David is the nicest person you'll meet, but he's an incompetent PPF installer and an unscrupulous…read morebusiness owner who's not only a recently recovering alcoholic but is also legally blind in one eye, rendering his depth perception nonexistent. I brought my brand new 2024 Audi Q5 to him at his Sterling, VA location for PPF installation in December 2023 based on a friend's recommendation who had a positive experience with him seven years ago.
I explained what I wanted done in terms of protecting the front bumper, complete hood, wheel wells, and side mirrors and paid him $1,600.00 for the installation. The first odd thing I noticed was that he was working alone without a staff unlike in his advertising photos then, when I went to pay him, he said his credit card machine wasn't working and insisted I instead pay his wife through Venmo. He said he would email me the warranty certificate the same day, and each time I asked him about it, he claimed to have forgotten and ultimately never did send it.
During the initial PPF installation, I noticed that he was using a razor blade directly on the car body panels instead of pre-cutting the PPF and then installing it. He said it was normal and wouldn't damage the paint. Then, about halfway through that installation, he ran out of PPF film and asked me to come back the next week when he expected a delivery, which I did. The second time I brought my vehicle to him and picked it up, I immediately noticed that he'd left uneven seams on the bumper and wheel wells that didn't align with the body panel lines. I pointed this out to him, and his response was to say that I hadn't told him that I didn't want visible seams, which wasn't true, but he promised to fix them on his next trip back to Virginia in about a month since he had a flight to catch that afternoon back to his home in Florida.
Within a couple of days, I noticed that there were a number of bubbles, artifacts, and debris under the PPF, along with many of the edges beginning to peel and curl. I called him about it, and he promised to fix it in about a month when he returned from Florida. The third time I brought my vehicle to him, he still hadn't fixed the bubbles or debris, some of the edges were uneven, some edges were again peeling, and I pointed out that he'd cut into the black chrome grille and one of my mirrors. He apologized and used a heat gun to seal the edges and said he'd have a friend who worked for Audi repair the damage on his next trip to Virginia. After several months of promises that he never followed through on, I told him I wanted to remove the PPF and get a refund because it was peeling so badly and to repair the damage. He said he wouldn't refund the whole amount since the PPF he'd used was expensive, but that he'd refund part of it and make good on the damage.
Over the next several months, he became increasingly hard to get in touch with, claiming to be undergoing medical treatment for alcoholism-induced diabetes, claimed to have had surgery on his eyes because he'd begun losing his eyesight in one eye, asked for more time thanking me for being so patient, but ultimately stopped communicating even though I could see that he was still active on his Facebook page.
After six months of false promises, I decided to pay another company to remove and replace the PPF, at which time we found he'd cut so deeply into the paint in seven places that they required painting, and they explained that the reason there were bubbles and debris and the edges had peeled was because he hadn't properly cleaned and prepared the paint surface for installation. I had a quote done by my Audi body shop that totaled more than $4,500.00 worth of damage, and I sent that to David for payment, but he never responded, leaving me to settle it with my insurance company, paying my $500.00 deductible out of pocket. In all, in addition to losing the $1,600.00, I paid him for the installation, I paid an additional $3,100.00 to have his poor-quality work redone, plus $500.00 for my insurance deductible, and $2,100.00 for a month-long rental while my car was at the body shop, all out of pocket to repair a brand new $55,000.00 car.
