[predatorwheelz]

Services Offered

As the name suggests, it provides premium exterior and interior detailing on all cars. This includes paint correction, paint protection, polish and interior detailing. Solely started and managed by Bhpian Joseph Varghese (NOS Power), its a first-of-its-kind initiative in Kolkata.

Let me explain. Detailing is not such a developed market in Kolkata, and most of the "polishers" I've seen/used so far are untrained mechanics. Their concept of detailing is simple. Wash the car, apply rubbing compound, then apply some run-of-the-mill wax - and you're done. While that gives a lot of shine for about a fortnight, it doesn't do anything in terms of paint correction, and doesn't treat the paint from the inside.

Premium Auto Detailing, on the other hand, uses the most premium products, and uses a multi-step process, which includes claying, compounding, polishing and waxing. The interior cleaning comprises vacuuming, cleaning and use of protectant, and finally a conditioner for the leather/art leather on your seats.

What I like

1. Joseph's knowledge of his subject. He's been researching this stuff for years, and really knows what makes paint correction work. Before starting off on my car, he gave a half hour thesis on my paint's current condition, what product would work best (and why), and how each step would enhance the condition. You don't have to be a detailing expert (I'm not ), but you can make out he's speaking logic.

2. The materials used. So far, my idea of wax polish was a black shiny bottle of Turtlewax/yellow shiny bottle of Eagle One and 2 pieces of cloth. Wasn't used to seeing so many serious looking bottles of stuff, clay bars, microfibre towels and the like. He tells me some of them cost a fortune, and the lack of attractive packaging is because these are meant for professionals, not the end user market.

3. Lone ranger. Joseph prefers working alone. According to him, the work requires professional knowledge, and he'd not have an untrained "teniya" working on a client's car.

What I don't like

Plain and simple, the Pricing. The rate he charges for a mid size sedan is about FIVE TIMES what I used to pay my regular polish guy. This fact alone deterred me from giving him business for a long time. But again, Joseph claims that the money is being charged not only for the professional level of service, but to cover the high cost of materials. He also says there are people in Bangalore and other metros charging such prices for quality jobs. Mere liye to apna hard earned money hai, mereko kya maloom?

Work on Predator

It took a hard summer day's work on Predator, and the results were quite stunning. I had no idea that a car which is washed daily could have imbibed so much embedded dirt over the last 3.5 years. All the dirt came out during claying. Secondly, unlike a normal polish job, where the shine is a surface shine, this really seemed to have brought out a gloss from INSIDE the paint. Swirl marks were completely gone, as were minor imperfections.

Scars that remained were small paint chips that have come up from small stones/gravel flying up, due to driving on bad roads at high speed. Also both my bumpers are badly scarred from small knocks taken over the car's lifetime. Both will need repainting, I'm told.

Let me put up a few pics:

Bonnet (Before)



Bonnet (After)

It looked good enough to shave on



Side Panel (Before)



Side Panel (After)

You can see that the paint almost looks a different shade of black. The chips from small stones remain.



Bonnet LHS (Before)



Bonnet LHS (After)



Contact Details

Being a service, PAD doesn't have a brick and mortar setup as yet. Joseph will come to your house and do the job. The following are his contact details:

Personal Address - 49C, Satabdi Park, Mukundapur, Calcutta 700099.
Mobile - 9830853701
Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Premi...89560964485852

[nandans2005]

Great work , i must say.The car looks entirely different after the job done. I suggest you to post few pictures of the entire car before and after the work. It will give a better understanding of the job done.

Also what make are the products ?

[shuvc]

@pw, thanks for putting this up. I should have, a long time back !

My Civic underwent the PAD treatment too. In fact I was his first customer. I had been waiting for something like this in Cal, and the moment I heard him announce it, I immediately booked the first slot available. I had never seen anything beyond normal polishing in my life and I took this on as an experience and learning.

A leap of faith if you will ! And overall I was not disappointed.

Joseph himself was a bit surprised that I had chosen the <2 year old Civic for my 'experiment'. He was expecting me to put the 6+ year old Baleno under the spotlight. The Civic was in pretty good shape anyway. It is cleaned everyday.

