Names for the car care cycle steps

[wifpd4]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

Mary,

Thank you for picking the coronary bypass surgery as an analogy. Problems of the heart touched me long before concerned car care.

Generally speaking St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City, the Mayo Clinic In Rochester, and John Hopkins in Baltimore all teach and perform coronary bypass surgery. The tools, the medications and the procedures are similar, but specifically the operation is different at Mayo then at U of Iowa or John Hopkins or St. John's. People make health care decisions based on any advantages or suggested improvements one doctor, one hospital or one medical center may offer. Although generally speaking they are offering "coronary bypass surgery". (This discussion of course discounts any processes stipulated by insurance companies, HMOs or what the government may be telling us.) I'm not sure who the governing agencies are for coronary bypass surgery, perhaps the American Medical Association. The AMA would then set the minimum standards for this medical procedure.

Mary you did start this thread as a suggestion to rename or at a minimum clarify a process. I do however wonder if there is not an organization similar to the AMA of the medical world in the detailing world you shouldn't be appealing, something like the "International Detailing Association". The folks that set the standards for which you wish to have in place and may wish to change. Keep in mind Meguiar's may not belong to this or any other such organization. As I'm sure you are aware from your software experience, not everyone follows standards and in some case ever wishes to follow.

Perhaps some of this forum's more senior members can direct you to that organization(s).

[Mary S]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

Wal-mart's auto department product buyers (and their buyers in general) are buying their merchandise to sell at a lower dollar price point. That has been their philosophy for around 35 years or so. They are selling to the commodity consumer mindset. The Turtle Wax Products you mention are probably available at a lower cost and that is why they are on the shelves there. I was SHOCKED to see the $35 wax there (Autoglym?) as it goes against their general grain. Meguiar's merchandise is showing up a bit more on their shelves, but it won't ever get like being a fully stocked situation like ADS. They (Wal-mart) are looking for a higher turn rate in their merchandise - and those of us that are car crazy on this board might be a whole 5% of their customer base. So they won't stock what they believe will not sell to the average comsumer. What we are striving to do here - maintain the appearance of our vehicles at a high level for whatever reason, is sadly not the average behavior. However, it does create opportunities for those in our number who perform this service for gainful employment, whether it be full time or the weekend warrior.

agp, I agree Walmart likes to carry low-price items, but they also sell a selection of brands for the same product, especially when people are buying from brand loyalty, regardless of the product line. Not all car care sections sells body shop items, but our Super Walmart does. They sell touch up paint, fine grade sand paper, rubbing compounds and so forth. They do sell the Meguiar's brand of car care products, but not always the same ones. I see some come and go. I was at Target the other day, and I was really impressed with their Meguiar's car care selection. In general, they had the Meguiar's brand if they were selling the same product in other brand names, like Turtle Wax or Armour All. Meguiar's consumer products may be a touch more expensive, but I think that the bottom line is, if the product sells in that store, the store will restock it. If it doesn't, they won't.

Anyway, I digress, but I think it hurts Meguiars the way they label Ultimate Compound and SwirlX because they miss sales from people who are looking for rubbing compound and polishing compound I was. Just this year they started selling Rubbing Compound and Polishing Compound, labeled the traditional way. Hopefully, that will help solve that problem. I did see it stocked at Advance Auto Parts.

[agp56]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

Wal-mart's auto department product buyers (and their buyers in general) are buying their merchandise to sell at a lower dollar price point. That has been their philosophy for around 35 years or so. They are selling to the commodity consumer mindset. The Turtle Wax Products you mention are probably available at a lower cost and that is why they are on the shelves there. I was SHOCKED to see the $35 wax there (Autoglym?) as it goes against their general grain. Meguiar's merchandise is showing up a bit more on their shelves, but it won't ever get like being a fully stocked situation like ADS. They (Wal-mart) are looking for a higher turn rate in their merchandise - and those of us that are car crazy on this board might be a whole 5% of their customer base. So they won't stock what they believe will not sell to the average comsumer. What we are striving to do here - maintain the appearance of our vehicles at a high level for whatever reason, is sadly not the average behavior. However, it does create opportunities for those in our number who perform this service for gainful employment, whether it be full time or the weekend warrior.

