Took My Car To A Detail Shop For The Mold Issue: Nightmare

[UrQuattro]

So, I had recently let you guys know that my car got really moldy after a few weeks of rain under a car cover. It ended up leaking pretty bad.

Anyway, because of my 6 month old top of the line sport seat which is upholstered in alcantara, I decided to play it safe and take it to a pro. Ilooked around in my area and chose a shop that had some great reviews and maintains some of the cars for a local Porsche dealership.

I also had them do the exterior as it needed a good work over.

The exterior looks incredible. It blew me away.

But, they warned me that They weren't able to get the mold/mildew out of the alcantara. I was really disappointed by that, but I figured that I could take it somewhere else and have them work just on that seat.

Well, when. Walked up to the car, I nearly cried. My 6mo old 1000 dollar seat was ruined. When I dropped it off, I told them that the manufacturer of the material recommends not using a steam cleaner. Well, they must have scrubbed the hell out of the seat bottom. A full 1/4 of it is ruined. Instead of looking like a microsuede, it looks torn up, with long threads and strands with no discernible nap to it anymore. Plus, the mold stain was still there. I looked at the sides and they didn't even try to do the same thing on the parts of the seat that had a little mold on it. They went ahead with the steam cleaner and made it impossible for me to salvage what was left.

For the most part, the interior was cleaner and looked better than I had seen it in years.

So, I paid them, and started driving home. During my drive home, I found that the must have broken the rearview mirror off of the car since it was upside down. The cap that covers the nut that holds down the passenger windshield wiper was broken completely off.

On the interior, there was still standing water on the floor and under the seats.

They somehow popped the little fan icon off of the hvac control panel, and that is now missing.

They also broke the turn signal/headlight dimmer switch. It was physically stuck with the high beams on.

I won't even get in to the huge amount of mold still on the drivers seat belt, which was still wet. As well as the residue all o er everything rubber.

I pulled over and told the shop that I was heading back. When I got there, the owner was there and told me that I was right about the shortcuts as far as the interior detailing, and then proceeded to try to use the headlight dimmer switch, finding out exactly what I said, that the tuen signals work but it is stuck in high beams. His reply was that he didn't know why one of his guys would break it.

Anyway, it looks like they are going to redo the interior, this time pulling the seats out (though at this point there's nothing agreed upon regarding the sparco seat-but I think that he will end up doing what I requested, which is to reupholster the seat bottom and the passenger side bolster). He's also going to have the switch replaced too it seems. He's holding off on amything else until I meet with him again in a couple days when they are open again and show the pictures that I have of the car that prove that these things were not broken.

I'm tired of typing. I'm still depressed over this. I am floored over that seat. It is less than 6 months old.

Argh.

Michael

[Bill Douglas]

It sounds like one of these situations that go from bad to worse - sorry.

I'd have a friendly chat with a lawyer and see what he thinks.

[VroomGrrl]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

It sounds like one of these situations that go from bad to worse - sorry.

I'd have a friendly chat with a lawyer and see what he thinks.

Well I'm a lawyer, and I wouldn't say he is at the point of needing to "lawyer up" yet.

Michael - decide what you think is a fair resolution, and whatever that is, ask for it. If you are the demanding type, or even if you're not, demand it. If you're not treated fairly, which'll mean you are out some $$, and if it's worth it to you to hire a lawyer to pursue a fair resolution, then go for it. I hope you don't have to do that!

I had a much less traumatic mold problem in my car - it leaked, then sat closed a few days, and the carpet turned to mold HELL. No problem with the seats, though, which are just stock, but leather. I took it to a detail place that I've taken it to before, showed them the mold, and after some discussion, had them start with a thorough shampoo and dry-out. I'm lucky i didn't have to do more than that, like replace the carpet. I still need to track down the leak.

Hopefully this thread will have a happy ending!

[Geronimo '74]

Sorry to read this, man.
I had the luck of having to witness the aftermath of a botched up job myself a few times.
Not fun.
Hope it turns out better than worse.

[steely]

Sorry about that Michael - I was hoping there was a silver lining in this story.
WTF? standing water? Makes you wonder if they treat all cars like that.

[tquaglino]

I'm curious to see the damage.

[t6dpilot]

Really sorry to hear of your pain with that detail shop. It sounds like they have one or two (depending on who worked on the car) heavy handed detailers. I own a full service car wash and detail shop and if any of my guys did that, the door could not hit them in the arse fast enough. I teach and stress very high quality of work or our customers will never come back. On very rare occaision, you may make a mistake and break something minor when detailing a car. But that may happen once in a couple hundred cars. It just sometimes happens and even I have almost had it happen to me (and I am VERY careful). But this sounds as if they assigned that detail to a bull - there is absolutely no excuse for the poor quality of that detail. If the owner is a reasonable person and cares about his business, then he will make it right with you. In every case, I have tried to go above and beyond to make sure my customers get the situation remedied to their satisfaction.

