Most owners are not aware that this eyesore can be quickly and permanently fixed by a leather/vinyl repair technician. Here’s the process:

1. Clean the area.
2. Sand with 220 grit. Sand with 400 grit. Sand with 600 grit.
3. Apply leather filler to cracks and wrinkles.
4. Heat lightly with heat gun.
6. Sand with 600 grit.
7. Apply spray texture.
8. Use photo spectrometer to obtain color match.
9. Refer to computer to mix color-matching leather dye.
10. Apply catalyst to leather dye.
11. Tape and mask off repair area.
12. Spray leather dye onto repair surface and cure with light heat.
13. Seat is ready for use in 15 minutes.

Most repairs can be done in 90 minutes and are done for $75 - $200, depending on the extent of the damage. When done correctly, a redye is smooth to the touch and color matching is indistinguishable from the original leather.

This is a very popular option for customers selling their car. A worn driver’s seat in an otherwise mint condition car can sour a buyer’s impression of the car. A redye helps to tidy up the whole package.

The common–and wrong–response to to shampoo and scrub the mold. This seldom works, as adding more moisture to the interior of your car simply gives the mold more opportunity to grow and expand.

Our process:

1. Dry out the car. Usually done using fans or the car’s heater.
2. Disassemble the car. Remove seats. Remove headliner. Remove carpet. Check for mold.
3. Remove mold with steam cleaning and treat it with mildewcide–allow to dry naturally.
4. Many, many components cannot be steamed clean. Seatbelts often are permanently stained and must be replaced. Carpets and the padding beneath often cannot be salvaged and need replacement; same for headliners.
5. Reassemble car with new and cleaned components.

Unfortunately, mold grows in places you cannot obviously see, so a thorough dismantling of your car’s interior is necessary. Yes, this is expensive and can take more than a week sometimes. But we always manage to fix the problem permanently instead of superficially putting the problem off repeatedly with “spot” cleaning.

Our details start at $200 and go up to $300.  That’s about the industry norm for a quality job–inside and out–every button, every switch, every seal, every map pocket, every nook, and every cranny cleaned to as clean as possible.

If you shop around, you can find services (usually mobile) that will do the job for as little as $135.  Sounds like a great deal, right?  Well, in most cases, you could do the same job yourself in a few hours.

Here’s a few areas that separate professional service from average detail service:

• Carpet and upholstery stains.  Pro shops can remove just about every stain (food, food dye, oil, dirt, cola, tea, coffee, blood, etc.).  Amateurs usually scrub them with carpet cleaner once–if it doesn’t come out, they move on.
• Nooks and crannies.  Pros shops use compressed air to clean deep in vents, cup holders, map pockets, under seats, inside door pulls, inside emergency brake sockets, between seats, etc.  All those places you can’t clean with your vacuum cleaner.
• Dry interiors.  One common mistake amateurs make is leaving too much shampoo in carpets and seats!  Pro shops use minimal amounts of shampoo or use a steamer to ensure that when you pick up your car, it is completely dry.  There’s no excuse for asking a customer to “air their car out” after a detail.
• Dirt and moss in exterior window seals, panel gaps, cowls…anywhere dirt tends to settle and can’t be removed with a car wash.  Every pro shop uses a pressure washer and makes it part of their process to blast into these tight spots where dirt settles and lives on the outside of your car.  I should add emblems as a dirt trap as well.
• Swirl free compounding and polishing.  If you own a dark car in particular, beware economy services that will put harsh swirls in your paint, then fill them with wax.  The car may look brilliant when you pick it up, but when the wax washes away…you will get dizzy looking at your car in the sun.
• “Problem” cars.  Some cars have unique issues including:  excessive pet hair, oxidized paint, water spots on windows, urine stains, food odor, dog odor, tobacco odor, heavily stained wheels, and mold.  Small budget, cheap price simply don’t have the equipment to fix these problems that are expected of a professional.
• Proper engine cleaning.  Engine cleaning is relatively easy to do, and relatively easy to do wrong!  Trusting your engine (and all its sensitive electricals) to an inexperienced detailer could cost you thousands.  And what’s the likelihood they have insurance when it happens?
• The details.  Is the radio blasting?  Your heater on high?  Mirrors rearranged?  Was the spare tire cleaned in the trunk?  Are there smears on the windows?  Does the owner have bad breath?  Was the sunroof not cleaned?  Did they deliver on time?  Did they write down your concerns?  These are the small details that make dealing with a company EASY or dealing with a company a HASSLE.  The established shops get these details RIGHT and that’s why they can ask for higher prices year after year and stay in business.

