Car Wash Horror Stories

Car Wash Horror Stories

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Discussion

Blue Oval84

5,276 posts

160 months

Tuesday 11th April 2017
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Used a fairly well known hand car wash in Hove, once, on my last Mondeo as the paint was already swirled to death, what could go wrong?

  • Useless fat bloke who I don't think works there usually starts "helping" by jet washing cars in the production line queue, but not really finishing one before starting another.
  • Misses mine altogether, so come back and does a half arsed job.
  • Guys on the sponges get confused because the system is messed up, wash one half of my car (I'm sat in the drivers seat watching this clusterfk, bemused) then they move to the car behind me because Captain Chaos is now jet washing that
  • I get left sat there with the car slowly drying in the sun with suds over most of the car, but not the passenger side or half the roof
  • Someone finally rinses it, but by now the suds had mostly dried on anyway
  • Asked to reverse it into a drying bay
  • Wait some more
  • Guy comes over and starts drying bits off and asks "that ok for you?" I point out the entirely missed parts of the car
  • Guy starts wiping the now dry, dirty paint, with his old chamios to literally scrape the dirt off dry
  • I stop him, because even though it's swirled, there is a limit to how much harm I'll let them do
  • Manager finally comes over and makes them do the whole car again, I hear him muttering something about this is why people shouldn't try to help
In a way, I can see what he means, they obviously had a system going which normally works, then you have some useless oaf come in and mess it up, it's not actually very helpful!

Never went back, or used a hand car wash again.

si_xsi

1,189 posts

194 months

Tuesday 11th April 2017
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Dr Doofenshmirtz said:
I watch them cleaning cars in Salisbury's car park...they spray some water over the car with one of those sprayers you use for misting plants, and then wipe the car over with a cloth. Yes it's clean, but the paintwork is ruined.

I guess people are just stupid and just don't care or understand the implications?
...and it costs £8.
Yes I've seen this, it's painful watching. They even stand between the tyres and wheel arch to reach the roof. What the actual f**k. Before I met my current girlfriend she asked for hers to be cleaned at a supermarket car wash, she's not into cars and didn't know what the going rate was but they charged her £25...I wash her car now.

horsemeatscandal

1,171 posts

103 months

Tuesday 11th April 2017
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In my old house I used to wash the car out the back in front of the garage. I'd park the car parallel with the garage door so as to not block the road and in doing so the nearside front wheel would be on a small patch of grass. After rinsing, shampooing, waxing, polishing and claying my car I go to move it to get it back in the garage. However, because it was a lovely sunny day, I'd forgotten it had rained heavily the day before. Thus, the aforementioned nearside front wheel spins up on the grass and spatters the lower side of the car in mud. Annoying, but a quick clean and all is well. I try to be clever and put a paving slab under the wheel to get traction and move off. But no. I apply some throttle, the slab flies off smashing quite loudly off the underneath of the sill, mud goes flying everywhere and all I can do is give it the beans until I move off. Most of the car and garage door and general surrounding area covered in mud. I couldn't even roll back nicely (I was on a hill) because I'd parked in front of a washing line pole. Incredibly embarrassing.

I think the bloke down the road cleaning his Focus RS's wheels with a toothbrush found it hilarious though.

Steven_RW

1,727 posts

201 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Audi A4 story was hilarious.

Captain Chaos quote had be in stitches again.

Focus RS lad and his toothbrush just shaking his head in dismay at the mud splattered motor in the last post was class too.

Brilliant.


Thanks

Henno196

Original Poster:

90 posts

91 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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irfan1712 said:
Henno196 said:
Just popped out to a generic petrol station car wash, usually the Eastern Europeans do a great job.

Safe to say I left before my car was covered in small swirly scratches all over come my turn.
If this was a concern then you shouldn't be considering these hand car washes full stop, regardless of how 'good' they are!

Great for the masses who want their car free of dirt so they can see what colour it is again. Not so great if your a bit of a perfectionist or even less than that, just care about swirls and marks and random scratches appearing after every wash, and also the nasty TFR and over aggressive wheel cleaner that seems to eat through wheel finishes. Think about the wash mitts that were used on the twenty cars and vans before you which were probably absolutely hanging.

i'd rather leave my car get filthy and do it myself once a month even two properly, rather than take it to a hand car wash weekly to let it get hammered.
It's only a 118d, I haven't washed it in 3K miles (the 3 months I've owned it)! I used to wash my own cars when I owned old VW's but all my cleaning gear got left behind when I moved out.

Wombat3

11,968 posts

205 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Used to take my car to the local hand wash place - went there probably 4 or 5 times & didn't pay too much attention. Always looked OK, Interior was cleaned well. 15 quid & about 20 minutes each time (far quicker than I could clean it all).

Then one day I looked at the paintwork properly....:-(

It took me a day & a half with a DA polisher to get *most* of the marks out of it.

Never again, I'd rather leave it dirty till I can wash it myself.

BlueHave

4,636 posts

107 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Heard good reports about a certain Romanian car wash so decided to give it a try. Must have got one on his first day as he was so sloppy and I think he may have been high as a kite.

He never went near the wheels and when I pointed that out he shouted something in Romanian followed by a friendly fk off. So half my car washed for free I suppose.

There is a car wash beside my work and sometimes when i'm at the window they wash about 4-5 cars without even changing the chamois. Some of the customers must be paying a fiver for someone to scratch the paintwork on their Porsche Cayenne.

ecsrobin

17,019 posts

164 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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irfan1712 said:
If this was a concern then you shouldn't be considering these hand car washes full stop, regardless of how 'good' they are!

