[shashant]

Hi Guys,

Please recommend good shop around Vimannagar for car leather related work.

I am looking for steering cover, handbrake and door pad done.

[abhisheknandan]

I have visited Aquatint twice and every visit has been a delight. The first visit was for my new car which needed initial paint protection treatment after the monsoons.

Nikhil had a good look and suggested for the Paint and Seal program which I opted out. It was wonderfully executed and I was very satisfied with the overall work on the car. The attention to details are great and Nikhil, Tejas and Lallette themselves pay attention to all the work done.

The latest visit was on last Friday when I went for an Express Interior cleaning and Insta Gloss. Again, the exterior Insta Gloss was executed with perfection. I cannot find even a small spot which was left blank.

However, had a feeling that the interior job could have been done better. I had to point out a few places where there were spots remaining. This may be because of a small halt we had in the middle to fix a niggle in the car. Everything pointed out was fixed again with perfection.

I believe this is one of the best places in Pune to go for detailing with the rates and professional services they offer. I found the owners and the staff extremely intelligent about the work and that reflects in the attention to details they put in the job.

[awarty]

I recently got my Endeavour detailed at Aquatint and I am very happy with their service and quality of work.

I dealt with Lallett and was very impressed by his professionalism, patience and low pressure sales approach.

There was a 2 month gap from my initial interactions with him over the phone/WhatsApp until i finally dropped my car off and throughout that time he was very helpful and patiently answered my questions.

I had done a lot of online research but was still unable to decide between the single coat OptiCoat Pro and the dual coat OptiCoat Pro+ treatments. Lallett did not try to push me towards the more expensive option and explained the pros/cons of both options.

I finally went with the OptiCoat Pro+ option and I am very happy with the outcome.

[moralfibre]

Finally took the plunge and took my bike over to Aquatint for a quick steamwash and getting the chain lubed. The moment you enter the facility you realise that the place is run by a bunch of enthusiasts and not by run of the mill service advisors. The place is quite professionally run and the partners are car nuts who worked together at Mercedes Benz India.

I was late for my appointment since I had to run some errands and reached a full 30 minutes late. Apologised to the Tejas and got started. He assigned a technician who spent approximately 3-4 gruelling hours cleaning up every single nook and corner of the bike. There was massive amounts of muck and gunk from the underbody that started flowing out and the bike came back to it's gleaming best. Must add that the guys who worked on the bike were thoroughly professional while cleaning the chain as well. Some SBK mechanics could learn a thing or two about cleaning and lubing a chain from them.

Total cost: Rs. 1415/- including taxes.

Before work began:

Work in progress:

Final outcome:

[PetrolRider]

Do they undertake under body rust protection coating?

I am getting my car this month and planning to avail the under body coating and paint protection service after the rains. Unfortunately their website doesn't have any info on under body coat.

[thewhiteknight]

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

Do they undertake under body rust protection coating?

From my understanding, they do not do under-body coating for rust. I question if its required for Pune which is generally lower in humidity than a Mumbai or other coastal cities?

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

I am getting my car this month and planning to avail the under body coating and paint protection service after the rains. Unfortunately their website doesn't have any info on under body coat.

I would recommend their paint protection sealant programs. The coating seems durable and should help keep your car looking like new for quite a while. Having said that, do read up about Teflon and ceramic coatings vs factory paint clearcoat. This is quite a furious debate in itself.

[thewhiteknight]

Update:

Aquatint have opened a new center on Nagar road, just before the turn-off for Kharadi, when coming from Viman Nagar. Surprisingly, this was setup in May and has been up and running since June.

Overall impressions, this center is a lot bigger than the Aundh premises. It's on 2 floors and can easily accommodate 4-5 cars within the building. Additionally, it has washing/parking space for another 5-6 cars.

The ground floor within the building is where all the 'sensitive' work (polishing, coating, etc) gets done and the outside is used for washing of vehicles. They are planning on building car washing booths in the outside area. Being off the extremely busy Ahmednagar highway, there is a lot of dust even in the monsoons. The upper floor is for offices, storage, product displays, and a customer lounge. I met the super helpful Vikas, who is the center manager (+91-844-619-2722). Vikas was kind enough to walk me through the premises and talk to me about their plans for this center.

Finally some pictures:

Shot 1 from outside


Shot 2 from outside


Downstairs bay 1


Downstairs bay 2


Mr. Vikas

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by thewhiteknight

Aquatint have opened a new center on Nagar road, just before the turn-off for Kharadi, when coming from Viman Nagar. Surprisingly, this was setup in May and has been up and running since June.

Thanks for sharing. I live in eastern Pune so this location is more convenient. 3M car care is not too far away from Aquatint I guess.

It would be great if you could pin this on Google Maps so those interested know the exact location.

Cheers!

[sukiwa]

Originally Posted by R2D2

It would be great if you could pin this on Google Maps so those interested know the exact location.

Google maps pin

Address: Aquatint Auto Detailing Studio - Kharadi
s.no, BRT Stop, 52/A, Nagar Rd, Shree Ram Society, near, Chandan Nagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411014

[PetrolRider]

Originally Posted by thewhiteknight

From my understanding, they do not do under-body coating for rust. I question if its required for Pune which is generally lower in humidity than a Mumbai or other coastal cities?



