Shopping for a detail: Bring a tire iron

Ever been approached by another motorist offering to detail your car while you're driving it? My colleague Tami Abdollah, a reporter on the California staff, recounts her fun little experience Sunday night:

It's about 6:05 p.m. Sunday and I'm driving north on La Cienega near Wilshire in West Los Angeles when a guy to my left in the passenger seat of a black Cadillac Escalade motioned for me to roll down my window. Directions? Sure. I roll my window down.

"So you see those scratches on the side of your car?" he told  me. "I can fix those. I'm experienced with Audis, Volkswagens, all those. . . ." For cheap, he said.

It sounded like a scam. But, well, I was also curious and low on money. The small scratches had been there since Dec. 20, sometime between 7 and 7:30 p.m. (long story), and I hadn't had a chance to fix them. I thought, why not grab his info, see what he was offering and do a little price comparison?

"Do you have a website?" I yelled out the window, while we drove in sync, next to each other.

"Pull over for a sec," he said. The other people in his car, a blond-haired lady driving and three other guys in the back, were motioning for me to pull over. I felt pressured. I didn't like it.

"No, I can't, I'm on my way somewhere."

"Just pull over, we'll show you samples, just for a second, it'll be fast."

Live for the day, I thought. OK. Why not? I pulled over to a spot.

The Escalade came roaring up behind me. Odd, I thought. Looks like it's right off a dealer parking lot. No license plate, just an ad. Brand new, shiny black. Nice car. The guys took a while getting out of the car, and they left the engine with the blond lady behind the wheel and a couple guys in back. A guy with a shaved head with a black baseball cap, a tattoo on his right arm, baggy black pants and a white T-shirt got out of the passenger seat, and another man with stringy brown hair thinning at the top and crooked yellow teeth got out of the back of the SUV.

I was dressed in a nice T-shirt and jeans, on my way to visit friends. These guys came up to me, and the guy with the cap on, who first offered me the job, started telling me he was going to show me what they could do.

"Let me show you a sample," he said, and he walked over to the back bumper of my 1999 VW Jetta, whips out a can of spray paint and started spraying.

"Stop! What are you doing?!"

"Wait," he said. "It'll get darker. Look, the more I spray, the darker it gets."

The other man chimed in. "Look, it's getting darker. We'll spray, sand, wax, it's a pro job. I know this stuff, it's the best, cheapest job you'll get."

To find out whether that paint got darker, click below...

The paint was not getting much darker. It had started out turquoise-ish and then blue, but was still much lighter than the rest of my bumper.

"Don't you guys just have a card or something? I'm on my way somewhere, I can't do this now. And now, you just screwed up my bumper," I was very…addled.

"We can do this fast, your entire car, $550, right now," cap man told me.

"I don't want to do this now. I can't do this now. Right here. But I have no problem calling you back about this. Don't you have a card? I'd like to do some price comparison and that won't happen in a day."

"How much do you want to pay? We won't do this here, we'll do this at your place," he said
"It'll be fast," the stringy-haired guy said. "I know this business, this is the best you'll get."
"$350? We'll do it for $350…$200?"

Eventually he went down to $180.

"We have money, look," he said, rifling through his wallet, showing me bills and bills of cash, though I couldn't quite see how much each bill was worth. Frankly, I just wanted to get out of there. It was a busy street, but these guys did not inspire confidence. Why the hell did I pull over, I thought to myself. The two guys are standing too close to me, and inching closer, and my hackles are up.

I lookd behind the guy with a cap, who is standing closest to me a few inches to my right, and saw the blonde lady in the Escalade looking way too interested, and talking to a couple guys behind her in the backseat. Was she giving me a look? She started to rev the Escalade's engine, repeatedly, blowing heat from the vents onto us.

"Ey, stop," the cap man said, turning around and motioning to her.

I'm worried, and glad I took my keys, though I left my car doors unlocked. I thought I would grab a card, a leaflet, and be done.

"Why can't I just get in touch with you guys later? Why does this have to happen now?" I pleaded.

"We won't have the stuff, the car, tomorrow."

That didn't sound rihgt. But I didn't want to pursue it at this point. I just wanted out.

"Look," I tell them, allowing the agitation to creep into my voice, "you see those scratches? They're still there because I don't have the money to get it fixed, because I can't afford it."

I stared straight into the guys eyes and tried to be measured. "You see this car?" I asked him, "I spent most of my savings on this car. And. It's. All. I've. Got. Now you've screwed up my bumper with that paint, and I can't afford to do this now. I was on my way somewhere."

"Okay...I understand," cap man said, finally backing down, and moving away. "Oh, that paint'll come right off, anyway, we didn't do anything to it, we didn't sand it down and wax it yet. It'll come off now, in five days..."

"Right. Thanks. Bye." I got in my car.

I drove down a few blocks to my final destination, still very peeved. I parked and then grabbed a water bottle and some paper towels. Comes right off, huh? I poured water over it and tried wiping it away--well not with water, that's for sure. I'll need to try something else.

Eventually, I did meet up with my friends. But I also remained dazed and self-annoyed for a good while. I know it was stupid to pull over. I knew it then, and I had a feeling it was a scam. Shoulda gone with my instincts.

--Tami Abdollah

Comments

[jkm]

my thoughts about the author's transgressions aside...

i can't believe the spelling errors in this article. this is the l.a. effing times. and i am not talking about the quoted lines (i.e. shoulda), i get that is the narrative voice.

i mean: That didn't sound rihgt.
i mean: I lookd behind the guy

i get that there may be some overlooked mistakes when you get rid of half your staff, but i didn't think budget cuts affected spell check.

[alex]

Maybe I could see this happening with some guy walking up to her in a parking lot. But...pulling over?

Absolutely insane!

[eR4uL]

wow... shouldn't pull over, lady.
Anyway, she probably heard that from 99% of the people she told the story to.

Something similar happened to me, at a self-serve car-wash. A guy came over, telling me he could get the 'cloud' off my Civic's headlights for $20. He also showed me some cleaner-spray can.
I thought 'what the heck, my friend had been telling me to wax that headlights'...
I told him to do it on one first. It cleared up, so I gave him $20 to do the other one :-))

[james]

It sure seems like the LA Times is filled with employees who are, shall we say, not so bright.

[Paul]

Never mind the spray paint damage. She's lucky she wasn't raped or killed. What a truly idiotic move.

[Jimmy]

You are an idiot. Why would you even respond to someone telling you to roll down your window? Criminals and scumbags prey on clueless people like you. You're lucky you weren't robbed or killed.

[Alex]

Oh my god, how naive are you? The proper response from the very beginning would have been "Sorry, no deal," and off you go. You're lucky you weren't robbed.

[Tony Fernandez]

Wow, that's a new one. I'm lucky enough to not even have had the guys who come up and try to clean your windshield. The only way to do that is with a car wash. Everything else leaves streaks. I can't even imagine what I would have done with these guys. I've tried everything to get the scratches out of my car, but spray paint? Like anything could look worse than scratches, they go ahead and prove it.