What do you make of this?

[longjohnsilver]

Some may remember I posted about the issues with someone who cleaned, polished and waxed our boat. Here is what was supposed to happen, taken directly from their quote.

“She will need a full valet before polishing. There’s also a few areas that will have to be hand polished but that’s not a problem just have to give it a bit more elbow grease!

2 days valet - complete boat wash of the whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas.

4 days cut and polish of whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas plus a wax coat for gleaming results”

What would you expect to have been done, particularly wrt the wax coat? Would you expect it to be a wash and wax, as I’ve now been told, so something in a bucket of water and then wiped off, or a proper application of wax from a tin or bottle and then machine polished?

That would be my understanding of a wax coat, not something in a bucket of water! I’d be interested to read your thoughts.

 

[CLB]

Washing the boat with a Wash n wax is not the same as applying a wax coat IMHO

I would also question 2 days to wash the boat, but may be too late for that.

 

[sharpness]

2 days valet - complete boat wash of the whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas.

4 days cut and polish of whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas plus a wax coat for gleaming results”
.

From the above quote, it would seem obvious to all that they are saying Wash boat, then Cut and Polish, and then a layer of Wax protection, as would be expected.

If they're inferring that they meant the wax process will be part of the washing of the boat, then that's not what that quote says.

 

[Whopper]

Have a look at some websites for professional car detailers to get an idea of their correction packages. See what it entails and costs. Not the exact same as a boat but this should help frame the time and roughly the process involved. I really think some yards are just out to gouge people for polishing and compounding boats and the results are terrible for the money!

At a minimum I would expect a good wash, decontaminate metal particulates if necessary, re wash, dry. That could be a days work being generous to whoever you have engaged - most definitely not two days! I can do that on a Broom 38cl in a morning. Basically washing the boat twice! I’m sure some yards wouldn’t bother with this stage.

Then I’d expect the whole boat to be cut with compound. Most likely this is a one stage process with a medium cut compound unless the boat is particularly bad. After that, a final clean and dry (if needed) followed by one or two coats of wax. I can compound the full topsides on a broom 38cl and protect them in a day and a half. Or a rigorous day. This is pretty tiring but the results are good - I posted a picture on your previous post.

Regarding the bucket of water - any decent protection/wax most certainly does not come as some sort of wash and wax you might see in Halfords. Plenty of waxes recommended on the forum but 3m, Meguires etc. come to mind. My go to for an easy job on the boat is Gtechniq C2V3. This year I may try Soft99 Fusso coat.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Thanks for the responses. It confirms that my expectations were reasonable. Unfortunately the job that was done was lousy, along with a bill for £950 which I haven’t paid.

There’s a whole lot more to this sorry tale which I won’t bore you with.

 

[markc]

Sounds like they were a long way from delivering what they quoted for. In your position I wouldn't pay them either - I'd give them 2 choices, 1 - do it again properly, with a full 6 days spent on the boat (with you likely supervising), 2 - they get nothing. There seem no value in paying them a portion for a terrible job because you'll only have to pay someone the full whack to do it properly. If they don't like it, tell them that you'd be happy for the Small Claims Court to give their opinion.

 

[Andrew M]

I would agree that "plus a wax coat" fully implies the wax is a process , it certainly (to me) wouldn't be acceptable to name that as a process when it's just part of the bucket of Simoniz Wash'n'Wax. (if that's what they used)! Don't know what I'd do about it in your place but 1 thing is certain, I wouldn't let them go onboard to re-do the work or to now apply a wax coating, personally I wouldn't trust them to do a decent job.

Really don't know how I'd handle it, only you can see what they've done and apply a reasonable value to the time they've spent, doesn't sound like £950 to me though.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Here’s a few pics taken just a few days after they “finished” and sent the £950 invoice!!
Gleaming!!!???


This pic shows polish splattered over the flybridge cover. There’s many more parts of the cover similarly splattered.
I won’t be paying the invoice, and neither will I have them back on board. I’ll be quite happy if they take me to the small claims court, I have another 80 or so similar pics plus texts and emails expressing my displeasure.
To make matters worse, I sent him a text and left an answer phone message 4 days before he started work telling him to postpone the work till next spring as I would not be available to remove and replace the boat covers. He claims he didn’t receive either of these messages as he was having problems with his phone. That didn’t prevent him using it to take pics of my boat and posting them on facebook on the day he started work!!
You can see from the last pic why I wanted to be there to remove the covers!

 

[alt]

My Cranchi Smeraldo takes 2 full days. I used to do it myself but found a local guy who is damn good so it just makes sense to use him.

I have it washed myself beforehand, so the 2 days is just for compound and polish. He normally uses a finishing compound (3M Finesse It) and a decent quality car polish. This is as 'harsh' as is needed as this is an annual job. I'm on fresh water and west of Ireland (so not much sun) so the gelcoat doesn't have a hard life.

I do get mates rates so I won't discuss the price, however it's less than half of what you quoted.

 

[andy59]

Those photos look terrible LJS, i would think cleaning the covers professionally could cost £950 . Did he have your permission to use your boat for photos ? . Takes 5 days to do our P42 , strip covers cushions, 2 part teak, pressure wash non slip then sponge wash and leather off day 1 / Two days compound whole boat then 2 days hand applied wax/polish off. Got a good guy in Lymington who seems to be picking up plenty of business because he's enthusiastic and does an excellent job. Hope you get sorted out ok.

 

[bowler]

Gutted. Not a grands worth of work by any stretch of the imagination. I wouldn't have them back on board either.

Good luck with the battle.

D

 

[Andrew M]

Looking again at your pics, that amount of spatter on the cover means they've just been totally blitzing the area with an overloaded mop on the polisher to try and get some sort of quick polishing result and (admittedly without knowing the canopy section) couldn't be bothered to lift that section of canopy to polish up underneath it, so best case is that you'll have a distinct end of polished section line showing whenever you remove the canopies. Really not good, and that's without considering how can you walk away from that thinking you've finished without removing the spatter anyway ?? On just a few snapshots it looks like a really poor job.