Dealer Prep Or Not

[mculver]

In the next 5 weeks I will be hopefully taking delivery of my 2016 GT. Trying to decide if I should have the dealer prep the entire car before delivery or should I tell them not to wash or prep the exterior so as not to take a chance of any swirl marks in the paint.

What is everyone's thoughts on this. Is this too obsessive? I normally would not think much about this until I see all these posts on this forum and it shows how much people really care about their Mustangs. Not sure what my local dealer's policy is. I definitely don't want them to slap that dealer sticker on the car.....they can just give me a shirt instead :-)

Sponsored

 

[BBB]

I only let the dealer take the plastics off. I told them not to wash the car, not put any of their stickers on it and not to drill the front plate bracket. I think you'll find that many people do the same.

 

[Finally]

As tempting as that sounds, what if the paint is covered with dirt/dust when you take delivery. You take it home and find that there were already scratches/swirls in the paint. I can't imagine that most dealers would take your word for it. Pretty hard to prove that they were there at delivery if it's not documented. As much as I don't trust all dealers to treat the finish as well as I do, I also don't trust most of them to fix something that they can easily worm their way out of. Guess I've been burned once too often.

 

[Ecoboosted]

I wouldn't let the dealership wash mine or do anything. I didn't want to take a chance. I picked my car up with plastic still on parts of the interior. Nothing like swirl marks on a brand new car. :(

 

[madweazl]

The dealers take terrible care of the paint over time but I wouldnt worry much about having them do the initial prep. Have them do it, note any discrepancies, and get the issues resolved if need be.

 

[HybridGT]

Mr. Larry says tell the dealer not to prep the car

Go to 1:25

[ame="[MEDIA=youtube]7bG7oVjg77o[/MEDIA]"]

 

[Excelerater]

My car is heading to the best guy I know for detailing at the dealers expense to have it
made look right tomorrow and do a little touch up also ...No offence Ford has the worst paint and final delivery I have ever seen...Dont let him prep it,lot jockeys are
swirl monsters

 

[L8APEX]

The dealer prep is apart of the PDI. I would strongly advise having the dealer do the PDI, just tell them not to wash it. If there is damage, they will fix it. If you refuse PDI, you might be denied any future fixes.

Make sure you inspect the car thoroughly before taking delivery.

 

[GrabberBlue5.0]

Maybe I'm spoiled with a great dealer... Maybe I just don't care about swirl marks, but I have no problem letting the dealer wash my car or running it through a car wash that scrubs for me, or driving the car 20k miles per year through the snow and rain and dirt.

It's a great car, I really really like my 2015 GT and take great care of it, but I also want to enjoy every bit of it and I don't have the time to be OCD with it because of all the miles I put on it. I have better things to do than hand wash the car every other day.

So to answer your question, yes, I think you're being too anal about it... But that's just my 2 cents


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Katastrophe]

Last 2 Mustang's I've bought, I've had them leave the plastics on and not touch anything. They let me stare it at as long as I wanted before I drove it home and still didn't mind fixing little things after I noticed them when I got home. Amazing dealer.

Either way, it depends on how you feel with your new car. I'm the only one to wash and detail my car. That's just me. If you don't mind the occasional swirl or scratch, then let the dealer do it. Depends on your level of OCD...

 

[Chameleon]

I would just tell them not to drill the front plate or put a dealer sticker on.

 

[HybridGT]

From my past experiences way too many dealers don't prep cars properly. Most just use a shitty cloth to wipe the car down after a wash, or even worse... use a car wash machine.

For sure, lots of people don't care about swirls. But there are plenty that do.

 

[boolean]

When we bought the jeeps we got them muddy on the test drive and after the detail guy nearly died we told him we didn't want them cleaned and he was very thankful and I just realized that I am on the mustang forum and not the jeep one but I already typed this.

Also, I never allow them to detail any car including the stang (100% agree with the PDI comments above though). Do I get the record for most unrelated run on sentence ever now?

 

[Lowrider]

Say NO to dealer prep!...I took delivery of my dirty car and was happy with my detailer cleaning it up with no initial swirls.

 

[lint28]

I had no problem with my dealer washing the car.

Sponsored