Oh, and another thing that’s a constant irritant to my daily routine. No, a soft cloth carwash will NOT scratch your car. Nobody uses actual “brushes” anymore (those would scratch your clearcoat). We use high-pile microfiber soft cloth, it’s designed for the industry, it holds many times it’s weight in water and will not allow grit to accumulate in it.
We also do not allow vehicles like open-bedded pickup trucks to go through unless their bed is absolutely clean, which keeps our hanging curtain cloth (called mitters) from dragging into the bed and possibly picking up any debris.
[ul]
[li]How do workers who clean the inside of the car determine what is trash and what isn’t? If in doubt do they leave it? Has anyone ever complained that something that was assumed to be trash was thrown out on them?[/li][li]Also, how often do things like vibrators and other embarrassing personal items turn up inside of people’s vehicles? What other odd things have been found in people’s cars?[/li][li]What do you do if you find a gun or drugs in someone’s car? Do you contact the police?[/li][li]Are employees supposed to readjust the seat to the original position it was in if they have to adjust it for themselves? As a short person (5’4") I find it mildly annoying to have to readjust my seat after someone has adjusted it for himself/herself.[/li][/ul]
I can only speak for my wash, but it’s generally contained to a broken side mirror (rare), a bent rear wiper (also rare, we put plastic sleeves on them so the cloth “glides” over them), etc. We’ve never scratched or dented a car in any way, but I suppose it could happen if a piece of equipment were to fall from overhead onto a car, but that’s very unlikely.
If we damage a car and we can determine that there wasn’t a preexisting condition, we pay for it. For instance, the other day we took a guy’s side mirror off. He comes around to complain and upon inspection, I can see that there’s glue all over the mirror in a half-assed attempt to re-attach it from some other incident. Sorry buddy, not paying for that!
We also don’t cover non-factory items or add-ons, like bugshields, CB antennas, etc. We wouldn’t be able to afford our insurance if we paid for every loose bug shield we blew off, etc. It’s a structural integrity thing.
The worst damage I have seen was recently, when a dumbassed employee of mine went against all his training and took a customer’s word for it that his van had been through before and failed to measure the height. Well, that van ended up striking one of our overhead blowers and punching a hole in his camper top.
We simply cannot wash vehicles that are above a certain height because the equipment has to be placed in such a way to be effective yet accomodate MOST vehicles. So we had to eat that one and I still don’t know how much that’s going to bebecause the owner of the van was leaving for the Bahamas that very day, so we have to wait for the estimate.
Well, we don’t do interiors ourselves, but I’ve heard stories from other operators in my area. Yup, drugs, guns, change stolen, etc.
We get the random thug-type smoking a blunt while I’m standing right there taking his money, usually with his unbuckled toddlers in the back seat. I actually call the cops when there’s kids in the vehicle in an unsafe condition. Some of these morons don’t even bother with a seat belt, let alone a car seat. The pot I could care less about.
The only times we have called police are when a fight has broken out or when we’ve had customers that are so unruly that they have to be removed from the premises. Only happened a couple times in four years.