I took the plunge

For months I've been doing allot of reading here about garage floors. The good, the bad, the impossible. I have painted my floor four times and it was failing miserably and I knew it needed to be delt with but frankly, I didn't feel like dealing with it. A few weeks ago, a local TV station ran an In Your Corner piece spotlighting a WWII vet who got taken by a sham driveway coating company. They got asphault all over his garage floor and refused to clean it up. A local franchise of Garage Experts stepped in and completely revamped his floor for free. This to me showed integrity and compassion so I got online and read up about the Garage Experts and their floor coating system.

I sent them an email and they called me the next day and we chatted about their floor system as well as others. I scheduled an appointment for Garage Experts to come out and look over my floor. We discussed in detail how their floor system works, the prep, and the cost. By the end of our meeting, I told the guy to schedule me for installation. We scheduled it for the ladder part of the following week because I would be out of town and all of my 3wheelers would also be gone so the timing was perfect. While I was gone, they came in and diamond ground my floor and applied their coating system.

When I got home on Sunday, I had a brand new garage floor. It looks great and feels good under my feet. What convinced me to go with Garage Experts.....LIFETIME GUARANTEE.... Did I say LIFETIME GUARANTEE??? and they will come out and fix scratches two times for free.

There's many floor coating systems out there and they all have their good points and their bad points plus the many variables that can affect the longevity of a floor coating. My decision to go with a professionally applied floor vs a DIY floor was motivation and time. The cost..... $2200.00 for 500 sq feet of floor ($4.40 per Sq Ft) and that included two clear topcoats. This stuff is rated for UV so I'm going to have it done on my back patio in the Fall.

I love my floor and if it performs as promised, should provide me with many years of faithful service. If you are interested in reading up on the Garage Experts floor coating system, check out the link.

http://www.garageexperts.com/

I saw that news article also.

Thanks for the link. I will have to look into them also.

Nice collection of 3 wheelers... I have an '87 200X.

The floor looks great too!

Came out real nice!

I'm just a little confused, the text seems to indicate this was a recent installation, but the photos are dated 2007. So....? Either these are old photos or someone has no clue on how to set the date in their camera.

drsung said:

Nice collection of 3 wheelers... I have an '87 200X.

The floor looks great too!

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I'd like to do an 86 or 87 200X one day but finding parts is a major bummer. They simply arent available. Checkout http://www.3wheeler.org/vb/index.php

We are a bunch of dedicated 3wheeler nuts. The site is free. This was our annual OK ride weekend before last at Little Sahara. We had a total of 43 trikes. In 2009, we had 73 trikes in attendance. It was an epic weekend.

66HertzClone said:

I'm just a little confused, the text seems to indicate this was a recent installation, but the photos are dated 2007. So....? Either these are old photos or someone has no clue on how to set the date in their camera.

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Those are recent photos. I'm lazy when it comes to setting the date on my camera. It's all fixed now.

Nice place, Boss!

- A former 1982 Honda ATC 185s Owner!

I wonder how to determine if that good service you received would translate to an unknown person in Western Washington who bought a franchise.

I suspect it all depends on the person, not the company. Price seems the same as PremierGarage, and I hesitate to take a lifetime warranty from basically a one man franchise holder, barring a long track record from the company.

Interesting option though, I'm still deciding.

RC

I understand your concerns Robert. Any average Joe can buy in to a franchise and its that persons honor and integrity that helps to sell a product. The guy I used is a former Navy machinists mate and he left a well paying cushy civil service job to buy this franchise so obviously the guy believes in the product. In addition to that, he also made it a point of interest that he has the full backing of Garage Experts corporate to do whatever is resonable to satisify their customers but one point he made was the fact that he does not rely on repeat business in that once the floor goes down, its not likely to be redone anytime soon so his mission is to do the floor right the first time and satisify his customers so they will tell their friends. He said better than 80% of his business is through word of mouth.

As with any floor coating, the longevity of the coating is dependant on two things;

Was it applied right by the installer
Care and maintenance of the homeowner

I'm pretty hard on my floor but you can bet, I will take special steps to protect my floor as best as I can.

Honestly, that floor looks super. How long is it going to stay that clean and nice?

I'm a bit of a clean freak so if I take care of it, it should look good for years to come.

Nice Floor W,
185S
250SX

The more popular machines are still ok to find parts for. The obscure machines are tough.

Actually, what you see is the 2 on the right (green Army trike and black and white) are both 250SXs. The big red one and the blue and white one are both 250Rs and the little one is an ATC 70 with a 110cc motor in it.

That's honestly one of the nicest epoxy floors I've ever seen, looks like they did a great job!

I like it aesthetically, but for the life of me I don't understand why you'd use any kind of flakes or mottling on an epoxy floor. For me one of the greatest benefits is instantly locating that nut/washer/spring/pin/bearing that just slipped out of my fingers and rolled God knows where... I don't want camouflage so they can hide.

flyingw said:

Actually, what you see is the 2 on the right (green Army trike and black and white) are both 250SXs. The big red one and the blue and white one are both 250Rs and the little one is an ATC 70 with a 110cc motor in it.

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I thought so. Mine has a good motor and thats about it. Needs rear fenders, shocks are rusted, etc....

It's tough when you are busy to commit the time.

Tell me about it. I do my builds in the Winter. I have another SX to do next Winter.

Where do you get your parts? Dennis Kirk?

New or used parts?

New parts
OEM parts, Service Honda
Parts Warehouse
Bike Bandit
Rocky Mountain ATV
DRATV
EBAY

It depends on what you're looking for. I have a local guy I've been stripping trikes for. I get used parts from him but I buy from many sources depending on what I'm looking for. Are you looking for anything specific? I belong to www.3wheeler.org and I have a pretty vast network for parts and services.