It may sound surprising, but even cars fresh out of the factory need a detail.
Why is this?
Negligence.
The fact is, neither the manufacturer, transporter nor dealership take enough care to protect the vehicle from aesthetic damage on its way to the customer. Let’s break it down each step of the way.
Damage from the Factory
Vehicles are a mass-produced commodity, so quality assurance at factories tends to get boiled down to the bare essentials — making sure the vehicle actually works and is safe to drive, making sure there are no obvious defects on the interior and exterior, etc.
What they’re not looking at is minor aesthetic defects. Factories aren’t particularly concerned with minor scratches on the exterior or scuffs on the interior. After all, if the average car buyer won’t look for these things, neither will the OEMs. Why waste the time, energy and money on something only a small fraction of buyers will notice?
Damage from Transport
Even less concerned with the aesthetic condition of a vehicle are the transporters in charge of delivering the vehicle to the dealership. Between the loading and unloading of the vehicle onto a truck, there are many chances for the vehicle’s finish to scratched or dinged. Especially so if the vehicle is traveling overseas as well!
Ultimately the transporters are most concerned with delivering the vehicle in a timely fashion and in reasonably good condition — some minor swirling won’t be enough to make the dealer reject the vehicle, if they even notice to begin with.
Damage from the Dealership
When a vehicle arrives at the dealership, they are often washed and detailed before going on display (or being delivered to the customer). Sounds great — that way they can repair all the damage caused in manufacture and transport, right? Unfortunately this is rarely the case. More often than not the detailing staff at a dealership is undertrained, understaffed and under-equipped.
The dealership only has so much budget for maintaining their inventory, and the majority of that is going into mechanic services, not detailing. As a result, many new cars come out looking worse after getting a detail from the dealership. Improper washing technique can add more scratches and improper buffing can cause “holograms” (aka buffer trails).
Often at a dealership cars will sit out on the lot until purchased. When exposed to the elements for extended periods of time, the car’s paint finish will accumulate contamination from the environment and nearby industrial activity. This accelerates rusting and paint fading.
Cars on the dealership lot are also touched by customers — a lot. If a car is getting handled on a daily basis by an endless stream of gawking prospective buyers, a good amount of swirling (micro scratch patterns) are going to develop. Most of the time, the dealership won’t notice this, and if they do, they won’t address it, and if they do address it, they probably won’t do it well.
What a New Car Detail Does to Address Pre-Purchase Damage
The “New Car Detail” we offer at Simon’s is engineered to take care of the damage a vehicle sustains before it reaches the end user. The service starts with a pre-detailing prep wash using snow foam. This removes loose contaminants so the vehicle’s paint can be thoroughly inspected without contamination impeding visibility. The vehicle is then thoroughly inspected with strong LED lights to identify and catalog every defect of concern. Once these defects are listed out, the Simon’s technicians develop a detailed plan to address them individually.
The Simon’s staff will first decontaminate the finish with both chemical and mechanical (aka clay barring) methods to pull out embedded or bonded contaminants from the dealership that couldn’t be removed in the prep wash. From there, the staff uses machine buffers with Dr. Beasley’s finishing primer NSP 45 to remove swirl marks and restore the finish’s “like new” gloss.
The interior is lightly detailed as well, and upgrades for ceramic coating protection are available for both the interior and the exterior. Adding the ceramic coating will protect the restored “like new” condition, making it far easier to keep it “like new” for years to come.
Maintaining the “Like New” Look Long Term
As we mentioned above, opting for the ceramic coating upgrade will make maintaining this level of “new” a breeze. Once the coating is applied, only occasional washes and reinforcement treatments are needed to keep the vehicle looking “new”. Simon’s makes it easy to get these washes with our Membership program — you can get free maintenance services for your ceramic coating as one perk of membership!