A ladder, not a menu.

Decontamination

Included in everything below and never sold as an upgrade, because there is no version of this work that can honestly start without it. Chemical first: an iron remover on cold panels to dissolve the brake dust that has embedded itself in the clear coat, which bleeds purple as it works and then gets rinsed away entirely. Tar next, dwelled and drawn off rather than rubbed. Then clay, on a slick surface, one section at a time, folded to a clean face constantly.

You can hear when it is done. A contaminated panel scrapes under a bagged hand; a clean one is silent. If that step is skipped, the first polishing pass grinds every trapped particle across the paint and installs a fresh set of scratches under the ones you paid to remove.

Paint depth survey

Never charged for, always done. A gauge on every painted panel, three readings averaged, written on your report. Modern factory paint runs somewhere near 110–140 µm of total film build, of which only the top 40–50 is clear coat and only that top layer is available to work with. A panel reading 78 has been compounded flat by someone before us, or resprayed thin, and it gets treated with suspicion for the rest of the day.

This is also how a repaint gets caught. A quarter panel reading 210 µm has filler and color under it and behaves nothing like the steel next to it under a pad.

Paint correction

One pass, two passes, or hand refinement only, decided by the readings and by a test section rather than by what was sold in advance. A single-stage finish — older cars, some commercial whites and reds — has no clear coat at all, so the pad is cutting pigment and the pad comes back the color of the car. That car gets a lighter hand and a firm ceiling on how much anyone is allowed to chase.

Ceramic coating

Applied only to paint that has been prepared, because it will preserve exactly what it finds. Panel wipe to strip every trace of polishing oil, then coating leveled section by section under a light that shows high spots, then a night in the closed bay to cure without dust or dew landing on it.

Interior detail

Two different jobs sold under one word. Removing dust, crumbs and the greasy film that builds on a steering wheel is one afternoon. Extracting something that soaked into the foam under a carpet is another, and it involves heat, agitation, a wet vac and drying time you cannot rush in Florida humidity without trading a stain for a smell.

Maintenance wash

The least glamorous line here and the one that decides whether any of the above was worth doing. Two buckets, grit guards, a clean mitt per section, pH-neutral shampoo that does not strip the coating, and drying with air first and a towel second.

New car prep · Lease return

Two jobs at opposite ends of a car’s life, and both are mostly about what not to do. A new car is not a blank surface and should not be coated as if it were. A lease return should be prepared for an inspector with a damage card, not for a car show.

Headlight restoration · Engine bay

Headlights are polycarbonate with a factory UV coating that fails from the outside in, which is why polishing alone is a six-month fix unless the lens is re-sealed afterwards. An engine bay is a careful, mostly low-pressure job around covered electronics, and the honest version of it looks clean rather than wet.