Clear wrap disaster, resolution, and advice sought

ATTENTION DERAND, CALLING DERAND!

Strap in fellas, this one is a doozie...

I haven't been on the forum all week as I've been terribly depressed. I dropped off my brand new GT350R at "the best wrap shop in town" to have a full clear wrap and Modesta BC-04 applied while I was on vacation. I picked the car up on Tuesday and this is what I found:





























How much did this cost me? $5400. Yup. That price included rolling edges that you can see aren’t rolled, wrapping the spoiler, etc. Perfection is impossible, and I really don't want it anyway as these cars comes from the factory kinda wonky. But that's a bad wrap job at any price, and it damaged original manufacture.

The shop has 4+ star reviews on Yelp, Facebook, and plenty of great reviews on every car forum I've been able to find. I've seen their work first hand and it was the reason I chose them. They do 918s, GT3 RS, Aventadors, etc.

As you can see there wasn't a straight edge or edge that runs parallel to the bodywork anywhere on the car. Cuts are terribly jagged. It's obvious that a razor was used AGAINST THE CLEAR COAT as the paint is scratched. There was hair, dirt, etc. under the wrap.

Worst of all, for some reason they applied 5-pieces of film to the hood, roof, and trunk each. The car has stripes which we agreed to cover with one whole sheet. There's no reason to cover the painted section separate from the striped section unless you've got matte stripes. They cut the edges by hand while on the car, including into the stripes. The 5 pieces wouldn’t even be that bad if they had been machine cut, but the hand cuts are beyond wavy.

I kinda lost my shit. I was sort of able to hide it, but I'm 6'4" and 215lbs and when my hands start to shake and my voice begins to tremble it's pretty obvious that I'm not OK with this. Bad words were said.

I spoke to the manager. I provided dozens of pictures to the owner. I did a 15 minute video walk around identifying all of the issues.

They owned up to it. The owner of the shop isn't involved in the day-to-day to the best of my knowledge, but clearly it's his call on how to proceed. The manager and the client-facing guy admitted that this was not up to their standards and promised that they'd make things right. I asked the two guys independently what happened, and they were embarrassed and surprised. I don’t know the details of who the hell was working on the car, but it wasn’t their top guy clearly. A guy that runs a competing shop got wind of this and made some calls. According to him the tint guy did the PPF, but I don’t know what the truth is.

My e-mail to the owner, manager, and client-facing guy:

I will give SHOP the opportunity to correct this to my satisfaction. That means that that car needs to be restored to the condition it was in when I delivered it to you:

• All of the film needs to removed by SHOP as there isn’t a single satisfactory application on any body panel, and the current film is obscuring potential paint damage.
• Any damage to the paint needs to be repaired at SHOP’s cost.
• Damaged OEM stripes need to be replaced at SHOP’s cost, including those that might be damaged by removing the film or repairing the paint.

As agreed, the immediate next step is to remove the film to inspect underneath and understand the extent of any paint and stripe damage. I will be present during the film removal to document the condition of the car. All steps after that will depend on what we find under the film.

They agreed. So what did we find under the film? The trunk and hood stripes are fucked and have to be replaced. The clear coat is lightly stratched along the stripe lines on the trunk and the hood, and in a few other spots, but it’s not so deep that a polish won’t fix it. To my surprise, the film was removed without damaging the undamaged stripes, which is good news, I guess.

The car is back in my possession, unwrapped, and damaged. The damage is fixable without having to add paint, but it’s damaged.

My next move is yet to be decided.

Option 1) Get the shop to do it again. Correct the paint, replace the stripes, and put one piece each on the hood, roof, trunk. The shop is collocated with the best detail shop in town (another reason I picked them) who has agreed to do the paint correction, and I trust that they’ll do it right. I’m pretty sure that the shop won’t screw it up this time and will put the guy that does Aventador/918/458 wraps on the job, so I have a reasonable expectation that the job will be done correctly. It's in their interest to knock this out of the park.

Option 2) Get my money back, have somebody else correct the paint, reapply the stripes, and wrap the car, and have the first shop reimburse me for parts and labor.

I’m leaning towards Option 1. Everything about this points to it being an anomaly. Bad job, bad quality control, bad client management, but an anomaly nonetheless. Even the guy from the competing shop vouched for the integrity and quality of the offending shop.

I don’t harbor any ill will, I just want my car to be done to my satisfaction and to receive a quality of work commensurate with its cost.

Fuck me. I need a drink

That is beyond awful and for the amount of money you spent it should have never been let go to you in that condition.

At least they are owning up to it and willing to make it right. I think option #1 would be best, I'm sure they'll put their top guy on it. If they are on that many forums they don't want any bad press at all, so it's REALLY in their best interest to take complete care of you and make sure you're happy every step of the way.

Sorry man. That totally bites. My advice would be to go somewhere else to have the wrap done. Why give them a chance to fu*k it up again?

