Customer said my filler work looked 'lumpy' so I changed my whole approach

So I had this guy bring in his 2010 Honda Civic for some rear quarter panel repair and he straight up told me my filler looked lumpy lol. I was kinda mad at first but then I looked at it in different light and yeah he was right. I started using a longer board for spreading and taking way more time to feather the edges. Now I block sand with 80 grit before primer and my finishes are way flatter. Anyone else had a customer call them out on something and it actually improved your work?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

patricia_schmidt142mo ago

The guy was RIGHT to call you out, honestly. Lumpy filler work is something you can ALWAYS see in the right light, and a customer who points it out is doing you a favor. That longer board trick you picked up is a GAME CHANGER for feathering, but what I want to know is how long did you fight the urge to blame the product before you admitted the problem was your technique? I had a similar wake up call when a body shop manager showed me my primer was WAY too thick and I was basically sanding for nothing. So did you completely scrap your old method or did you keep anything from before that lumpy job?

3

ray8012mo ago

Three weeks man, three weeks I spent blaming the mix ratio before my partner just looked at me and asked when was the last time I actually checked my technique. It's funny how that pattern shows up everywhere, like when you keep blaming the gym equipment for bad lifts instead of your form. I kept the basic idea of getting the filler on fast, but everything else about how I spread and block it got thrown right out the window.

2