I do not have before-after pics like @predator that shows the difference. In fact people who are used to seeing the car, did not spot a blinding difference.

I stayed with Joseph all day - Saturday 930am to 630pm, much to the chagrin of our respective spouses (!!) - assisting him in whatever little way I could with a helping hand or with instantaneous feedback. My presence helped me appreciate the effect of what he was doing.

Two most telling aspects were :
a) Fine scratches and paint discolorations. I kept identifying them and he kept removing them ! These were not visible to the casual eye but since we were going over the car with a fine tooth comb, loads of such blemishes were taken care of. I had been seriously contemplating getting the rear bumper painted sometime this year. Now there is no need to !

b) Embedded dirt in the paint. Here again the pre-post difference is difficult to tell in a fairly new white car having pretty good paint condition, unless one is present during the execution. As he was treating one panel after another, it was clearly evident that the paint took on a distinctly cleaner/whiter shade.

One of the long term advantages of the method he was using, was the strength of polish and hardness of the foam pads. These were being varied based on the severity of the blemishes being corrected, to ensure that the minimum depth of paint is affected. Normal polish jobs that attempt to even out scratches, use the same method all around the car resulting in a loss of paint layer even where it is not required.

Regular polish jobs? Here's a comparo:
- A guy has polished my Baleno a couple of times. Rs. 600-700 for a wash followed by some polish from his own bottle and interior cleaning ending with some plastic 'polish'. He completes his work in 2 to 2.5 hours.

- Garages that do polishing. The last Baleno polish was at such a place, where Interior + Exterior (with 'machine') is priced at Rs. 1900. Another place quoted Rs. 2300 (that place has since wound up !). Here too they take around 3 hours.

In contrast, Joseph put in a net of 8+ hours for my car. And he was still willing to go on, but fading light and irritated spouses had to be taken into consideration !!! Yes, it may seem a tad overpriced, but given that he recommends that this level of detailing should be done 'at most' once a year, he has a fair case going.

WIP .. Panels that are not being polished are taped up so that the polish spray does not affect them. This could affect already polished panels as well as black plastic/rubber areas and alloys. Micropore is used exclusively for taping.


The morning after. As you can see, on a white car, the resulting effect is difficult to capture as is evident from the Black Verna above.


The interiors were cleaned too, with 2 layers of protective materials applied. Since that day in March, the car has never been driven with the windows open

[scuderiamania]

@Shuvc- The car simply looks stunning. The white really comes out!

@aniket-da- Do report back how long this shine lasts. My father first tried getting the car polished from different garages around salt lake but the expense coupled with the fact that the shine hardly lasts a month at most, deterred us from going back. Sometime around 2010 Baba got a bottle of Muguiar's gold wax polish and got a guy who stays in our garage to polish the car by hand. Takes about 4 hours to polish where I apply the polish and the other guy does all the rubbing with a towel like material [initially I tried doing it all by myself but I used to run out of steam in about an hour and a half leaving the car half finished]. The shine stays for about 1.5-2 months and we get it polished every 3 months. We pay roughly a little more than a day's wage.

Btw, what will we be charged for getting the car done up by NOS Power?

[octane1002]

Good to know that a fellow bhp-ian has started detailing services in the largely unorganised market here in Kolkata.The finish is impressive as well.The passion shows in the work.
Premium quality would command premium pricing too.Im guessing from Aniket da's post that pricing would be around 4-4.5k right?IMO, for pricing in that range the longevity of the finish would really have to stretch to a year at the very least to be fair, especially when you consider it's for a entry level mid size car like the verna. Barring some bhpians and car enthusiasts,the typical midsize car owner is generally very budget conscious unwilling to try out anything that is highly priced.
To quote an example, my office complex houses a financial major's HQ and needless to say the owner there has cars ranging from real exotics like RRs/7 series/XJ/TOUAREG to run of the mill civic/Laura etc.I saw the Civic being detailed past month by 3 chaps and asked the one doing the interiors.Came to know that they had come from SPEEDINC and were charging 1800 for the job after some probing.N I thought to myself that would be a bit of a stretch for me oconsidering they finished work within 4 hours.But then again they were 3 people so maybe it was ok.Products may have been different but as I said all boils down to the longevity.I haven't yet tried out any detailing services from them but the car looks fine 2 months on.All said and done thats how much prices vary in Kolkata and it all boils down to personal preferences.I for one would like to get my cars detailed every 4-5 months in the dusty/polluted metro that Kolkata is to keep them looking like new.N that would again not be possible if the services are prohibitively expensive.Just a personal opinion though.No offence to anyone here.

