[BmmAde]

Hi all,

So my F30 SMB colour has got a lot of swirl marks, cobwebbing. It’s a 16 plate, and I’ve had it for 19 months, however, I've been lazy and always used the cheap £8 car washes. I really wish that I had not.

Going forward I will wash it myself, and have got all the decent equipment now, foam gun, two bucket, decent shampoo, drying cloths etc.

I went to visit “Chesham Valeting Car Centre” and they said for £100, they can machine polish out the swirls. Will also do foam pre-wash, wash, and wax. They said they need 5 hours total time. There website looks ok, established since 1999.

https://www.chesham-valeting.co.uk/

Has anyone used this place before? Not sure if it’s worth doing, or if it’s too cheap for a decent proper job.
Any advice is welcome. Thanks

Also any recommended detailers in the Buckinghamshire area would be great, I could visit them for a quote and inspection on the car.

[hilift]

£100 sounds about right , there is a fair amount of work to do .

id like to see some examples of their work on a similar colour car before a deal is struck .

I had some time to kill once at a Vauxhall dealer ship and watched a guy machine polish a 2 yr old astra .

the guy was an absolute retard literally but the results were stunning ,the guy obviously new his craft .

I was quoted £75 for the same treatment 4 years ago .

results speak a thousand words . !!!

[jackstrath]

I guess its all down to how much money you have and what your expecting.

Im a average detailer, have always been interested in cleaning my cars and spend probably to much on my car cleaning gear.

If your wanting 100% correction you'll easy spend 12+ hours on the machining work alone. So i do cringe a little when i hear people able to fully detail a car in 5 hours as iv honestly spent longer than that just doing stage 1 of a 3/4 stage polish.

Id be concerned they are just going to use a filler compound, and not correctly machine out the paint defects, this only lasts a few months at best and your back to square one!

For a semi decent paint correction at a decent place id be expecting to pay around £500, that should include a ceramic top coat as well.

But up and down the country prices vary i guess, i have several good company's around here that will charge you from £450-600, but at the next level we have a well known company that will require at least £1000 off you... but your car will comeback flawless!

[BmmAde]

Originally Posted by jackstrath

I guess its all down to how much money you have and what your expecting.

Im a average detailer, have always been interested in cleaning my cars and spend probably to much on my car cleaning gear.

If your wanting 100% correction you'll easy spend 12+ hours on the machining work alone. So i do cringe a little when i hear people able to fully detail a car in 5 hours as iv honestly spent longer than that just doing stage 1 of a 3/4 stage polish.

Id be concerned they are just going to use a filler compound, and not correctly machine out the paint defects, this only lasts a few months at best and your back to square one!

For a semi decent paint correction at a decent place id be expecting to pay around £500, that should include a ceramic top coat as well.

But up and down the country prices vary i guess, i have several good company's around here that will charge you from £450-600, but at the next level we have a well known company that will require at least £1000 off you... but your car will comeback flawless!

Thankyou for your feedback.

The chap said he would remove most of the swirls. I was staggered at the range in prices.

[BmmAde]

Originally Posted by hilift

£100 sounds about right , there is a fair amount of work to do .

id like to see some examples of their work on a similar colour car before a deal is struck .

I had some time to kill once at a Vauxhall dealer ship and watched a guy machine polish a 2 yr old astra .

the guy was an absolute retard literally but the results were stunning ,the guy obviously new his craft .

I was quoted £75 for the same treatment 4 years ago .

results speak a thousand words . !!!

Thank you for the reply. And good shout will ask for pictures of same work on black cars for references.

[RickLS7]

I bought a DA polisher several years ago, it's easy (if not time consuming) to get stunning results yourself. Plus of course, you will have all the kit whenever you want to do it again.

I must admit to practising on the Missus car first but if you watch a YouTube video first on what to do, you have to be a complete moron to mess it up.

[jackstrath]

Might be worth having a look on a website called Detailing World, there is regional sections on it and im sure you'll find someone local to you on there.