Regarding the mold, even the best detail shop with the best products may not have been able to remove that completely. Some stains are just impossible to remove no matter how hard you try. But that does not excuse them from scrubbing that seat to within an inch of its life and the generally horrible quality. Too bad you are not in the Chicago area, I would have you bring it by. Good luck with your resolution.

[UrQuattro]

Hey all,

I just re-read my post.. It isn't a Porsche sport seat that I had upholstered, it is a Sparco Milano Alcantara seat.

Thank you for the support and the confidence building information.

I have a couple questions for Scott and Ms. Vroom.

When i was on the phone with the owner, when i called him after i got home from leaving the car there, and i realized that i wanted something done with the seat, during the conversation, i said that i'd like to have the upholstry on the seat replaced in order to reverse the damage done to it. I was trying to be reasonable, and said that i just wanted the sections that were beyond repair to be replaced. His response was a somewhat sarcastic, "are you wanting me to replace the seat?!?", I replied that, no, i did not expect the whole seat to be replaced, but that i did want something done with it, as i no longer have the ability to bring it somewhere else that has more experience with alcantara and have them work on it...

So, to you guys, do you think it is better to request a replacement seat, or to have the seat cover material replaced? I am really not a demanding person. I generally am pretty soft, and i tend to avoid confrontation, so this is kind of new territory for me to be demanding regarding something that could go either way. With the pieces that were physically broken, etc, there is no question, those get replaced. But the seat seems to be a "soft" point... Yes, it was damaged when i brought it to them in that there were spots of mold/miildew on it. BUT, I specifically told the person who checked the car in to their possession that the company that makes alcantara specifically states in their stain cleaning guidelines that steam cleaning should be avoided. I told him that they recommend using ethyl-alcohol on the fabric on some stains. I then asked if they had experience with this material, and he said yes. I then said, ok, then i will not presume to instruct a professional, and said that i trusted them. I also made it clear that the most important part of this whole job was that seat.

So, should i ask them to replace the seat, or just re-cover it?

Beyond that,
I am really angry with the attitude of the owner. In my opinion, he was insulting and dismissive of a lot of the issues because the car is, "an old car" and "these cars are always headaches", "if I were here, I would not have chosen to work on the car". I ended up having to go on the defensive about the car because of a few things.

1. The starter is not working - i found out about this mold issue because i had set it up with a friend to take the car down to his shop where he has a really nice lift and install the used starter that i got from on the board here. The car would push start with no issue, but I decided not to drive it over to the detail shop because i was worried about being in a car with a bunch of mold visible. So, I had it towed over to the detail shop, after confirming that it was ok, and letting them know that the starter wouldnt work.

2. It IS an older car, and it does in fact leak water. I would imagine that most older cars that have a moldy interior are generally cars that are not taken care of and are in poor condition overall, with various broken pieces, etc..

3. Apart from the mold, the car was dirty. The outside needed a wash and wax. The wheels needed some serious cleaning and the lips needed some work to clean them up. (they are gold centered BBS style basket-weave wheels). And, the interior was dirty - apart from my Sparco seat, everything in there is original. I did not have any floor mats in there, as i have been using the car without them until i get this leaking issue resolved ( i just ordered one of the correct front targa seals from Dan at cars inc., which im going to have installed once i get my car back and have the starter installed.) so, without the floor mats, it makes the car look more "dirty" and less well taken care of.

3. His employees told him that it was REALLY dirty when it came in, etc etc...

4. I had inherited this car from my father when he passed away. When he was really sick and unable to drive much, someone broke in to the car and stole the stereo head unit - meaning that the already exposed wiring under the dash became a significant amount of loose wiring in the passenger footwell...

So, put all that together and it is easy to see how one would get an impression that this was a junker that cleaned up decently well, and the owner is now trying to take advantage of a screwed up situation...

Fortunately, i have pictures that are about 3 months old, and they show the car in very good shape. yeah, the wiring is all over the place, but the pieces that are now broken are present in the car. So, when i told the owner that I have pictures from before that show that these small parts that have been broken were present, he said that he wanted to see them... They also show the condition of the sparco seat when it was pretty much new - a few months after i had it installed...

[UrQuattro]

Oh, and I'll try to get some pictures when I meet with the owner in a couple days.

Michael

[James Brown]

Only in California. Come on, clean your own car! It's part of "manhood" to maintain your own car unless you are too busy, than hand it over to some 18 year olds to do it for you. Than sue them if they screw it up. That makes sense. Get a bucket, soap, cleaner, ect, and spend some quality time cleaning it. or, sell it and buy a Ferrari. sheeesh

[porschenut]

My take would be that you should probably share the cost of getting the seat reupholstered. Aside from the seat cover, the seat is fine isn't it? My reasoning is, the mold ruined the seat even before you brought it to him. I assume it's possible that the mold might not be fixable no matter what, so you may have needed to replace it anyway. I guess you'd have to get opinions from other detailers to know one way or the other. Splitting the cost of the reupholster job seems like a reasonable compromise. As for the other items that were broken, that's inexcusable and the detailer should absolutely pay to have those all fixed.