 
You may luck out and find that one budget service that does the job right.  But more than likely, some significant work will be skipped or ignored and you’re likely to have problems with delivery times, customer service, etc.  You don’t get your car detailed often, so why not pay $50 - $100 extra for a job that goes smoothly and correctly?

Over-the-counter solutions often don’t work.  Don’t assume that your waterspot problem can’t be fixed because your hardware store chemical did not remove them.

We use an acid-based solution with an abrasive pad (don’t worry–we know what we’re doing) to remove water spots from glass, chrome, and plastic.  On paint, we simply buff them out with a compound and a wool or foam pad.

Here’s an A4 with tinted windows that had hard water spots.  We removed them from the windows and the paint (not pictured):

Duster 3000 for sale

One of the myths about windshield chip repair is that it makes chips and starbursts disappear completely.  This is not always true.  Depending on the depth of the damage, the size of the damage, and the construction of the glass, some chips can only be improved 50 - 75%.  But the real value of repairing the chip–even if it is cosmetically improved only slightly–is that you are preventing an expense of $275+ in the future.

The newer your car is, the more likely a windshield replacement is to exceed $500 (usually directly out of your pocket, with no insurance help).  Newer windshields are integrating rain sensors and radio antennas.  These can cost $1000+!  Range Rovers have integrated defrosting wires.  Also $1000+!

If you are having your car detailed @ Ace, consider having all of your chips repaired to prevent a future catastrophic crack.  The service starts at $30.  We can do multiple chips for a significant discount.  We only need 30 - 40 minutes to permanently repair these deceivingly simple flaws on your windshield.

It allows detailers to clean fabric seats without the use of chemicals.  The previous method of drenching seats with shampoo, dwelling, scrubbing into a foam, and extracting with a heated extractor often left chemicals in the fabric and water lines and even extractor lines.

Only 20% of detail shops use steamers because of their cost.  We have made the investment in a steamer, and the results are well worth it.

Have a look at the seats in this Saturn SUV.  With shampooing, the seats would be damp for hours and possibly dry with water rings or extractor lines.  With our steamer, the seats are dry and have no “traces” in them.

In most cases, those items (door pulls, consoles, dash inserts) can be repaired instead of replaced.

Here’s how:

1.  Clean thoroughly with rubbing alcohol.
2.  Mask off repair area (twice).
3.  Sand out damage.
4.  Texturize.
5.  Clean again.
6.  Spray black (or dark grey, tan, etc.) plasti dye onto repair areas.
7.  Heat cure with heat gun.

In most cases, the repair cannot be detected, is permanent (longer lasting than the original “Soft Touch” coating, actually), and about one third the cost of replacement.

Have a look at this Saab door panel that we repaired for $50 in 60 minutes:

However, auto body repair is still not a do-it-yourself project. The equipment is too expensive, the materials too dangerous, and the techniques too complicated for someone to attempt themselves. Have a look at this video to look inside a $30,000 paint booth as the presenter describes the importance of applying paint in the correct stages at correct intervals:

In 85% of cases, the smell can be removed at least 90%, if not 100%.