I would recommend their paint protection sealant programs. The coating seems durable and should help keep your car looking like new for quite a while. Having said that, do read up about Teflon and ceramic coatings vs factory paint clearcoat. This is quite a furious debate in itself.

Thank you thewhiteknight. I did have a chat with Tejas and it seems they do offer under body coating.

BTW, they have started paint protection film too with self-healing properties, but in Baner workshop at this moment. I am waiting for the rain to subdue to visit them and do something about my paint.

[thewhiteknight]

Originally Posted by R2D2

Thanks for sharing. I live in eastern Pune so this location is more convenient. 3M car care is not too far away from Aquatint I guess.

It would be great if you could pin this on Google Maps so those interested know the exact location.

Cheers!

Yes, sorry about that. It struck me later. Agreed about 3M and the eastern Pune bit. While there are 2 3Ms in the general area, I was looking for an alternative close-by, instead of traveling to Aundh or Wanowrie.

Originally Posted by sukiwa

Google maps pin

Address: Aquatint Auto Detailing Studio - Kharadi
s.no, BRT Stop, 52/A, Nagar Rd, Shree Ram Society, near, Chandan Nagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411014

Thanks, Sukiwa! The location is correct. Fair warning though, its a bit obscured from the road due to trees but that probably won't matter in a couple of months!

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

Thank you thewhiteknight. I did have a chat with Tejas and it seems they do offer under body coating.

BTW, they have started paint protection film too with self-healing properties, but in Baner workshop at this moment. I am waiting for the rain to subdue to visit them and do something about my paint.

Ah. I must have misunderstood Vikas then. Do let us know how the underbody coating goes. I'm also waiting on the rains to subside to get some work done.

[fiat_tarun]

Got my new car Aquatint-ed today! Opted for paint enhancement along with the Opti Coat hyper seal. The work as usual was top notch.

Look at her all shining

[Samfromindia]

Let me start this post by saying i am a pretty difficult guy to please when it comes to cleaning and maintaining my ride. I love the art of detailing and have bought multiple stuff for personal use like pressure washer, clay bar set, ONR, Collinite, finest washing mitts, microfibre and water drying magnet from Meguiar's among other things. So far my experience of two detailing outlets in Kolkata were far from satisfactory.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifi...a-kolkata.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/other-...ml#post4446812

After moving to Pune i was anxious to try 3M, but had terrible experience there again
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/other-...ml#post4402886

The Pune TeamBhp community seemed to have similar experience with 3M and was vouching for Aquatint. I finally gave them a try two months back when i was returning home after a Mumbai - Pune drive. And oh boy, i was in for a treat !

I went for the basic Insta Gloss package which included the following:
http://www.aquatintdetailing.com/services.html



Well let the pictures do the talking !





















+ The staff was very courteous and enthusiastic in their work. I was so damn impressed.

+ The owner keeps a tight vigil on the work and makes sure the job is done in best possible way.

+ Another thing that i liked was that they never tried to up-sell more expensive services like most places do.

+ Prices are competitive. Considering the effort they put in they appeared very reasonable.

+ The owner himself got his hands dirty and gave finishing touches to my car. It was quite obvious that he is a car enthusiast himself and doing what he loves !

+ All the pain areas i had was properly addressed. The rear logo of my car gathered some rust. It was properly removed by Nikhil himself.

+ Mechanix is located just beside this facility. Its very popular among car enthusiast here to service and repair their car.


- Like few people mentioned, they don't have option for under body cleaning. Hope they add this in future.

- The facility is little cramped in space and the approach road is narrow.


All in all i am thoroughly impressed by their work I will strongly recommend anyone to take their service and experience what they were missing out all these time. The only problem is that i stay in Kharadi and the Aundh outlet is far away. But luckily they opened their new facility 10 mins from my home So it was time to check out the new Aquatint outlet at Kharadi. More on that in next post !

[Samfromindia]

The newly opened Kharadi outlet is located right on the busy nagar road. The facility is swanky & huge ! It can easily accommodate multiple cars. They have a nice office on first floor having the a range of optimum products on display. This facility is supervised by another partner named Lallett who is also a car enthusiast like Nikhil. I went for their Insta Gloss service again.

+ Service is impeccable, the benchmark set by Aundh outlet is maintained in Kharadi also !

+ Everything good about Aundh outlet was present here. Plus the added benefit of being close to my house was icing to the cake.

+ Multiple people worked on my car for around 2.5 hours. I wonder how much effort they put for the advanced treatments

+ Lallett patiently answered all my queries and addressed all the pain areas i had like the rusting on fog lamps.

+ They were very eager to please and attention to detail was something which needs to be experienced.

+ Last time i didn't let them steam clean the engine bay. This time i had confidence and they did a pretty good job, as you can see in the pictures.

+ I left the facility totally satisfied, will be a regular customer from now on

[neerajdan]

So got my Mini Cooper Countryman detailed at Aquatint again. I will be brief:

1)Fantastic attention to detail
2)Personal attention by one of the owners Lallett
3)Amazing work done both inside and outside
4)No unnecessary upselling of any premium products

In short, work is great and the entire experience is great. Nothing more nothing less. Pictures do the talking: