More photos:

Even more photos:

Bump

I will let the pros weigh in, but I think you are right about the rectangular marks being from the suction cup thingy they use to carry it.

I will tag @Joseph Corlett, LLC for you. I believe I have heard him recommend using Acetone on a soft rag to take those types of marks off.

Hope it works as those quartz countertops look pretty with your green cabinets and the gold hardware!

Have them trythis please.

@josephcorlettllc thank you so much for your insight. They are coming out next week to asess but my biggest concern is why did this happen? Was the stone not sealed correctly and if they are able to remove these marks, will we have issues moving forward with the Quartz not being as durable as it should be? thanks again for your help!

"Was the stone not sealed correctly"

@HU-780762531 just to be clear, so that when you talk to the contractor next week there is no confusion, your counter is not stone (stone would be granite, marble, soapstone, quartzite). Your counter is Quartz which is a manmade material. Quartz is not supposed to be sealed. That is one of the reasons people like Quartz for their counters. So sealing had nothing to do with the marks on your counter.

@mmiller ok noted. Is there a reason there are marks on the quartz? Will this always be a problem or does the quartz need to be polished/etc? We had quartz in our last home we installed and still looked new 7 years later so trying to understand why these marks even happened.

You are thinking that this quartz is not as durable as others you have had? What kind of quartz is it -- perhaps others have some experience with it?

@catspa_zone9sunset14 I am concerned that either the quartz was not handled/stored properly or was not manufactured correctly. The quartz in our last home looked practically brand new after 7 years of use. This new quartz was just installed and the brand is MSI, style is Viraldi.

" Those are undoubtedly vacuum pod marks. Measure them and measure the vacuum pods at your fabricator's shop and they'll be identical. Make them remove them or replace please. "

Joseph answered your question and even told you what to do.

@millworkman thank you for stating the obvious 🙄 Excuse me for trying to understand WHY the vacuum pods left marks in the first place.

Also:

“Along with the marks, smudges & scratches seem to be appearing with minimal use and not normal for brand new quartz”

I've been participating here for a while and most of the quality complaint we see on this forum about quartz seem to be directed at the slabs made by MSI.

@chispa thank you for that, now ill look into MSI quartz complaints & hope they are able to fix it 😓

If you're going to put engineered stone on CNC vacuum pods face down, don't pull the plastic off first.

UPDATE:

Fabricator came yesterday. Said he has never seen anything like this. He suspects the marks were from the acetone cans sitting on the countertop during install (photo attached) which he said has NEVER happened and is NOT normal. He wiped the countertops with bar keepers friend followed by acetone at least 5 separate times. Said he's never wiped a countertop this much and isn't sure why this is happening. The marks faded mostly but not entirely. There's one random streak on the edge he scrubbed with bar keepers multiple times and was surprised it would not budge.

I showed him the Tenax Rescue Remover recommended by @josephcorlettllc and he took a screenshot to take back to his boss.

My concern is moving forward, I've got 11k in two slabs that are not behaving like normal quartz should so while these marks are way less noticeable, WHY is the quartz marking up in the first place?

Any ideas or thoughts on why quartz would stain this easily and how I should proceed moving forward. thanks.

I think you certainly have valid concerns—did you contract directly with the fabricator and did you get the quartz from their shop/recommended supplier? I would worry about long term. We have a Cambria remnant used as vanity top in our hall bath and we use it A LOT. It shows NO marks of any kind after being installed almost 5 yrs now… One reason we got quartz in our new build kitchen and our bath was the no-problem quartz in that bathroom—but new build will have a Corian Quartz—couldn’t find a Cambria pattern we really liked…

@loves2read We went to MSI and a few other showrooms to see slabs and kept going back to this particular one. We had quartz in our other kitchen for years with no problem. We got quotes from multiple fabricators all highly rated and all were about the same cost so we went with the most responsive fabricator with the best reviews. Its been a mess 😩