Usually, when people complain, it's all bad news. But I'll try to be fair…read more
They are very friendly. They will ferry you back and forth if you don't want to wait at the shop. I was 8 miles away, so that is hugely convenient. I could work from home while they had the car. They also don't guilt you into tipping after.
I brought in a very dirty vehicle for an estimate, it was nasty, even sticky in some places, but they got to see it before the quote, so it wasn't a surprise. I expected to pay a lot, but not as much as they quoted. I hesitated when I heard the price, but then I figured well, they have a good rep on Yelp, and the car needs it badly, and they'll ferry me back and forth. OKAY.
In general, the car was much cleaner when I got it back. The outer door frames were wiped clean. The rugs and upholstery got vacuumed and shampooed, my guess would be twice, and the plastic was wiped down using some kind of interior cleaning product. They threw away the trash they found. They washed the outside even though I didn't care about that or pay for it. But there's a reason this is called DETAILING. It's because they're supposed to pay attention to the details and clean every little thing. That's where they fell short.
The pictures tell the story of what they missed. The rubber mats looked like they were hosed down but not actually cleaned and scrubbed. The windshield and rear-view looked like a little kid cleaned it with a dirty rag. The door pockets had hair, dirt, grime and trash in them, even though you could tell they got a superficial wipe. There was a lot of grime left in a lot of places. I didn't notice these things until I got home, and I didn't call back to complain. I'm sure they would have fixed it had I gone back, but who has the time for that? Not me. It probably took me less time to correct what had not been done well than it would have to drive round trip and wait. So I did it myself.
I would say the car got cleaned but it did not get detailed. Between the work the both of us did, I'm very happy with how the car turned out. It would have been five stars if I didn't have to finish cleaning the car myself. It's still not detailed, but it's very clean. I can live with it.
All in all, it was an okay job. Three stars. Probably worth between half to three quarters of what I paid.
If I were the owner of this shop, I think I'd create some checklists for my crews to use and add a quality control inspection step before the customer gets to see the vehicle. Definitely some training too. Apparently, not everybody knows how to clean a car well or when to trade in your dirty towel for a clean one or how to tell if you're done cleaning or not. A second set of eyes with a checklist would go a long way.
I don't think you have to avoid this place. But if you're going to get your car detailed here, bring a white glove with you when you pick up the car, and use it to inspect the work. Expect to stay a while longer while they fix what you find.