[UrQuattro]

Originally Posted by James Brown

Only in California. Come on, clean your own car! It's part of "manhood" to maintain your own car unless you are too busy, than hand it over to some 18 year olds to do it for you. Than sue them if they screw it up. That makes sense. Get a bucket, soap, cleaner, ect, and spend some quality time cleaning it. or, sell it and buy a Ferrari. sheeesh

WTF? If the interior was simply dirty, i would have cleaned it. It was full of mold, and after talking to various people, including a rep from Sparco, it was decided that taking it to a professional detailing shop would be the best way to go. I paid a lot of money to have this done , and was told that it would be done right, and that extra care would be taken with the Sparco seat so that the mold would not come back.

There was not an 18 year old in sight at this shop.

As far as my "manhood" for maintaining my own car, I used to own a race team, and we were sponsored by Audi, and were given an A4 2.8 quattro as part of the sponsorship package. We raced in a NASA touring car series for a few years until we split amicably as they focused on ALMS and such. I was the backup driver, and I also maintained the car myself.

I also own an 83 Audi urQuattro that is nowhere near stock, and I was the one who did the modifications. I maintained it myself, fabricated parts for it, etc etc.

Right now, I dont have access to my tools or a place to work on my car because of where i live, and due to other personal reasons. The situation I am in right now with this detail/body shop is because of that.

Otherwise, I DO maintain the car myself. This is also the first p-car I have ever owned, so I am still learning the car... nevertheless, I needed a professional for this particular situation.

Why the attitude? Could you be a bit more pretentious?

Michael

[UrQuattro]

Porschenut - I had that thought too. I'm sure that sparco must be able to make certain sections of the correct material available to body shops for various reasons, and this detail shop also has a body shop. And yeah, i did bring the car in with stains on the sparco seat, but the stains did not destroy the texture and integrity of the material. So, i had planned on taking it somewhere else that has more experience with Alcantara (i mean, it is freaking machine washable, so in the end, i would have had an upholstry shop pull the material off the seat and then it could be washed - which would almost definitely have taken out any staining...). But now that the material's integrity and appearance is compromised, that is no longer an option.

I was going to have them install the new over-the-windshield seal that i have on order from Dan, but i am not going to be doing that after this experience. It's strange... The job they did on the exterior (other than the broken cap on the windshield wiper) was truly fantastic... I've never seen the wheels look so amazing, and they did a lot of touch-up on rock chips all over the car, and the color-match is great...

And if i look past the problems in the interior, overall, it was well done...

But, as you said, the carelessness, the lack of attention to detail, and the breaking of things is truly inexcusable.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by VroomGrrl

Well I'm a lawyer, and I wouldn't say he is at the point of needing to "lawyer up" yet.

Read on I rest my case.

[white99c2]

This is why I will not let anyone touch my 911. I do everything myself, its a pain sometimes but at least I know what is being done to my car.

[James Brown]

Well mr. quatro mechanic, if you can build your own engine/racecar can't you clean your own seats? Like azrob226 says "this is why I will not let anyone touch my 911". Most service centers are ok for the Benz-Audi-BMW crowd, but not for me, ya get what ya pay for.

[UrQuattro]

Ok, i give up, you are a much better Porsche owner than I am, James Brown. I can't hold a candle to your Porsche owner skills. I am but a grasshopper to your magnificence and perfection.

I didn't say that I built the car, i said i maintained it.

Michael

[RSTarga]

From my experience, alcantara is not only very difficult to get hold of , but also more expensive. If you want to get the seat done right send it to Tony at autobahn interiors. I still think that if you had let it completely dry in direct sunlight, most of the mold could have either been vaccumed out or blwn out with an air compressor.
All these high tech chemicals in minimum wage hands are dangerous!

[UrQuattro]

The seat was completely dry, actually. To my knowledge the seat never got wet. I think that the car became a greenhouse under the sun with the cover on, and some spores probably got on the seat and that's that.

I appreciate the info though.

I don't think that sparco would have problems getting the correct alcantara cuts due to th fact that they produce this seat covered in alcantara.

They said that the chemicals they were using were based on orange oil, not harsh solvents.

But, in the end, it wasn't the chemicals that ruined it, it was the steam cleaning, which is said to be a no no by the manufacturer of the alcantara. As I said above, I told them that, but they insisted that they had experience with it. I believed him because of this company's affiliation with a local Porsche dealership. They also work with a Lambo, Ferrari, Aston Martin, bentley, etc. Set of dealers. And I know for a fact that all of these manufacturers use alcantara in their interiors.

Michael

[VroomGrrl]

Michael, any progress with this situation? I would think that if they repair what they broke, and have your seat recovered, that would be fair. You brought them a soiled, potentially damaged seat (you don't really know what was going to happen when any process was used to remove the mold, do you?) so I think requesting a whole new seat is overkill. I hope you get this resolved to your satisfaction - without lining any lawyer pockets! Do please keep us posted.