I really hate to bump this from months ago, but I was searching for some information on the Manheim auctions and this was the first result, I also saw someone ask about the buff process, so I figured I would give my experiences with the vehicles. I've been detailing for several years now at one of the higher selling Chevrolet dealerships on the east coast, located in northern Virginia, that also owns 5 more used car dealerships in the area, in which 95% of the cars come through our shop from the 6 dealerships, which is just a one person per detail, not assembly line style, with a max of 9-10 detailers we work 300-400 details per month, with maximum quality in mind. We get a very high amount of our used cars from Manheim (Florida, Fredericksburg VA, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania primarily) From what I've noticed is that you can honestly tell that they are focused more on quantity, not quality. The interiors are fairly good, maybe a spot here or there, the biggest problem of interiors are carelessness of inside pockets, or under rear seats that fold down, no big deal though. The exterior is a different issue. They're clean, and you can tell they have been clayblocked (sometimes clearcoat overspray and very occasionally primer and paint overspray, but otherwise decently smooth). In the hundreds of cars that I have personally detailed that have come from Manheim the number one issue is the buff. From what I have heard from our very knowledgeable product distributor, they use a 1 stage buff, which is an upper mid-grade compound/polish which a co-worker bought months ago and has yet to use for the fact that it is very very greasy, and quite coarse. The majority of the cars that I personally see coming from Manheim are GM SUV's, and for our high end dealership Mercedes, BMW, Maserati, Audi, Aston Martin and occasionally GT500's or Viper's. Being that some of the cars bought are sold for $100,000+ I would expect maybe a bit more care given to them in detail, but that seems to not be the case. I have yet to see a vehicle from this auction that is not horribly swirled, even white, in some cases they have been etched so deep that sanding has been needed to remove some its of them. They may look good from a distance at auction, but up close they definitely have issues. I understand that quantity in a place that runs as many vehicles though as Manheim is rather important, but getting a car that has only 22,000 miles and looks like it's been through the worst detail shop around gets frustrating. I hate to put down this huge auction, but I can't help but bring to light the problems. They do more than you can imagine for our dealerships, but fixing their mistakes usually take more time than doing the full detail before they had touched it.
Example: My fix for the day, 2009 Cadillac CTS-V 22,000 miles from Manheim. The camera didn't nearly show the full extent of swirls, which turned into over 3 hours of work to fix.
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