The base price does not change because a car is filthy. What changes is which add-ons the car genuinely needs, and on a neglected car that is usually two or three of them rather than none.
The honest part: a first detail in years gets a car to clean, not to new. Permanent damage — etched paint, dye stains, cracked leather, sun-bleached plastic — is permanent, and we would rather tell you which of yours is permanent before you book than after.
This is the job people are most embarrassed to book and the one with the most visible result. Nobody here is judging the car.
Detailers throw the phrase around without defining it. Here is what it means in terms of work.
Condition is not really about how bad it looks. It is about whether the dirt has bonded to something, because bonded dirt takes a different process and therefore different time.
Dust, crumbs, road film, a few weeks of neglect. All of it sits on top of the surface. A standard interior or exterior detail handles the whole car with no add-ons, in the normal time window.
Most cars that arrive apologising are in this category.
Carpet gone flat and grey, a couple of set-in stains, paint that feels gritty after washing, trim starting to fade. The base service still applies; it needs two or three add-ons on top and an extra hour or two.
This is where most genuinely neglected cars land.
Years of accumulation, embedded pet hair throughout, a smell with a live source, paint with visible etching, trim fully chalked, headlights opaque. Multiple add-ons, a long appointment, and a realistic conversation about what will not come back.
A car in this state can look transformed. It will not look new, and anyone telling you otherwise has not seen it.
Mould from standing water, rodent damage, torn upholstery, failed clear coat, flood exposure. These are remediation, upholstery or bodywork jobs. We will say so plainly rather than take money for a detail that cannot fix them.
Sedan pricing, added to a $279 Full Package. Almost no car needs all of these — three or four is a heavy job.
| Add-on | When a neglected car needs it | Sedan |
|---|---|---|
| Carpet extraction | Carpet is uniformly grey and flat rather than visibly dirty | $25 per area, capped $125 |
| Seat extraction | Set-in stains, or years of gradual darkening on the seat | $25 per seat, capped $125 |
| Odour treatment | Smell survives a clean, or the car has been shut up damp | $50 |
| Pet hair removal | Hair is woven in rather than lying on top | $75 |
| Iron decontamination | Paint feels gritty after washing — almost universal on a neglected car | $75 |
| Clay bar treatment | Overspray, hardened fallout, tree residue on top of the iron | $50 |
| Bug, tar & sap removal | Lower panels and front end have baked-on deposits | $50 |
| Black trim restoration | Trim has gone chalky grey | $75 |
| Leather protection | Leather is dry, dull or transferring dye | $45 |
| Headlight restoration | Lenses have yellowed | $50 per headlight |
| Engine bay detailing | Bay is thick with oily grime | $75 |
Nothing here is added without you agreeing to it first. We would rather send you a photo and a recommendation than surprise you with an invoice.
The part worth reading before you book, because it sets what "good" looks like on your car.
A Full Package on a standard car is 3.5 to 5 hours, and 5 to 6 on a full-size SUV, truck or van. A genuinely neglected car with four add-ons does not fit in that window, and pretending it does produces a rushed job.
There are two honest ways to handle that. Either we book a longer single appointment and tell you the real window up front, or we split it: interior on one visit, exterior and paint on another. The split is often better value, because it lets you see the interior result before deciding how much to spend on the paint.
The other reason for a split is drying. Heavy extraction puts real water into carpet and upholstery, and in San Francisco fog or in winter that can want most of a day with the windows cracked. Stacking a long exterior job on top of that on the same afternoon does neither half any favours.
If the car is going to need a second visit, we say so when we quote rather than discovering it at hour five.
The single most useful thing you can do is photograph the parts you are least proud of. A quote built from flattering photos is a quote that changes on the day, and neither of us wants that.
We have documented 60 jobs and 112 before-and-after pairs on real customer cars. Plenty of them started rough.
More short answers live on the FAQ.
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Send the worst photos you have and we will tell you honestly what comes back and what does not.