As a general rule, if the car was smoked in 3 years or less, tobacco odors can be removed with the following process:

1. Spray deodorant on all interior surfaces and into air intake of heating/cooling system (near the bottom of the windshield) while running; run for 15 minutes with air conditioner on. Nok-Out is recommended for this task.
2. Thoroughly clean the entire interior. This involves wiping down the headliner (perhaps the most odor absorbent material in the car), shampooing seats, carpets, and floor mats, wiping down all leather, plastic and vinyl surfaces, and cleaning interior windows. Particular attention should be given to EVERYTHING in the driver’s area–steering wheel, buttons, switches, door pulls, seatbelt, console.
3. Spray deodorant on all interior surfaces. At this point, the odor should be eliminated 80%.
4. For final treatment, place an ozone generator in the center of the car for 1 hour while the car runs with the air conditioner running.

Nine times out of ten, the smoke odor can be eliminated or reduced enough that a new owner does not detect that the previous owner was a smoker. Note: leather-equipped cars are easier to service than cloth-equipped cars.

In the instances of extreme odor, the headliner must be replaced, interior carpets replaced, and even seats replaced until the odor is gone or livable.

We’ll share with you the process we use at our detail shop to get streak free, spotless windows in a minimal amount of time.

Use the same materials, the same technique, and clean in the same order every thime you clean your windows. Work from the back of the vehicle and move forward. Clean the outside windows first, as it’s easier to spot streaks on your final look when cleaning on the inside. Always use a non-amonia glass cleaner rated for automotive glass from an auto parts store and a microfiber cleaning towel (also available from auto parts stores). Spray your cleaner on the center of the glass and use a piece of 0000 steel wool to lightly burnish the window (outside windows only; optionally on interior windows but NEVER on tinted windows on the interior). The steel wool does a superb job of removing bugs, sap, fallout, and other embedded contaminants that don’t get removed with cleaner and a towel.

Lower the windows 3 inches. Clean up the grime that collects in the upper 1 inch with steel wool and glass cleaner. Roll up the windows. Go about cleaning the interior windows with two microfiber towels. Spray the center of the window with cleaner, then use towel 1 to wipe away the cleaner. As the cleaner is evaporating, use towel 2 (dry towel) to polish away any streaks. You may have to repeat this process several times until you inspect and find no streaks.

For water spots, use 0000 steel wool and vinegar as your first step, then clean with glass cleaner and rags to absorb the vinegar, then clean with window cleaner and a clean microfiber as your last step.

Perform this process every 6 weeks (takes about 15 minutes if you have no water spots) and your windows will be flawless even in direct sunlight all the time.

-Ace Car Reconditioning

Get your sunglasses, thongs, and sunscreen out.  And while your at it, why not UV protect yourself in your car where you spend over an hour a day!

Window tinting is not for the vain.  There are practical reasons to get your windows tinted:

1. Safety. The contents of your car are less visible to thieves.  At night, there’s almost invisible, so if there is a prowler around he will almost certainly skip your car.
2. Skin Protection. It’s amazing that people will put on skin block for a 15 min. walk, but none for a 1 hour drive!  Tint your windows to add 99.5% UV protection and you are creating a virtual UV bubble around yourself when driving.
3. Prevent Damage to Your Car’s Interior. In the sun, dashboards shrink, crack, and discolor.  Leather hardens and discolors.  A $200 - $250 investment in window tinting will keep your car’s interior fresh for years.  You’ll get  more than your investment back when you sell your car in such great condition.
4. Driving Safety. Glare from all directions is a major distraction on sunny days.  With tinted windows, you drive with fewer distractions and drive safely.

Although it may seem teenagers and movie stars are attracted to tinted windows, a handful of practical car owners know that the real benefits are not vain, but very very practical.

At Ace Car Reconditioning in Beaverton, we use top quality SunTek film with a lifetime guarantee enforced at all SunTek installer shops nationwide (if you move out of Portland, there will be a shop to provide you warranty service in your new city).  Your tint job is guaranteed to be finished on time, at a competitive price, and be free of all bubbles, wrinkles, and other flaws.