But that is assuming the neighbors would otherwise get a subscription of their own if Joe didn’t share.
What if 7 people chipped in and paid for one plan and each took a turn getting a wash once per week? If they otherwise wouldn’t individually get subscriptions how are they cheating the car wash out of anything? This way the service gets paid for one subscription per month. Alternately the 7 don’t do this and the car wash gets paid $0.
Is the car wash a loss leader? If Joe washes his car (just his car like we’ll assume the contract says) all 31 days of the month, does the car wash lose money? The service may be betting that people aren’t going to do that.
If Joe knows the car wash is losing money (at least on him) by him washing his car every single day, is he being unethical by actually doing it? He is adhering to the contract but knows that they are not making a profit on him.
Most people don’t, of course - but I’ve known taxi drivers and livery cab drivers, and it’s not uncommon for them to run their car through a car wash at the beginning of each shift. They can -and do- really benefit from unlimited car wash deals.
The rest of us, not so much.
What if there’s a plan to assassinate Taylor Swift that can only be thwarted by the car wash not having any down time? Holy shit, dude. “Joe” agreed with another party to do business in a specified way. He broke the agreement and is an untrustworthy dickhead and I would never do business with someone like him because I know that he’ll find some way to backstab me given the chance.
Do you honestly think that the owner of the car wash would be cool with this?
If Joe has a question about what is or is not allowed with regard to the deal he should ask the proprietor. If the proprietor says no then Joe has the option of canceling his subscription. It may be that the proprietor doesn’t care and thinks that its worth it for him to keep Joe as a customer even if he’s washing both cars. In that case Joe can follow his scheme with a totally clear conscience.
Is the owner cool with subscription holders washing their car every single day? I’m guessing there are margins built into the costs. For every Joe that washes his car every day, theres a Jed that only does it once per week.
Spread out over 31 days versus the subscription price each wash costs Joe 88 cents but costs the owner 89 cents to provide. If Joe were to be aware of this ratio would it be ethical for him to continue to wash his car everyday knowing the business was losing money on him? Or is it a case of “too bad so sad, you know the risk of the deal you entered in to”?
But if Joe only washes his car once per week, and his wifes car once per week under the same subscription, the business makes a profit as compared to Joe only washing his car but doing it everyday.
So in that scenario if Joe violates the terms of the contract the business makes money. He adheres to the terms the business loses money. Which choice is more ethical? Keeping in mind this is a false dilemma as I present no other choices.
Without reading the whole thread, it’s absolutely and clearly unethical. It’s stuck like that to your windshield for a reason. I know exactly the carwash sticker you’re talking about. That said, since I’m being honest and this is the Dope, I wouldn’t lose sleep if I did it (and I thought about it after missing many months of taking advantage of the monthly wash so I could get the other car washed, just didn’t think I could peel it off in one piece.) Yes. I’m sometimes unethical. But I’ll admit it.
Then 7 people would be stealing from the car wash. If those people want to wash their cars 4 times a month there is a plan that would allow them to do that. This is not that plan.
Whatever choice both parties agree to, with full knowledge, is the ethical choice.
Hey, can we acknowledge that you shared a photo of the pass in the OP, and stop pretending there’s a “Joe” in this situation? You’re refusing to let the car wash folks negotiate with you in full knowledge. You’re unilaterally changing the agreement without telling them you’re doing it. Everything else is beside the point. If they agree to an arrangement in which they lose money, and they have the ability to realize that, then you’re behaving ethically by entering into that arrangement. If they don’t agree to an arrangement in which they make money, they you’re behaving unethically by denying them the right to make the decision.
At a festival recently, my daughter told a jewelrymaker that she was buying beads for her cousin, who also makes jewelry. The vendor was delighted and talked with her at length about the beads, and afterward, said, “You should get some earrings for yourself!” My daughter demurred, saying she didn’t have enough money–so the vendor gifted her an inexpensive pair.