Its not cheap, but if you think about it 5 hours for £100 is only £20 an hour,
The price of consumables soon adds up, granted they probable get them trade price and minus the vat but here is a break down of what i use/spend just to clean the car:

Soap - £1.40
Snow foam - £0.68
De Tar (depends on how bad, this is priced on never before) - £9
De Iron (again how bad) - £5
Clay bar and Lube £20

So thats just material on painted surface prior to even going near the car with a machine polisher (if you dont do the above you'll just add scratches) , not including wheels or windows - £36

Again granted they will get the products at trade, and all that pricing was worked out using Gyeon stuff which is up there with the best but also one of the most expensive brands. But yeh, include polish and wax and then any over heads and time, £100 doesn't go very far!

[Russbmw]

You can get the worst of swirls and holograms out in a reasonable time, so what' they've said is correct.

If you want to spend forever and a day doing a multistage polish with increasingly less abrasive polishes, that's entirely up to you - obviously if you're paying for a detailer to do this things can get very expensive. When i do people's cars, that is exactly what I tell them.

I love having a clean car, but if you use it daily, spending days doing a full blown 100% correction is pretty pointless IMO as it doesn't take much for tiny swirls and stuff to reappear simply from driving the car if nothing else.

Having a ceramic coating applied does help, but this really needs to be done indoors as many take 24hrs or so to cure properly, during which time the car mustn't get wet - so for the average home detailer working on their driveway, you have to be very lucky with the weather here in the UK for those conditions to exist.

Decent wash, clay bar, machine polish, followed by a gloss enhancer (which does mask any minor remaining swirls) followed by at least 2 coats of sealant or wax, with decent curing time between each) gives perfectly acceptable results.

[BmmAde]

Originally Posted by Russbmw

You can get the worst of swirls and holograms out in a reasonable time, so what' they've said is correct.

If you want to spend forever and a day doing a multistage polish with increasingly less abrasive polishes, that's entirely up to you - obviously if you're paying for a detailer to do this things can get very expensive. When i do people's cars, that is exactly what I tell them.

I love having a clean car, but if you use it daily, spending days doing a full blown 100% correction is pretty pointless IMO as it doesn't take much for tiny swirls and stuff to reappear simply from driving the car if nothing else.

Having a ceramic coating applied does help, but this really needs to be done indoors as many take 24hrs or so to cure properly, during which time the car mustn't get wet - so for the average home detailer working on their driveway, you have to be very lucky with the weather here in the UK for those conditions to exist.

Decent wash, clay bar, machine polish, followed by a gloss enhancer (which does mask any minor remaining swirls) followed by at least 2 coats of sealant or wax, with decent curing time between each) gives perfectly acceptable results.

great forum. Thanks for reply.

Yes, I drive car daily and mostly motorway, A roads, so definitely not wanting full blown paint correction. Just the worst of the swirls to be removed will be just what I'm looking for.

Hopefully they chap at this place will send some pics of works done before for black cars, and maybe some one on this forum has used them before can recommend them.

[Wills2]

If they are going to do it make sure they iron X and clay the car before hand (if it needs doing and after 19 months and local car washes I'll take a guess it does) otherwise it won't be a great finish and pop like you'd expect in the sun.

You can get the swirls out yourself with a DA (DAS Pro as an example) and a polish like Menzerna 2200 on a yellow medium pad as that has enough cut but will also leave a glossy finish so no need for a two step process.

But you must get the paint clean and free of contaminants before hand and that's generally not just a wash and a snow foam.

I think it's a days work to really get the car right so £100 seems too cheap to me.

[Soul_Glo]

Originally Posted by jackstrath

I guess its all down to how much money you have and what your expecting.

Im a average detailer, have always been interested in cleaning my cars and spend probably to much on my car cleaning gear.

If your wanting 100% correction you'll easy spend 12+ hours on the machining work alone. So i do cringe a little when i hear people able to fully detail a car in 5 hours as iv honestly spent longer than that just doing stage 1 of a 3/4 stage polish.

Id be concerned they are just going to use a filler compound, and not correctly machine out the paint defects, this only lasts a few months at best and your back to square one!

For a semi decent paint correction at a decent place id be expecting to pay around £500, that should include a ceramic top coat as well.

But up and down the country prices vary i guess, i have several good company's around here that will charge you from £450-600, but at the next level we have a well known company that will require at least £1000 off you... but your car will comeback flawless!

This