[cityvic]

Woah.Thats some amazing shine.

Keeping a Black Car Swirl Free is so damn tough.
Hoping to use Joseph's Services very soon.

[predatorwheelz]

Originally Posted by nandans2005

Great work , i must say.The car looks entirely different after the job done. I suggest you to post few pictures of the entire car before and after the work. It will give a better understanding of the job done.

Thank you. Sadly I don't have too many pics, as I'm too busy with relocation to a new city these days. You may access PAD's FB page, there are pics of other cars he's worked upon.

Originally Posted by nandans2005

Also what make are the products ?

Not much clue about the brands boss! Why don't you drop Joseph a PM?

Originally Posted by shuvc

@pw, thanks for putting this up. I should have, a long time back !

No probs dada. In fact I should thank you (as should Joseph) for being the first courageous customer to try out what initially seems an expensive service.

Originally Posted by scuderiamania

@aniket-da- Do report back how long this shine lasts. My father first tried getting the car polished from different garages around salt lake but the expense coupled with the fact that the shine hardly lasts a month at most, deterred us from going back. Sometime around 2010 Baba got a bottle of Muguiar's gold wax polish and got a guy who stays in our garage to polish the car by hand. Takes about 4 hours to polish where I apply the polish and the other guy does all the rubbing with a towel like material [initially I tried doing it all by myself but I used to run out of steam in about an hour and a half leaving the car half finished]. The shine stays for about 1.5-2 months and we get it polished every 3 months. We pay roughly a little more than a day's wage.

Let me give you a bit of advice. (Joseph had been telling me this from day 1, and after seeing my car I understand what he means). Don't use PAD if shine - or the longevity of it - is what you are looking for. PAD is more about paint correction, and protection, than just outright shine. Once he does his thing on your car, the paint will be err - "corrected" enough to produce brilliant shine for the next one year.

Originally Posted by scuderiamania

Btw, what will we be charged for getting the car done up by NOS Power?

Ask him .

Originally Posted by octane1002

Premium quality would command premium pricing too.Im guessing from Aniket da's post that pricing would be around 4-4.5k right?IMO, for pricing in that range the longevity of the finish would really have to stretch to a year at the very least to be fair, especially when you consider it's for a entry level mid size car like the verna. Barring some bhpians and car enthusiasts,the typical midsize car owner is generally very budget conscious unwilling to try out anything that is highly priced.

Fully agreed. I was part of that brigade till very recently. Considering Joseph has no direct competitors in Kolkata, its this midsize car owner's mentality that will be his biggest challenge, to change.

[Concorde]

Good to know about this. There is dearth of good car services here. Will definitely try it out soon and recommend it to friends. Can somebody please PM me what the charges are? I would also like to know if there is a good quality private car garage in Calcutta owned by Bhpians. A lot of people are on the lookout for these because they are not happy with the authorized ones. And would anyone be interested in opening such a place? Looking forward to hear from all of you.

[arjab]

Great initiative.
There is a complete dearth of Car Detailing services in Kolkata unlike Bangalore and Chennai where there is a surfeit of them!

For some strange reason, there is an aversion by customers to spend a bit more on their vehicles in Kol to keep them looking spic and span.
I remember , long time back, at Alipore , opposite Bhavani Bhavan, this petrol pump had set up a an automated car wash system - first of its kind in the city which went bust after a year or so!