[Mary S]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

Mary,
To me, an absolute newbie to concerned car care, you seem to be seeking absolutes when there may not be any. Meguiar's has the difficult task of providing information to people like me and people like you. I'm that least common denominator Meguiar's must educate, you are already educated and plying your knowledge as a professional. I'm just learning to detail for personal satisfaction and today I worked on a silver Nissan and a black Lexus. Cleaning, polishing and using a polisher meant completely different things using similar Meguiar's products on each. Sometimes the words were nouns, sometimes verbs, but with arthritis polisher meant a tool for cleaning, polishing and buffing.

You comment about "Having 99.5 percent of the population not knowing that it is possible to correct defects...." doesn't take into effect the number of folks that don't know nor care about any defects they may have. Until a few months ago, I sure didn't care. So I'm not sure who is target audience of your desire to redefine words or work procedures that almost defy definition. In the dictionary you quoted and unless I missed it, the word polisher doesn't even appear.

Finally, I don't really think I helped with this discussion as I'm here to learn and not help, but I must say I've met Mr. Stoops just once and I got the impression concerned car care is more than just employment with him. He walks the talk.

wifpd,

Believe it or not, the target audience of my desire, not to redefine words but to make them clear and consistent across the industry, is everybody who owns a car, motorcycle, boat, even a regular bicycle, and maybe even some that are none of the above. Maybe not 99.5% of the population, but how about at least 95%. Or how about this, at least everybody who knows that Turtle Wax makes wax for cars, whether they are waxing their cars at all or not.

You say that the process defies definition. I totally disagree. I agree that defining "paint correction/defect removal" strictly using the word "clean" for the name of the process used ,and "cleaner" for the name of the products used, may be possible but difficult if your goal is to create a universal and unambiguous awareness of what the process is.

You mentioned that you didn't know or care about the defects in your car's paint until 3 months ago. I can completely relate to that, because it is true for me too. I am not a professional detailer yet, just educating myself and training to do that in the future, but I am new to concerned car care too. And it is because of this that I do want to increase awareness of the problem, the process of fixing the problem, and what the name is of the professional you seek out to correct the problem, or what over-the-counter products, such as SwirlX and Ultimate Compound, you might look for to correct them yourself.

Almost everybody knows what an oil change is. Maybe they don't get it done every 3 months, but they know that you should. If they want to have it done, they know where to go to have it done. They know you can do it yourself if you have the proper tools and knowledge but most people don't.

Almost everybody knows what washing your car means. Maybe they have never washed their own car, maybe they haven't had it washed since the day they bought the vehicle, but they know they could do it themselves or take it through an automatic or professional car wash.

Almost everybody has heard the term "coronary bypass surgery." They couldn't do it themselves, they couldn't recite the steps a surgeon takes to perform the operation, but they have a general idea of what it means and the kind of specialist who performs them. The individual steps might involve technical jargon, words that most people wouldn't know the meaning of, but you could look them up in a medical dictionary, and heart surgeons communicating with each other would understand what those words mean because they have precise definitions.

And the bottom line is that if the technical words for anatomy and procedural steps and equipment and products did not have precise meaning and definitions within the medical community, there would be no such thing as coronary bypass surgery. Such an advanced technological procedure was the culmination of physicians being trained in a standardized way, products being labeled in a standardized way, medical terms having standardized meaning, and communication between physicians all over the world in published journals that use precise medical language. It is how a profession advances.

So my feeling is that if something as technical as "coronary bypass surgery" can be a household word, so can "detailing," "detailers," and a general understanding of what the detailer can do for your car's appearance.

I don't think there is anybody who owns a car that doesn't care about its appearance. They may drive an old beater because that is all they can afford, but if they wanted to buy a new car, they would know where to go to buy one. They may not fix body damage because they can't afford that either, but they know where they can go to have that done if they want to. If your car has a 5-foot key scratch along the side, you may not want to pay to have a body shop repaint 3 panels of your car, but again, you would know where you could go to have it done, and even if you chose not to fix it, it would bother you.

So my thoughts are, why not be aware that if you paint has become worn over time with some of the natural forces where a new car gets old, why not know where you can go to have the paint renewed and rejuvenated to look like new at a fraction of what it would cost to have it repainted and a quantum fraction of what it would cost to buy a new car.

What eventually brought me to this forum was not swirls in my paint. In fact, on a white car, once it is hand washed and waxed, I wonder at times if I even want to remove them because they are so hard to see.

I got here searching on the internet on do-it-yourself scratch removal because of some deep scratches on my car from a scrape that happened a few years back. And the articles that I found said to use fine-grit sandpaper, rubbing compound, and polishing compound. So I went to Walmart and purchased all 3. Why did I not buy Meguiar's brand? Well, to begin with, my Walmart does not stock Ultimate Compound and SwirlX, but let's say they did. The article told me to buy "rubbing compound" and "polishing compound," so I found the Turtle Wax brand of each, which were called "rubbing compound" and "polishing compound."

And why does my Walmart not stock Ultimate Compound and SwirlX? It probably doesn't sell well. People that already know that is what they want can buy it on Amazon for less. People that think they want rubbing compound and polishing compound won't buy it because that is not what Meguiar's calls them.

I eventually bought both (from Amazon) because I ended up watching some Youtube videos that Meguiar's made, but I only ended up there by chance because I was looking for something else. I only ended up here because of those scratches in my paint, they are too deep to be fixed by anything that Meguiar's sells.

So okay, people like me and you who didn't flat out know what with today's modern technology in paint care innovations can do for car care, those are the people I want to make understand aware of detailers and detailing and what detailing can do without happening across it on the internet in an indirect way like I did.

[wifpd4]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

Mary,
To me, an absolute newbie to concerned car care, you seem to be seeking absolutes when there may not be any. Meguiar's has the difficult task of providing information to people like me and people like you. I'm that least common denominator Meguiar's must educate, you are already educated and plying your knowledge as a professional. I'm just learning to detail for personal satisfaction and today I worked on a silver Nissan and a black Lexus. Cleaning, polishing and using a polisher meant completely different things using similar Meguiar's products on each. Sometimes the words were nouns, sometimes verbs, but with arthritis polisher meant a tool for cleaning, polishing and buffing.

You comment about "Having 99.5 percent of the population not knowing that it is possible to correct defects...." doesn't take into effect the number of folks that don't know nor care about any defects they may have. Until a few months ago, I sure didn't care. So I'm not sure who is target audience of your desire to redefine words or work procedures that almost defy definition. In the dictionary you quoted and unless I missed it, the word polisher doesn't even appear.

Finally, I don't really think I helped with this discussion as I'm here to learn and not help, but I must say I've met Mr. Stoops just once and I got the impression concerned car care is more than just employment with him. He walks the talk.

[Mary S]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

PC, believe it or not, I really have accomplished what it was I set about to do. When we are talking about car care products, there really have been industry standards set for the names of the various chemicals based on what they do. They might be hard to see sometimes, but they are there. And when a company tries to set itself apart by not adhering to them, it may seem like a good idea, but it will hurt them in the long run.

Even Meguiar's is using the standard terminology in the way most of the new products are named. We just don't always notice it because we only know their products by their numbers!

And ultimately, even though successful detailers may believe they are using a general lack of public understanding of what they do to their advantage, they are being hurt by it as well. They may be successful in competing for the business of the small slice of the population that knows what a detailer can do, but there are vast untapped markets that are not being reached. And you may think, okay, the successful detailers may want it that way. Why invite more competition into the industry by letting people know what they do?

Well, people know what car washes do, they know what body shops do, they know what repair shops and quick lube and oil stations do. There are a lot of cars out there. The best of these craftsmen will stand out on their merits. The bottom feeders, people who use them will get what they pay for. But the unqualified detailers will hurt the name of the good ones overall. This is why it is good for the profession as a whole to have and set standards collectively, just like every other true profession does. Every detailer defining his job and his products to and of himself will ultimately pull everybody down and hold everybody back in a market where car care products have reached such an advanced and refined state of chemistry. Having 99.5 percent of the population not knowing that it is possible to correct defects in automobile paint without repainting, that is not the state of awareness that will benefit either detailers or manufacturers of car care products that do correct paint.

So again, I am sorry to have offended anybody. I spent maybe 20 years of my career in quality assurance where it was my job to make sure software was easy to use, to make sure user manuals were easy to understand, and making sure standards were followed. So yes, I wish I could help, and yes, I know that I can't. But that wasn't the fundamental purpose of what I have been setting out to do, so it doesn't discourage me.

[the other pc]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

Mary, let me start by saying I completely agree with you about the lack of consistency in detailing terminology.

As someone who’s been where you’re at and experienced the same frustrations I can only offer one suggestion, give it up. It doesn’t matter how well thought out, logical and rational your argument is. The industry as a whole isn’t interested. It’s not the way the industry works.

It is the way it is. More importantly, it’s the way most of the industry wants it to be. Good or bad, right or wrong, there are specific forces that shaped the current state. Unless/until those forces change, the industry will continue as-is.

When it comes to standardized terminology, Meguiar’s is more self-consistent than anybody else in the business. Nobody else comes close. (I won’t claim they’re perfect, only better.) Little of the rest of the industry is even interested in being self-consistent, let alone consistent with others. They certainly don’t want to follow the lead of a big competitor like Meguiar’s.

If you feel this situation causes a problem for you in dealing with your customers, let me offer a different perspective. You can turn it into a competitive advantage. All of the most successful detailers I’ve known do.

Whatever nomenclature you chose to use, if you take the time to educate your customer you will set yourself apart from your competition. You’ll show them that you know what you’re doing and that you respect them enough to discuss your work clearly and openly.


pc.

[Tuck91]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

[Mary S]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

Mary,

While I appreciate your attempt at "doing the community a service," I do not agree the tone by which you are delivering it. Please show a little more respect to Mr. Stoops and other Meguiar's representatives - as well as your fellow forum users.

Mark, I have made a sincere effort at trying to solve a problem that exists, a very real problem that affects the very livelihood of people who are making their living detailing, in that there is no standardized word for the part of detailing that refers to the correction of paint, which is the most fundamental part of the services we offer. This is a very real problem.

And I know Michael Stoops is an invaluable asset to both Meguiars and this forum, and I got a bit frustrated when he made a post that contradicted what I had said in my earlier posts, almost as if he hadn't read them, so I apologize for the tone of my reply.

The truth is, it is not only for myself or my fellow detailers that any of this matters. It hurts Meguiar's as well. You say that Meguiar's is one of the biggest providers of detailing products, and yet I had never heard of them, my 85-year-old father had never heard of them. I know I made the remark that somebody could make a lot of money if they sold the Meguiar's products under less confusing labels. That is kind of a sideways way of saying, "you know, Meguiar's, if you sold your products under less confusing labels, you would sell a lot more of your products."

But I can't do anything about what Meguiar's calls their products or their processes, and I know that. I have to pick my battles, try to change what is in my power to change, accept what is not in my power to change.

There is a reason I don't find very many consumer Meguiar's products on my shelf at Walmart. The employees at Walmart didn't spend 3 months on the MOL forums learning about the Meguiar's products and processes. They need to know what the products do so they can put them with other products that do the same thing. They need to be able to answer questions if somebody asks what the difference is between a "cleaner wax" and a "wash and wax." And, of course, they have to be able to sell what they put on their shelves. And if people aren't seeing SwirlX on the shelf and thinking "oh boy, finally something to remove swirls," because 99.9% of people have never heard the term "swirls" in that context, well the product won't move, so Walmart won't restock it.

So I have been advocating for the detailing profession, the members of this community, and Meguiar's products and the company, all at the same time. I like the Meguiar's products, I use them, I believe in them. I have bought only Meguiar's products since I have been here. The fact they could be more than they are, well I wouldn't get a commission if they directed an effort at standardizing their product names and improved their sales.

