1. The rust, to use a word the OP is fond of was "horrendous" . It took hours of very hard work to blast it all off. Now, that it's covered with a coating, Mr. Richard Smith of Durham claims that "it wasn't too bad". No-one else in the country apart from myself would have the equipment needed to blast off the rust like this and no-one else would have touched it. Without my work the vehicle was heading pretty quickly to the scrap yard. Mr. Smith complains about a hole blasted in the filler pipe. I was not aware of this having happened or I would have told him about it. But it's not my responsibility. If you have such a rusty vehicle, my pressure washer is going to make holes. There is no point in doing it unless the rust is blasted off and if there is some rot, this will I'm afraid become apparent. To blame me for the rot is unfair to say the least!
2. This is a vehicle that is 15 foot long and nearly 6 feet wide. So at least 80 square feet of rust to blast off and then coat on the underbody, not counting probably another 50 square fee to cover in the cavities, sills, door, box section, tailgate etc.. There are hundreds of fittings underneath which require spraying from several angles. There will inevitably be a few, hopefully small, areas missed and my terms and conditions, which Mr. Smith signed, make this clear. While I admit that there are some small areas missed, there are some things in Mr. Smith's account which I know to be untrue, "...nothing in the tailgate..: for example
3. I gave a 10 year guarantee on the vehicle. The guarantee is this: "If you see any rust coming through the coating, bring it back and have it retreated free of charge. With such a rusty vehicle it is bound to need to come back for re-treatment at least once. I use £120 of materials to coat such a huge vehicle and I have around £350 of overheads a day. So this is pro-bono work. Should I stop doing such rusty vehicles when this is the gratitude I get? Should I change my marketing efforts to targetf shiny new Pumas which are easy to do, whose owners can afford to pay me and are very grateful for the work I do? Well the people with very rusty vehicles are usually people like myself who work with their hands and are not rich. I consider myself the only person who can do such rusty vehicles. Most of them are very grateful, so no, I won't stop doing these vehicles. However, I am instituting a new system. I have commissioned a Content Management System with which I can take photos, before, during and after the process and these will be posted up on my website as a record of the job (so an owner of a very rusty car will no longer be able to claim, like Mr. Smih, once I've coated it that "it wasn't too bad") I will also be instituting an a) to e) classification system. Under this system, Mr. Smith's car would be d) "cars which are so rusty that they are very likely to need re-treatment under the guarantee". Owners of these cars will have to pay an extra £100 on the day of treatment and re-treatment under the guarantee will cost £200.
4. My terms and conditions state that if the owner is not satisfied for any reason,a) the vehicle has to be returned for rectification and b) no refunds are given under any circumstances. Does Mr. Smith not think that I would carry out any rectifications which he thinks are necessary? Why does he not want to bring the vehicle back for rectification? He complains about the long distance and the fuel cost and it is indeed a long way to come. 192 miles. But that is the price you have to pay if you have a really rusty vehicle that you want to save from the scrapyard. I am doing the car for free because it will need to come back for re-treatment at some stage, so I am taking my fair share of the pain.
I suggested to Mr. Smith that rectification is not urgent and can be done in the next year or two years or even three years and that he must surely travel south for some reason or other in this time and that he should just pressure wash the areas in question before coming so that I can spray the areas missed and he can be on his way again very quickly.
Finally, Mr. Smith brings up the question of my age. In fact, as some people know, I'm a health nut and consider myself to be much healthier than most 50 year olds apart from some hearing loss. So I don't see myself retiring for a while. I'm quite happy doing what I do. I have been giving 5 year and 10 year (if you count KLEENtect and now CR coating) for the past 17 years and no-one can complain that I have refused to do guarantee work during that time. Also, I can sell the business when I feel too decrepit to do the work anymore (that's a long way off as I see it) and it will be in the new owner's interest to honour my commitments.
By posting his diatribe and refusing to bring the vehicle back for rectification, Mr. Smith is in breach of contract so unless he contacts me very soon to arrange for rectification I shall withdraw the guarantee cover. The guarantee is transferable with ownership. If he then sells the car and tells the new owner there is a guarantee and the new owner contacts me for re-treatment, I will put him or her wise and suggest that they sue Mr. Smith for the cost of re-treatment.
Edit: I made a mistake about the year of manufacture of the vehicle based on a wrong interpretation of the registration plate so I have edited that out from the above.
Cheers Chris
