Lawler's Auto Detailing

I want to be as fair with this review as I can. When I have a bad interaction with a small business, I usually just look the other way but this one stung and honestly, I felt like I had to share my experience. First, I want to say that this is the first time I have ever paid for a professional detailing service. Unfortunately, this will likely be the last time I will do so as well. I paid for an interior and exterior detail, and paid additional for pet hair removal. This service cost me $265. The detailing took 2ish hours, which seemed rather fast. I should have taken the time to inspect everything thoroughly before leaving but I had a sudden emergency come up and had to get to Augusta quickly. I was asked how it looked... at first glance, it looked okay so that's what I said. As I was driving away, I started to see issues. The mirrors & my windows were not clean (complete with my dog's distinctive nose prints). I found waxy cleaner in my gear shift. The dash had debris & was still dusty in areas. The window controls were still very dirty. My steering wheel was not cleaned properly. The list would have gone on... but my "check engine" light came on. I started getting alerts that my engine power was reduced & my Stabilitrak needed to be serviced. I was not able to get the car above 30 MPH because of this, which meant I was unable to resolve my emergency that night. To the owners credit - he answered my call, scanned the car and tried to help. He asked for me to keep him in the loop. The vehicle was paid-off & fully-serviced the day prior, and I was getting it detailed to celebrate. My mechanic was able to fit me in again that day, even though he had other customers and was going out of his way to make time for me. He scanned & inspected my vehicle and found that the sensors by my pedals were soaked. He had seen this happen before with detailing jobs, and I was advised to run high heat at the floor boards as long as possible. If that didn't work it would be about $650 for the part (before labor). We informed the owner of Lawler's of this update, and he said he could get the part for much cheaper if needed. I'm not sure how that would be because I verified the pricing of the parts myself, but again- he was trying to be helpful. He offered to fix the detailing I was concerned about as well. I ran the heat for several hours that evening and that seemed to resolve the issue. This cost me gas, and time. I could also not return to work because of this. Today, I reached out and requested a partial refund. I asked for this refund because I felt like I not only overpaid for service - but I was given a, to put it mildly, headache that cost me additional time and money to fix. The owner renewed his offer to have the detailing fixed, and again, in the interest of being fair - he also offered to loan me his car, while he worked on mine. I appreciate the out of the box thinking, I do... But it's not about the detailing itself anymore - it's the entire experience. I know that it was not their intention to create mechanical issues for me - but they did. I know it wasn't their intention for me to lose valuable time and money trying to resolve those mechanical issues, but that happened. And to be honest? I have zero trust in this business as a result of this experience. If you went through this - would you? Everyone I've asked has given me the same response - no. After a lot of back and forth where I had to repeat myself numerous times - my request for a partial refund was ignored. The owner was only willing to fix the detailing. To circle back to how I started this review - I don't take leaving a bad review for a small business lightly. I reached out today in hopes my request would be heard and that we could reach a resolution that worked for both of us, but that was not the outcome of my conversation. I hope that my review helps someone make an informed decision about where they decide to get their vehicle detailed and that the owner of this business can learn from my feedback as well.

8/25/2022