PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

@shakerhood

Any idea where I could find out how many RCs were built?

 

My Guess would be All of ‘em. Just a Wild stab in the dark tho.

 

Also, I'm getting this thread merged with MegaThread; Just figured I'd try to garner some interest before that happens...

 

That thread put the Mega in Megathread.

 

Yup!

My biggest reason is consolidate older threads and threads that aren’t looked at anymore so I can find threads I actually do update regularly easier...

 

No idea, l wish they would release the sales numbers of trim and configurations

 

In 2000, that dealer in Virginia Beach would not put anything older than 1995 on the lot; I worked at the detail shop from September 2018 to June 2019 and let me say once again that a 20-year old Mercedes AMG with less than 30K miles is one thing; The dealership also sold a 1989 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe with a 5-speed manual transmission and ridiculously low miles (I forget how low) for about $15K. Those are exempt from the "no cars older than a certain year" rule.

One time in 2018 or 2019, a used 2011ish Kia Soul came through the detail shop; Someone had traded it in and even though it had like 100K miles, it was in such good shape that the dealer resold it. Somebody bought this Kia from the dealer for $6,500, and they financed it

Another one that had me scratching my head was a white 2004-2006ish Ford Freestar minivan that was not in bad condition, but had about 160K miles on the clock; Somebody traded it, and the Ford dealer decided it was in good enough condition to go on their bargain lot. This Albanian guy who's been there since 2003 or so detailed it when it came in on a trade, and described it as a piece of shit...

 

I've seen at least four other silver 5-lug RCs in my area, including a 2006 automatic with 121K miles at Thompson Toyota for like $6,500 in 2017. Then, there was the 2009 RC I saw in Emmaus a little under two months ago, that had like 26K original miles!

 

That 160K mile minivan made it onto the discount lot, but one time I detailed this red early 2000s Cadillac DeVille that had like 58K miles on it, and it was destined for the wholesale auction. The Caddy ran and drove just fine, and everything seemed to work, but something seemed a bit off-kilter about it; Now that I think about it, it is quite possible that the car was a salvage title rebuild and the dealer couldn't sell it at a result...

 

One time in 2018, I detailed a brand new, LOADED Subaru Forester that somebody was buying that day; It was warm, and I turned on the A/C for the short drive from the upper lot to the detail shop. The A/C in my Tacoma has always gotten crisp and cold within second of me turning it on, even on hot days and even when it was only blowing cold on the driver's side due to a leaky evaporator core; This brand new Subaru's A/C was cool and kept the edge off, but it was not not COLD. Unacceptable for a brand new $30K+ vehicle in my opinion. I mentioned it to my supervisor who noted it on the paperwork to be given back to the salesperson, and then detailed it.

**Now that I think about it, it may have been a certified preowned 2017 model and not a brand new 2018, but either way the car was no more than a year old and A/C not blowing cold was unacceptable to me**

So, I detailed the car; During the warmer months, we'd bring the cars outside for our supervisors to look them over instead of doing the inspections inside. The saleswoman who came to pick up the car was not the person who had sold it; I told her that the A/C felt like it needed a recharge, and she thanked me. I could tell she was not happy, because it probably meant the new owner would not be taking delivery on schedule.

 

Then there was the time I was detailing a beige Lincoln crossover of some sort (I forget what model, but I don't think they make it anymore; MKC, I think?); It was definitely an AWD crossover. Anyway, I believe it was new, but it had been on the lot for a while so it was dirty. This was on a Saturday, and as to be expected, all eight dealerships serviced by the detail shop were super busy; As a result, the detail shop was swamped. I was doing my absolute best, which wasn't enough for the salesman...

The salesman was this guy in his 50s; The Lincoln had pushbutton start, and I made the mistake of leaving the transponder in the vehicle. This salesman showed up while I was still wiping the wax off, angrily said something to me about taking too long, then hopped in the Lincoln and drove off while I was still detailing the damn thing!

I walked over to my supervisor and explained the situation; He told me that if the customer complained about the unfinished wax job and the vehicle was brought back, I wouldn't be on the hook. The Lincoln was never brought back, but I would have loved to see that customer's reaction!

 

Let's not forget the white Dodge Durango that I did on my day off! I did a basic detail on this new Durango (wash, wax, vacuum, etc; No paint and fabric sealant), and the salesman left seemingly satisfied. Quite some time later, the salesman brought it back complaining that the interior wasn't clean. I had already moved on to another vehicle, and my supervisor didn't see any problems with the Durango other than fuzzballs and dustbunnies, so he just vacuumed it himself to appease the asshole instead of disrupting my current job.

 

I hated doing Ford Explorers (2011-present models), unless I was doing paint sealant and fabric sealant/leather conditioner (because paint/fab doubled my pay); Why? Because a Ford Explorer only paid a flat rate of 1.7 hours, which amounted to $17 ($33 if it was paint/fab)...