Wishing this new initiative all good luck and hope to see more shiny metal on Kol roads soon

[premjit]

After Shuvc's day out with PAD and his Civic, I'd decided to give PAD a shot. Bluestreak, My Ford Fiesta 1.6S (Aquarius Blue) has spent about 3 years with me, is lightly run (22k kms in 3 years), relatively well maintained (no parking in crowded areas etc) and always undergoes a thoroguh cleaning interspersed with some sort of mechanical wax polish using a buffer and some Forumla 1 polish. However, I did feel that these were all stop gap arrangements and that the imperfections on my car body were begining to show. Even though I'd spoken to Joesph before to understand the process and understood that it was detailed and time consuming from Shuvc, I went in with an open mind with minimal expectations.

Am outlining the process undertaken on my car, the challenges and my final take on the entire exercise:

Problem Areas:
1. Cloth swirls on the entire body. These swirls were showing through on close inspection.
2. My entire bonnet and headlight clusters had paw marks/ scratches. Yes, the Labrador downstairs decided to play with the car once and pawed every inch of the bonnet. So much so, that even the plastic clear lens had some major scratches.
3. Rear left door had a major deep set key scratch, thanks to a cook who was caught stealing groceries and promptly booted out by wife and mom.
4. The same door also had a minor scratch cause by the overzealous watchman shutting the gate while the car was still in motion.
5. General grime and dust accumulation in areas that were hard to reach by the washer- man such as the fog lamp pods, front grille and lower grill.

Performance and process overview:
1. Joseph decided to come in and do a full dekko of the car before the actual day of the detailing. That way I was able to show him the trouble areas and set my expectations in order.
2. The entire detailing process per se started at around 9 AM and went on till about 7.30 PM. Time taken was longer than Shuvc since we spent a considerable time on the bonnet and the front headlights.
3. The process is very different from that undertaken by the regular “Teflon” guys. The compounds used are fillers which run off over time leaving the scratch as it earlier was. Unlike this, Joseph uses a multistage process which starts off with a cleaning, claying, scrubbing, compounding and then finishing. This ensures that the scratch per se isn’t filled up, rather it is merged. Of course, Aniket has detailed this process in far more detail.
4. We also spent time cleaning up the nooks and crannies, something that irritated me to no end. I myself cleaned every single crate of the front grille until I was satisfied. There is no harm in lending Joseph a hand, after all, its your own car and most of us would enjoy getting our hands dirty too.
5. I liked his keenness to take feedback. If there was a particular panel that I wanted redone or tackled differently, he’d do it. No airs about “I’m the expert and I know it all”. This level of interaction helps you appreciate his work, learn as the process goes along and have fun too.

My final take:
1. I maintain, I didn’t have too many expectations from the process when it started, but was pleasantly surprised to see that my car looked much better: paint discolorations, scratches, paw marks were remarkably reduced. Please note that any deep set scratch will not disappear. This is simply because there is no paint left at all, its been eroded right through to the metal. PAD isn’t magic, so don’t expect Joseph to be a PC Sorcar Jr.
2. His knowledge is still evolving. The basics and intermediate fundas are well in place. However, advanced knowledge of treating different issues will only increase with more and more work.
3. The price charged is very reasonable. Consider the work done by an average “Teflon” guy (start to finish in 2-3 hours) and Joseph’s work which took almost 11, there has to be some extra efforts that is put in all that extra time.
4. Lastly, on a personal note, I’d like to congratulate him for this entrepreneurial venture. Each one of us has a deep set desire to sometimes start off on our own in the field that we love. Unfortunately most of us leave our desires behind in the rigmarole of growing our bank balances. Kudos to Jospeh for taking up something that he genuinely likes and enjoys.

Pics can be viewed at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Premi...89560964485852

I currently dont have access to external mails from my office id and hence unable to upload pics. Will put em up ASAP. In the interim, the above link has a folder dedicated to Blue Streak. Do take a look.

[mitrajdeep]

Thanks premjit for the review.

The face book link is not opening.." The page you requested was not found ".

Please upload some pictures here.

[cityvic]

Originally Posted by cityvic

Woah.Thats some amazing shine.