I'm headed in with my GT350 on Monday. Got 3 recommendations, looked at their work but you know they will never show you the bad jobs. It's a crap shoot. I'm hoping this does not turn into a nightmare. I have never done a clear bra so fingers crossed.

I hope you get this sorted out. I know this would drive my OCD nuts ad I'm not sure I would have handled it as well as you did.

Ive been thinking about wrapping the front my my car. 5400 is dangerously close to the price of a paint job is it worth it at that price?

firestarter2 said:

Ive been thinking about wrapping the front my my car. 5400 is dangerously close to the price of a paint job is it worth it at that price?

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Original paint is only original once. Granted, Ford paint blows.

Man, sorry to see this. I would start by getting a 100% refund, right now - and I mean now. If they balk, hopefully you put this on a credit card so you can charge it back. I'd get everything in writing saying they will pay for the repairs to the car and I'd take it somewhere else.

If someone expects that shit to fly, even once - trust is gone. I wouldn't want to let a shop that blatantly tried to screw me, keep my money OR put their hands on the car again.

Recap- Refund, agree to fix damages, get damages fixed, take it somewhere else, ATTEMPT to get them to pay for the damages, which always seems to be the hard part - could require attorney.

PS - most shops have templates and pre-cut the film. These guys obviously didn't want to spend the money or couldn't get the template for your car, as all of that is hand cut..and horribly so. I'd be really surprised if some of the cuts don't extend through the clear coat, sorry to suggest that :(

[MENTION=20243]50 Deep[/MENTION]had his car done locally and from what he tells me, it's spot on. From what you said the shop has owned up to their mistake(s), but the fact they tried to even pass this off as acceptable is pretty shitty to say the least. They have several panels without stripes they could have redone, but they chose not to. If they agree, give them one chance to make it all good - and give it a thorough once over. If you find any flaws, cut your losses and look into another vendor - while pursuing a refund.

Hearing this stuff makes me sick. What ever happened to pride in workmanship?

Wow, so sorry to hear. Seems like you got the "Mustang" treatment and not the "exotic" treatment.

Spacebird said:

Option 2) Get my money back, have somebody else correct the paint, reapply the stripes, and wrap the car, and have the first shop reimburse me for parts and labor.

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This. After seeing the pictures and the no ***** given job they did the 1st time, I wouldn't trust them to do the rework.

I thought mine came out bad, jesus. Mine had a couple tiny bubbles and a couple wrinkles on the front bumper that didn't clear up sitting in the sun. Brought it back to the manager and he's going to fix it no questions asked. The other panels were more or less perfect. I mean it's vinyl. Nothing is perfect but damn.

how the hell could any shop even consider giving that back to a customer? thats terrible, and even worse it was a highly recommended shop. who at the shop did the work? i would confront him and the owner and if you bring it back to them make sure that dipshit stays away from your car

^^ That's another thing (can you tell this has me worked up?!?) - I wouldn't even trust them to store my car at this point. The person who did the work, if someone didn't check his work, might be on the hook for this and not happy about it. Being the type of person who would even do this type of work, I wouldn't put it past them to do something else to the car, on purpose or otherwise.

Wow, that makes me sick to my stomach. I cannot imagine how you felt when you saw your car, Spacebird. That is an absolute travesty even more so because of the price you paid. Who the heck is in charge of quality control and final inspection?

I cannot believe that someone cut the pieces by hand ON YOUR CAR. ugh.

I have Xpel Ultimate on about 1/3 of my car and I'm very happy with it. Whole hood wrap (like you wanted) and the rest of the pieces were cut by the machine. It is possible to get good results with this stuff.

As far as advice, I really don't know what to tell you. The lack of attention on a $5400 job is mind-blowing to me. It would be hard to trust them to make it right.

straightliner1 said:

[MENTION=20243]50 Deep[/MENTION]had his car done locally and from what he tells me, it's spot on. From what you said the shop has owned up to their mistake(s), but the fact they tried to even pass this off as acceptable is pretty shitty to say the least. They have several panels without stripes they could have redone, but they chose not to. If they agree, give them one chance to make it all good - and give it a thorough once over. If you find any flaws, cut your losses and look into another vendor - while pursuing a refund.

Hearing this stuff makes me sick. What ever happened to pride in workmanship?

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Hate to say it but they did a terrible job on your car [MENTION=19886]Spacebird[/MENTION]. The lines are terrible, the edges aren't properly rolled, and they should have only used one solid piece of film on the hood.

I had Genesis in Elk Grove handle mine. They have the ability to precut all the panels based on a template so there is no concern with wavy edges. That shop basically was cutting all the edges by hand with a razor blade. That is why you have scratches and uneven ends. When I wipe my car down I am surprised when I find where the PPF ends, and that is the way it should be. My car also does not have any orange peel look to it. They also should have removed the center vent on the hood to apply thei film, this way you wouldn't get air pockets around it.

With all that said I feel for you. I wouldn't let that shop take care of the car any further. Get a full refund and find someone with the proper machine to precut everything. They had to do a custom piece on my hood since there is no template for the full hood, by even that is flawless.