By comparison a Subaru Ascent, which was pretty much the same size, paid a full two hours; You'd think it doesn't make a difference, but believe me, it does! The Nissan Pathfinder, Chevy Traverse, and GMC Acadia were also roughly the same size as the Ford Explorer, but paid two hours (A solid $40 if it was a paint/fab). Tahoes and Suburbans also paid two hours, but for some reason those were not as aggravating to clean as an Explorer, even though they were bigger.

 

Sedans, hatchbacks, convertibles, etc (pretty much anything that wasn't a pickup or SUV), were among the worst because they only paid 1.2 hours flat rate. A Subaru Crosstrek has the same basic bodystyle as a 5-door Impreza, but the Impreza paid out 1.2 hours while the Crosstrek paid 1.7 hours; The Chevy Trax (and the Buick Encore, which is pretty much the same thing but way overpriced) paid out 1.7 hours while all 4-door sedans paid 1.2 hours, regardless of size!



If you got a new or fully detailed used vehicle, the rates didn't matter than much because you were waxing the paint, hastily vacuuming an already-clean interior, and shining the tires. If you got a vehicle that had been sitting on the lot for months, or even a year or more, then dirt could be a problem...

 

Fleet cars were, hands down, the worst job you could get...

The one possible exception would be cargo vans of varying sizes, as long as they were clean. I cleaned tiny cargo vans like Ford Transit Connects, Nissan NV200s, and the occasional Ram Promaster City; I also cleaned big ones like the Chevy Express and Ford Transit (just "Transit", not the small "Transit Connect). Only the passenger area had to be vacuumed and wiped down, and since there were no back windows except for the ones in the back doors, I saved a lot of time on that as well; If the van was clean, I got paid ten bucks for an hour of work but could generally get one done within 45 minutes or less.

The same was true of 4-door sedans, but I hated doing these because I only got paid 0.8 hours (eight bucks). Luckily, most of the sedans were clean and didn't take all that long to do. Crossover and SUV "fleet cars" like the Chevy Equinox, GMC Terrain, and Subaru Forester were slightly more profitable and paid the same as the cargo vans, but I still hated them...

 

The absolute mother-effing worst were the pickups, especially the big 2500 and 3500 pickups, and the high-roof Ford Transits; What the made fleet pickups so miserable to do was that they were stored in a quarry, exposed to the weather. As a result, they were generally very dirty and required the same effort as a regular detail (minus the waxing) to get clean; It generally took me over an hour to get the bigger pickups done, even though I always got paid for an hour regardless of how long it took. They were always the same trucks too; white Chevy Silverado 4x4 crew cab short beds with the Duramax diesel engine, sometimes 2500 and sometimes 3500. They always had the LT trim (one step above the basic "Work Truck" trim), but they were still incredibly basic (they had A/C, cruise control, power windows, power locks, etc). They were always kept in the old quarry, and none of them had bedliners; At least if a truck had a bedliner, the bed was easier to clean...

Not these trucks; NOPE! They had no bedliners, and were fridge white so you could see every speck of dirt, which meant you couldn't half-ass it and only get the dirt that was obviously visible. A bed without a liner is incredibly slippery, and on one occasion I slipped while cleaning one. The roofs of the high-top Ford Transits were such a pain in the ass to clean that our supervisors let us skip that part as long as it wasn't obviously dirty (which they almost never were).

 

And this is a perfect example of cause and effect...

The only real requirements to get a job detailing cars at this place were...

• You had to be at least 17 years old.
• You had to have a valid driver's license.
• You had to have a clean driving record.
• You had to pass a drug test and a physical.

Most people over the age of thirty thought that the pay was too low, except for the ones who'd been there over a decade since they were in their twenties and had gotten numerous wage increases and promotions. As a result, most of the people working there were under 25 and a good number were under the age of 21; There were guys there as young as 18 or 19 when I was there. Teenagers aren't automatically bad drivers, but they're inexperienced...

When you put a 19-year old whose daily driver is a 10-year old BMW 3-series behind the wheel of a 1-ton Chevy Silverado and let him maneuver it in an undersized shop without supervision, things happen...

A BMW 3-series has nimble handling and one of the tightest turning circles in its class; A full-size diesel truck has the handling and turning capacity of, well, a truck! This kid was backing a brand new Chevy Silverado 3500 into his space, at an angle, and ended up smashing one of the rear fenders on a pole. I did the same thing to my own Tacoma back in 2013, but opted to fix the fender instead of replacing it since I didn't go through insurance and it saved me like $600. This was a brand new $45,000 truck with probably 15 miles on it, and simply using body filler to fix the fender and blending the paint would not be acceptable. A new fender was installed at a cost of well over two grand, including paint and installation. The kid passed a drug test and it was a total accident, so the detail shop ate the cost of fixing the truck.

The detailers were all good people, but a lot of them were inexperienced behind the wheel of anything larger than a minivan or midsize SUV; People who had the experience to drive a 1-ton pickup didn't want to work for such lousy pay!

 

Hey Charlie, what were the tricks of the trade when you got a car with dog hair in it?