February 2019 by Isac K.
I'm going to review this in 2 parts (Interior and Exterior) My experience with Empower Mobile Car Detailers did not leave me impressed. At first, when reaching out, the detailer was very communicative and flexible with scheduling. We agreed on a time, and I asked him to communicate with me when he was in his way as a heads up so that I could get the car ready for him. As he arrived, the first thing he told me was that he could not do my exterior because his water tank broke earlier that day. This took me aback, as I would have appreciated a courtesy call telling me that, and would not have had him come out to detail my car had I known he wasn't fully equipped. Personally, if I was providing a service, I wouldn't feel comfortable providing it if my equipment was broken/malfunctioning. A simple, "hey, my water tank broke, I can clean your interior but not your exterior" on the phone call would have went a long way. While I understand it may have been out of his control, he did not tell me until he arrived at my car, after we had communicated several times throughout the day. I was frustrated to start off. He said he would work with the materials and resources he had, without the water tank, but that he would not charge me for the exterior. I said thats fine, and I had him start. Interior: He did a good job with the interior. He wiped down all of the surfaces, and cleaned the floor mats really well. He did leave some type of residue on the leather seats, which I can't seem to get off. Mind you, my car is less than 3 months old. Exterior: This is where the detail went south. From first glance, and far away, the car looked pretty good (as if it went through a regular car wash). When looking closer, you can tell that the detailer did not use much water, and really just moved around the salt marks and dirt (it had recently snowed, and the snowplowers like to over-salt the area). As you can tell from the pictures, the quality is more like what you would get at a $10/$15 car wash, rather than a $120 detail. When I started driving (after being charged for both interior and exterior), I noticed several streaks along the windshield. The exterior wasn't necessarily dirtier than before (the car had a lot of salt in it), but it was definitely not clean, at least to the level of a detail. Later that evening, I messaged the detailer asking him if he would consider coming back the next day and touching up some of the exterior, after sending him pictures. He said that would be fine, however, he told me the next day that he could not get a water pump for a few weeks (so basically, he was offering the same job - moving around the dirtiness with limited water). I decided to just get it washed at another location - frustrating, after spending $120 on a "detail," a car should not require a wash as soon as its done. *I do want to note, I will update the review if he does follow-through and come back out to rectify the issue once the water pump is fixed. I do recommend to him, in the meantime, be forth-rite with your customers about your limitations (especially with the exterior wash, that probably requires a lot of water), before scheduling.
