Possible permanent stains on my King shocks after detail shop

Hi, I took my truck to a detail shop about two weeks ago. After the detail I noticed there were multiple stains that won’t come out on all four corners of my king shocks.

I talked to the manager today and he said to bring it in this Wednesday and he’s going to see what they can do.

I called Kings and they told me to use simple green. That didn’t work. Tried using other degreaser products and that didn’t work. Tried using dish soap that didn’t work.

It looks like whatever the detail shop used ate through the clear coat of my shocks and reservoir.

How would you guys handle this? Thanks in advance.

 

Go wheeling….dirt covers everything

 

Dude, chill out. They still look great.

 

haha true. Just pissed off because the smoothies are brand new and the fronts are custom shocks by king.

 

I don't think anything on kings is clear coated anyways

 

The days of shiny shocks ... who would have thought?

 

i honestly wouldn't worry too much about it. as long as they are still performing and don't need a rebuild prematurely, it's just aesthetic.

unless your truck is gonna be a mall queen that gets driven once a month, it'll look a lot worse than that soon enough

 

I would not worry about it and move on with my life. Hopefully you spent all that money on those shocks for the performance improvement they offer. If that is the case, you have to take it offroad and get it dirty to enjoy that said increase.

Otherwise, looks like something a buffer and some fine polishing compound might clean right up. But I'm not certain of that either. You might just make it worse.

I have come to learn, in my life, if you want it done right, do it yourself. If you don't want to do it, pay someone else and expect them to do it wrong. You can then either hold them to your [my, (I am talking about myself here)] unreasonably high standard and pull your hair out trying to get them to fix it. [I am mostly bald now.] I think the key is just to realize if you did it yourself [myself], you would have fucked something else up.

I'd let it go.

Whatever your decision, good luck on your journey.

 

@KrnTaco08

Their cleaner probably etched the metal. You could try metal polish on the aluminum parts, pretty sure it will work.

 

Obviously the shocks are performing. It’s more of the principal that a shop you took the truck to “possibly permanently stained your $4k shocks”.

Its one thing If I ruined it. My fault and just move on. They are off road shocks for a reason. But to have a third party do that to your own truck I wouldn’t be cool with that. That’s my point.

 

I talked to King and they told me not to use metal polishing compound. They told me to either use simple green or try spray wax..

 

I appreciate that. Thanks

 

yeah you’re right.

 

I generously sprayed my wheels with a wheel cleaner when I first got my truck and cleaned them up. Found out that was bad for the coating on the calipers because it went dull and streaky/splotchy. Likely similar

 

Hmm I don’t see how a polishing compound will hurt it. I do it all the time at work on aluminum parts.

Try in a inconspicuous spot first, I think you will be fine man.

Spray wax? Haha, not a chance.

They are just trying to cover their asses in case you make it worse, which is impossible IMO.

 

It's etched. Whatever they used to degrease probably had some sodium hydroxide or similar in it that ate at the aluminum. You can polish it out but you'll either start taking the anodizing off if you hit it hard or leave some swirls if you linger on one area more than the next.

No going back now, not sure what advice to give on keeping those undercarriage parts looking brand new. Perhaps order an entire new set and sell these, then don't take it off road or drive in foul conditions. And above all don't go back to the detailer?

 

Looks like the impact of Simple Green or a similar cleaner. The stuff loves to eat at alumium.

 

Yeah I’d figured there was no going back now.

 

Cool thanks man