Luxury car slobs

My wife and I live in one of the most expensive zip codes in the US. Euro-luxury cars are incredibly prevalent, and they're more often than not in uncared-for condition. I know someone who worked as a tech at a local Volvo-VW dealer who said that they routinely saw cars that were so toxic filthy inside that they refused to touch them 'til they'd been cleaned.

I remember asking my parents when I was 4 how long it would be 'til I could drive, and counted the days. I'm not an obsessive washer, but I keep the Sprite covered so it collects less garage rash, and try to tidy the M3 before events if possible. My wife has historically been a messy car person, but she likes her 2000 A4 2.8 Q so much she gets it washed when it's barely filthy. I still have to check the fluids though...

If I became newly filthy rich, I'd daily drive something like a M5 wagon I'd have built. I'd have time to wash it myself, regularly....

Mental wrote: My van is really an appliance for getting to work in the snow or carrying motorcycles. As a result, I can easily neglect it. I HATE litter, so any trash I create stays in my car until I take it out. Its a very incidous process that simply involves an empty coffee cup, or soda can a few days a week. After a short while, I have a mess. I make myself clean out all my trash and carry it to the rolling can in the driveway every afternoon. But as far as washing it, only when its really bad.

+1 that accurately describes my car clealiness habits.

While working at a lab in Gainesville (nothing fancy - entering data and cleaning,) I started detailing people's cars on the side. Depending on the size of the vehicle, I'd charge between $65 and $85 for a "full detail" (inside clean as a whistle, including door jambs, armor-all, windows, and anal-izing with q-tips and brushes. Exterior hand wash & wax, wheels bling-ified and tires armor-all'd.)

The jobs would typically take 3-4 hours if I was hustling. and $20/hour cash was about three times what I was making at the lab. Pretty soon, damned near everybody at the lab was having me detail their cars.

Anyway, the Boss man decides he wants his 1 year old Caddy done. Considering it's "the boss," his car is a year old, and he's a pretty clean cut dude, I made the mistake of pricing out the job before seeing the car. He insists on having me come to his place, rather than me taking his car to my place. "Fine," I say.

I show up to his house...on a dirt road...with a dirt driveway, and here's the car. There's not a single straight panel on the thing. The roof looks like it's had basketball sized hail fall on it, the hood is scratched all to E36 M3.

Boss man comes out...followed by his smoking hot 30-something year old wife (boss man's in his late 60's) and her 3 kids. The kids immediately (no E36 M3) start climbing all over the car. Mom says "oh please stop" a whole bunch of times. Boss man says/does nothing.

I should've packed up my E36 M3 and left, but I'm trying to woo the boss a little here. After moving the car to the grass, I bust my berkeleying hump for well over my normal 4 hour max, desperately trying to give this turd a decent polish. The interior is nothing short of completely berkeleying trashed. There's melted crayon all over the leather, melted crayon rubbed into the carpet, crayon all over the windows.

I do the best I can with what I've got, and the car is at least "clean."

Boss man comes out to inspect. He looks perturbed. He immediately starts asking E36 M3 like "What about all these scratches in the hood? Aren't you going to do something about those?" and "There's still crayon in the carpet."

I explain, best I can, that I quoted him $65 to wash, wax, vacuum, and armor-all his car. If he would like for me to source him a new hood, new rear seats, new carpet, etc., I'd be happy to...for a nominal fee.

He mutters a lot and says something to the effect of "You know, I just don't think this is worth 65 dollars." We go back and forth a bit more. Finally, he coughs up the cash...sans-tip, of course.

I hopped in my well kempt, 200,000 mile dodge shadow and drove off with 65 bucks a couple of hard-learned lessons in my pocket.

Thanks for the insights folks I appreciate them. My pickup truck is my beater and the hood makes a hell of a workbench so I'm not talking about dirt and grime, but complete neglect to the point all the paint falls off and the rust is showing on a 10year old car.

I think the theory on resenting a car because it costs 1000$ to fix might explain many cases and the new money explains the other part. Like my mechanic said, some people buy what was an 80k dollar car and then balk when it costs 1000$ to fix the thing. It was originally 80k because of expensive parts and build quality so to do a decent repair job take more time and money.

Thanks again folks!