The vendor lost money off the arrangement with my daughter, but my kid was perfectly ethical in accepting (with thanks) the gift.
What if, instead, she’d bought all those beads with the intention of stealing a single 50-cent bead at the end of the process? The vendor would have netted more money; but my daughter’s theft would have been unethical in the way that accepting the more expensive earrings wasn’t.
The difference–the crux of the matter–is that the vendor has a right to decide what transaction they’ll enter into, just like you do. If either party changes the terms without letting the other know about the change, it’s gross.
If you are insinuating that I am Joe, I assure you I am not. And that picture is a stock photo I found on the internet. AFAIK no such business listed on that sticker exists in my locale.
But “Joe” does exist. Our first topic of conversation was that he takes his car through a wash with brushes and I only use touchless washes. Years ago I had the finish on a car ruined by swirl marks from a brushed car wash and now refuse to use them.
Then he told me how his sister was giving him shit for using the pass for both his and his wifes car. (I would have no reason to do that as my wife gets free daily car washes at the dealer for 5 years. Doesn’t use it every day, though.)
I’m torn. I see his point of view of how he paid for one wash a day it’s not that big of a deal which vehicle goes through. I wouldn’t say it’s ethical but wouldn’t go so far as to call him a thief. He does go through a wash (Scrub-aDub) that has an attendant. So they’re either numb nuts or just don’t care that he’s doing this.
Which brings me to this: if the attendant knows what he’s doing but let’s it slide, is it still wrong to do? The attendant is not management but just being a bad employee. If the clerk at the mini mart tells me I can have a free soda and (unbeknown to me) had no authority to do that does that make me a thief?
The wash I go through (Jetz) has no attendant. On occasion both bays are down for the entire day, screwing me out of a wash for that day. When that happens what does the business owe me? It’s not like I’m going to file a claim for a buck.
The question at hand is whether it’s ethical. The answer to that depends on exactly what the framework for your ethics is. For most people, this would be something along the lines of whatever the car wash owner intended when offering the subscription deal, and they can point out language in most of these kinds of deals that expressly limits it to one car. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that they care if two cars are used on the same subscription, as long as they think that they’re maximizing profit.
Clearly the main reason that the subscription is limited to one car is that otherwise people could pass it around their extended family and the owner would potentially lose out on a lot of revenue from people that want to get their car washed and are willing to pay, but know a way around it. When it comes specifically to whether the owner cares whether there’s only a second car in the rotation, you would need to know the owner prefer that Joe not be a customer, or that he get two different cars washed on the same subscription. I don’t know the answer, and it likely depends on what the marginal cost to provide a car wash is. If the marginal cost is high and they’re relying on people not getting their car washed often, then they would definitely prefer Joe not be a customer. If the marginal cost is low, and they’re using the subscription model to drive revenue growth since cost of sales is so low, they’ll prefer he remain a customer even if he’s doing something he’s not supposed to.
If you were to ask the car wash owner directly, he’d no doubt say that you would need to buy a second subscription for a second car. But if you then say “OK then, I’ll just go down the street to this other wash offering the same deal” and see if they change their tune, then you’ll know what the owner really cares about - is it the revenue, or not wasting money on washing cars he shouldn’t have to wash for free?
Maybe that makes it more wrong, because it puts the employee in an awkward position: Confront the customer and risk looking like an asshole or getting yelled at, or let it slide and risk getting chewed out by the boss or even fired.
If I were Joe I would know this. But the discussion didn’t get that deep and wasn’t even very long.
My car wash does specify one car only and the transceiver says “void if removed” . I think mine is perforated and would self destruct if I were to peel it off.
My plan is very easy to change. Just go online. For instance, in the summer I save a couple of bucks by turning off the underbody flush.
You’re a business owner. How would you see the situation if you were the carwash owner? Would you care if 1 customer acted like Joe? Would you care if 50 did?