Keeping a Black Car Swirl Free is so damn tough.
Hoping to use Joseph's Services very soon.

So I finally got a chance to use Joseph's detailing services last December when I was in town.

We got the E, 6 months back. Since, I am not there in Calcutta anymore to look after the cars, they do tend to get a bit neglected and do not stay in the top notch condition under the care of the chauffeurs. Once, I was back in town for my winter break, the first thing in my mind was to get the E detailed.

Constant road repairs and construction dirt had accumulated on the paint and there were lot of tar patches too.
The car's paint did not have too many swirls as the car gets washed with a microfiber daily, gets shampoo'd twice a month and hence the paint condition was pretty good.

I had three options to get the car detailed from.
1. Joseph - Premium Auto Detailing.
2. Meguairs Auto Detailing
3. Mercedes Benz Service Centre

Mercedes Benz Service Centre was put off right away as they were charging around 15k for the entire job and I was not even too sure, how capable their men are and how genuine their products used are.
Its often in most dealerships in Calcutta that the 3M bottles used have local "mullick bazaar" material filled into them.

Meguairs Auto Detailing was put off because again, the job would be performed by young lads themselves who have got little training rather than the owner who has studied on the subject and knows what to do and what not to. Meguairs would not be having someone to supervise the job either like most good detailing stores in India have.

Premium Auto Detailing chosen. Ask me why?
Joseph, has done 2-3 years of research on this subject. He knows what to use, why to use and where to use. He uses the best of products available to detail his customer's cars.

He is an office goer who does it for passion on his free time on Saturday's instead of doing it as a full fledged business.

Also, I can trust Joseph with the car. He himself is a car guy, knows how to keep cars and hence I know he even by mistake would not do anything that would damage the paint or any part of the car while detailing it.

I was there most of time downstairs with him when he was working on the car. He explained me the step by step process, showed me the hairline scratches in the few areas, showed me the amount of tar the car had on its paint. While, he was working on the car, I could also see the amount of dirt which had accumulated on the paint, thanks to the pollution in the city and the constant constructions everywhere.
My interiors were quite clean and all that was needed was some conditioning on the leather and plastic parts.

Yes, I knew, I could not get the similar shine achieved while doing a black car. My main motive behind getting this detail done was to get all the dirt from the paint removed, get the tar removed, get the minor scratches of a daily driver to be worked upon and finally to get some decent shine on the paint.
Joseph, also told me that under the care my car goes through daily, the shine would last me atleast 6 months. All it would need is a coat of wax in between during the 3rd month.

What I like:
- Knowledge
- Trustworthy
- Best in the business
- Top notch materials
- Attention to detail

What I dont like:
- Price.
But again, for the E Class or any premium car, I would not mind paying that price. So hence, for almost a 60 lakh car, it is justified and very much worth it considering no-one else does a job that good or is as reliable as Joseph.

Some pictures taken by me the next morning post the detailing job with an iPhone 5 camera and zero processing or editing.























In the end, I am an extremely happy and satisfied customer. The detailing job done was brilliant and totally worth it.
I also got the car in much better shine than it was during delivery.
Thank you so much for the lovely job, Joseph.

[cityvic]

Some pictures of my car and a friend's car posted by Joseph on his facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Premi...89560964485852

The shine on the paint is not pretty much evident here due to the extremely low light as the pictures were taken around 5pm.








A friend of mine, owning an E class saw my car and immediately availed the detailing services of Joseph the following week.
His car has done around 25000 kms and is 1.5 years old.
The shine achieved and the paint protection done was brilliant.
He too in the end of the day was an extremely happy and satisfied customer.









I feel, these pictures dont justify the work done by him.
To have a better look and to understand better, please go through the pictures taken by me in the previous post.

[cityvic]

Some more cars done by Joseph in the recent past.

Porsche Boxster S

















Mercedes Benz E350 Cabriolet











A friend's BMW 320D























BMW X1

[cityvic]

Some more.

Skoda Yeti









Hyundai Verna













Volkswagen Polo