make things even worse :-(

okay, i'm done ranting now. (is it obvious that this just happened to me <i>again</i> today? :-()

heateris

OCD much?

SAC-CA-GTI

care of my cars, but you...wow. My wife and friends already think I'm crazy.

meem

it's ocd to expect well-paid professionals to respect my car?

roadyTT

Yikes...M3 or the TT?

alms_TT_ny

The fact is nobody is going to care about your car as much as you do, be thankful it is "only" micromarring and not deep scratches. I get annoyed when I get my car back and the hood has a greasy hand print on it and there is marring on the front bumper. I get home and I fix it.

Worrying that much about your car is going to take years off your life, when I had body work done on my TT I got so stressed over the quality that I had back pain and heart palpitations. After 3-4 trips back to the shop and many nights of trouble shooting we couldn't find the fix, sadly I gave up. At that point I knew I had to make some changes on how I prioritize my car. No car is worth that kind of stress. I don't want to drop dead when I'm 50 because because of a car. You have to learn when "good enough" is enough.

Since caring less about your car doesn't fix the problem my best advice is cover up the areas they will be working on with painters tape before you bring it in for service, write little notes on the tape if you think it will make a difference.

Hope it works out.

Bendquattro

I had a rock chip on my hood of my 335xi within the first month of owning her. I take many precautions to protect the finish of my cars, but owning a really nice car and not driving it is like being married to a super model and not sleeping with her.

schnellmb

i've given up on my 335. it sits outside, and got smacked already.

i just waxed my 535 last week--took delivery last january.

schnellmb

no matter what you do, people aren't treating them with as you'd like.

meem

for instance, in yesterday's debacle, i told the head tech working on the clearbra install not to wipe any uncovered areas down because i knew their microfiber was unlikely to be all that clean (nevermind that i had to drive there and thus the car was also not perfectly clean). but he didn't pass this along to everyone working on the car, so i caught them "helpfully" wiping things down on several occasions -- and of course now i need to repolish those areas. arrg.