Great for the masses who want their car free of dirt so they can see what colour it is again. Not so great if your a bit of a perfectionist or even less than that, just care about swirls and marks and random scratches appearing after every wash, and also the nasty TFR and over aggressive wheel cleaner that seems to eat through wheel finishes. Think about the wash mitts that were used on the twenty cars and vans before you which were probably absolutely hanging.

i'd rather leave my car get filthy and do it myself once a month even two properly, rather than take it to a hand car wash weekly to let it get hammered.
+1

Basically spraying your cars with strong acid / alkaline which is made for lorries not cars.

I often see mclarens, rolls royces and so on in my local hand wash it makes me sad the owners don't care for their cars.

Sa Calobra

37,010 posts

210 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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KungFuPanda said:
WTF. Why would you have that sort of car washed there and leave your keys with them and go off?

ecsrobin

17,019 posts

164 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Sa Calobra said:
KungFuPanda said:
WTF. Why would you have that sort of car washed there and leave your keys with them and go off?
Because it was probably just a car to her, she hadn't saved hard for it just given it as a birthday present.

smbitin

28 posts

159 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Over 30 years ago my mate had a Talbot Alpine well into shed territry. This was a time when 3 foot long ariels were the norm. We pulled into a drive through car wash, he completely forgot to retract the ariel and presses start. The centre brush that does the roof ripped off the ariel which then gets wrapped round the brush. From then on each revolution of the brush and ariel whipped the bodywork with a loud thwack! Trapped mid cycle he just let it finish.
The reaction inside the car was a mixture of holy f*** and laughter. We got out afterwards to inspect the damage and it looked like the car had been repeatadly shot with a shotgun.

jumare

417 posts

148 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Cortina, an automatic car wash where you pressed the button when in the car wash. pressed button car wash started, wind window up which breaks half way up quick reverse out (luckily nobody behind) ended up with front half of bonnet clean rest dirty.

Peugeot 309 or similar car wash started and realised I hadn't removed roof aerial, jump out and just about get aerial out ahead of advancing brushes.

I'll admit to using a local 'Eastern European' hand car wash but they do a good job and it's not a pristine car. Did get all keen last year and bought a clay bar, still unused.

Cold

15,207 posts

89 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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From the wonderful world of Youtubeland:


Toaster Pilot

14,615 posts

157 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Had a 65 plate courtesy car from the Renault/Dacia main dealer the other day, was amazed at how badly swirled the metallic black paint was, absolutely god awful.

Guess it gets the quickest "valet" in the world using a broom and some dirty water

blueg33

35,576 posts

223 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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When my daughter was about 3, I was washing my 1 week old car, she was watching me, what I didn't realise is that she was copying me by cleaning the other side of the car. She was dipping a rough stone in a puddle and rubbing it up and down the side of the car.

Deep scratches in both doors and the rear quarter

R E S T E C P

660 posts

104 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Cold said:
From the wonderful world of Youtubeland:

weeping

I put an old Mondeo through an automated car wash once. I couldn't unscrew the antenna to get it off, no matter how hard I twisted. The car wash got it off for me smile.... Although not quite in the way I had intended.

Muddle238

3,871 posts

112 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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I once turned a hose on to wash the suds away on a hot summers day several years back. Heard an unusual bang as I ran the water over the roof, couldn't figure out what happened and so carried on. When drying the car I noticed the windscreen had a crack from the top in the middle, ran down to the middle of the glass where it forked out to both A pillars.

Learnt a lesson about thermal shock that day, cold water on a hot windscreen don't mix.

EazyDuz

2,013 posts

107 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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All these stories are well deserved. Do you expect these people to use a brand new sheeps wool wash mitt per car? No, they will use the same one for weeks until its fallen apart. If you dont care about your paint, use them. If you have any kind of sympathy for your car and consider yourself a bit of a petrol head, you just wouldnt go to one.

Jonno02

2,246 posts

108 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Had my 2 week old lease cupra in at the dealers the other month for an exhaust fix. It had slipped mind that they'd wash it once they'd fixed the issue. Upon picking up my phone to the "The car is all ready, sir" I had that sort of heart skipping a beat feeling. I knew I was going back to a (not even mine) 2 week old car all swirled up nicely. Luckily they had either taken some pride in the wash, or I got lucky with a new sponge. Not a swirl mark in sight. Then again, silver does hide swirls well.

OH has a 13 plate fiesta and she couldn't understand why I told her to get out of the queue and drive away when I spotted the local polish car wash worker dropping his chamois mitten onto the gravel, batter it off his jeans, then put it back on. I nearly yanked the steering wheel from her hands.

cj2013

1,314 posts

125 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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I cleaned cars at a hand car wash whilst I was in university, to pay for my room and food.

I learnt quite a lot more about washing cars there than you would from a forum or video chat. In the summer months we'd probably do ~130 cars a day with no break, and I'd go home with about £40-£50 or so (8 til 5 jobby).

Owner had the right idea, but most of his staff were stealing from him or slacking off.

EazyDuz said:
All these stories are well deserved. Do you expect these people to use a brand new sheeps wool wash mitt per car? No, they will use the same one for weeks until its fallen apart. If you dont care about your paint, use them. If you have any kind of sympathy for your car and consider yourself a bit of a petrol head, you just wouldnt go to one.
Blanket Statement...

Where I worked we had several hundred chamois, microfibres and mitts. If one hit the floor, it got chucked. If one got worn, it got chucked. A freshly machine washed mitt was used for each car that came through, and the same for microfibres when drying etc.