So I apologize if I have let my frustration show at times. I can understand when a company started in 1901 making furniture products, before cars even existed, and cleaner/polish and pure polish were terms that made sense at the time, and they have chosen to be consistent when selling products for a surface that has different properties, where the same thing acting on car paint acts a different way than it does on harder varnishes, well I can see why they might have gotten to where they are. And going forward from that while continuing to sell the products that people know under a certain label, I can understand the challenge in that, and the decisions they made I know they made for a reason. If they had started their business 10 years ago, the names would have been a lot different.

So again, I apologize for letting my frustration get the best of me at times to cause me to show any disrespect to Meguiar's or Michael Stoops or any other Meguiar's employees that contribute to this forum. Michael Stoops and the other contributing Meguiar's employees are the heart of this forum and its biggest assets, and I didn't mean to offend anyone.

[CieraSL]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

[Markus Kleis]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

I sure hear what you are saying, and you get a community like MOL who is used to hearing these words used, and we probably won't get confused whether you call it cleaning or polishing or buffing or compounding.

And we are all pretty much on the same page about what detailing is, and what someone who calls himself a detailer does.

But I might have a problem if I call someone who does detailing in my region, and part of the challenge is I am looking for someone who does paint correction, and not everyone who calls himself a detailer does. So if I get too used to referring to the process as cleaning the paint on this forum, I had better use different terminology when interviewing an outside detailer, because he will say of course he cleans the paint and waxes it and really makes it shine.

And if I am a professional detailer and people are calling me and wants to know if I do paint correction, well I had better speak his language well enough to answer him without just talking about cleaning the paint.

So to really advance as a collective profession we ultimately need to have a common language so we are not always starting from square 1 when we try to talk to eachother or our customers, even something as fundamental as defining what a "detailer" is or does. And many times it is through professional organizations that that gets accomplished. We just aren't there yet.

Mary,

While I appreciate your attempt at "doing the community a service," I do not agree the tone by which you are delivering it. Please show a little more respect to Mr. Stoops and other Meguiar's representatives - as well as your fellow forum users.

Michael Stoops is a highly trained professional that works for Meguiar's.

Michael Stoops knows what a polish is, and what cleaning is.

Meguiar's as a company knows fully well what they are attempting to convey when they say what they do. The labels say exactly what they are wanting to convey.

Meguiar's is the largest detailing supply producer in the world, and has been in business longer than any major player - they have developed their interpretation of certain words.

Whether or not other companies, Dictionaries or detailers agree with, or use those terms really is unavoidable and irrelevant. Meguiar's is going for consistency within their brand - that is what matters to them and the vast majority of their customers.

Meguiar's can't be everything to everyone - and as such they don't have or need to change their internal language in order to try and comply with other companies or individuals.

[Scoobie]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps


Whats in a name

[Scoobie]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps


Shoe polish is not an abrassive, yet it is called a "polish". That is because the "shoe polish" makes shoes appear shiny. Ultimately, shoe polish does NOT abrade a surface, it does not level, or burnish. If you want to get technical, is NOT a polish, according to websters dictionary.



It's just a name.

[Scoobie]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps


You can call a product whatever you want, but the actual, physical act of leveling, refining, or making a surface smooth, according to Websters dictionary, is "polishing".

[Scoobie]

Re: Names for the car care cycle steps

according to Meguiar's definitions, they are not.

http://www.meguiarsdirect.com/detail/MEG+POLISH+32

Permanently removes swirls and light defects from all paints.
Produces deep reflections and high gloss
Smooth-glide buffing feel and fast wipe-off
Environmentally responsible, Safe, VOC compliant formula

Megs 205 is an abrasive (a mild abrasive, but an abrasive nonetheless) yet it says "polish" on the bottle.



Contradictions.




Main Entry: pol·ish
Pronunciation: \ˈpä-lish\
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English polisshen, from Anglo-French poliss-, stem of polir, from Latin polire
Date: 14th century
transitive verb

1 : to make smooth and glossy usually by friction : burnish
2 : to smooth, soften, or refine in manners or condition
3 : to bring to a highly developed, finished, or refined state : perfect
intransitive verb
: to become smooth or glossy by or as if by friction

— pol·ish·er noun