Automatic car wash YUCK!!!

[Aaryn NZ]

Hello people.
Here are some pictures of a Subaru i did some polishing work on a little while back.
It came in to our shop for an insurance repair after being taken through the mighty automatic car wash. Challenge accepted!
Process was the normal for washing - decontamination etc, then test spot for polishing & settled on Megs 101 on orange LC CCS via Flex for the compounding step. 4 Inch LC CCS on Kestrel for tighter areas. Followed up with Megs 205 & sealed with Autoglyms High def wax.

Here we go - pictures at assessment stage:

50/50 photos during compounding. Found paint to be relatively soft and responsive:

A few hours later . . .
Some pictures of the Subaru done & ready to go. Sorry but no sun shots as late into the night when finished, so a couple of pics in the workshop & then the outside pics are before the sun came up the next morning:

So around 16 + hours spent turning this around, not counting any prep time & to note - only paint work was required for this job apart from a quick freshen up of the wheels for my own presentation benefit.
Three & a half days later the young lady & her irate mother came in saying "the scratches came back" !!!??? Not quite as polite about it either.
Seems one bad experience through a car wash wasn't enough. All that hard work for not much. Needless to say i refused to do any further work for them . . . after after pictures:

Automatic car wash wheel scrubber not lined up i'm thinking.

Thankyou all for viewing my rags to riches back to rags post.
Aaryn. :buffing:

 

[Madness87]

How the heck do you mess up a car three days after it's been professionally detailed and all defects removed? Why were the car owners even washing it 3 days after defect removal and using an automatic car wash no less?

Seems like they realized that the car wash ruined the finish and tried blaming it on you and getting you to do it again.

 

[Goin Rogue]

Amazing work! Those 50/50 shots are amazing.

Too bad they ruined it by using the car wash.

 

[Wes Bremec]

New paint job haha

 

[af90]

Great job restoring that!

 

[KillaCam]

Wow those 50/50 shots are incredible. Who would've known there was metallic paint under there.
I can't believe they took it back to another auto wash. I'm guessing you guides them not to do that and they still did? Oh well, their waste of money.

 

[HUMP DIESEL]

Some people just never learn. I kept thinking the hood was crinkled up, but it was the reflection of the insulation in your ceiling..HA!

You did the right thing by saying.."NO!"

HUMP

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Amazing restoration job! Love this shot!

Just to interject that sometimes your customer's can and will ruin your hard work by doing something as simple as taking their SCRATCH-SENSITIVE clearcoated car through an automatic car wash.

Any car wash that uses spinning brushes or the jostling mops is going to scratch your car's factory thin and factory hard paint. So don't do it if you want to keep your car looking good.

Nice save Aaryn, I'm really looking forward to meeting you and having you in my January Detailing Boot Camp Class.


:dblthumb2:

 

[BillE]

Good grief! I'm just shaking my head.

After all that work...geeze, some people.

If anyone wonders about the damage that can be done by "the car wash," here's the answer.

Great 50/50 shots and work Aaryn!

Bill

 

[Desertnate]

Amazing turn around!

I can't imagine what that car wash looks like. I don't think I've ever seen one that would do that much damage in a single trip. Even on soft Subie paint.

 

[KneeDragr]

Did they admit to taking it back to the car wash or did they lie about it?

 

[Don M]

Was that the car that Nu Finish took through 52 car washes or what? How many times did they run it through the wash, that thing looks like it has been wet-sanded!!

Excellent repair work on it :xyxthumbs:

 

[10secdream]

Amazing job on that Subaru. I am assuming you tried to advise the customer on how to maintain the vehicle after it was corrected?

 

[Johnnyboy]

Great turnaround while it lasted! Judging from the very dirty tires just 3 days later, I'm guessing maybe they decided to do a little "off-roading" and tried to clean it up after......big no no obviously!

 

[HD.Detailing]

1st... Nice work!

people are so ignorant..

question did you explain to them not to wash their car that way after all your hard work?

My customers are afraid to even touch there car when I'm done, haha. I sometimes go to the extreme when telling them not to let anyone wash their car but them after I show them what to use and how to wash and dry.

 

[Sizzle Chest]

Great work! Very nice!!! A crime they destroyed it so soon...

 

[Aaryn NZ]

Amazing restoration job! Love this shot!

Nice save Aaryn, I'm really looking forward to meeting you and having you in my January Detailing Boot Camp Class.


:dblthumb2:

Thanks Mike.
I understand that it will happen a lot more than I know & not every customer is going to take all info on board as to how to care for their paint but it sucked to be told that "I" didn't fix it.
You can lead a horse to water scenario huh?

I'm even more excited about Bootcamp after reading what you have posted so far on Septembers class! Wow! :dblthumb2:
I can't wait to meet you & the team there at Autogeek along with the rest of my class mates! 11 sleeps until we start our journey Mike!!!

 

[Aaryn NZ]

How the heck do you mess up a car three days after it's been professionally detailed and all defects removed? Why were the car owners even washing it 3 days after defect removal and using an automatic car wash no less?

Seems like they realized that the car wash ruined the finish and tried blaming it on you and getting you to do it again.

As to why they went back to the automatic car wash I have no idea but we have a fair amount of dirt roads around here & judging by the amount of dust in the door shuts etc & the mud under the wheel wells I think it got rather dirty in those three days.

Amazing work! Those 50/50 shots are amazing.


Too bad they ruined it by using the car wash.

Thankyou! :xyxthumbs:
Yeah, disappointing but ya win some & ya lose some.

Great job restoring that!

Thankyou af90. :xyxthumbs:

Wow those 50/50 shots are incredible. Who would've known there was metallic paint under there.
I can't believe they took it back to another auto wash. I'm guessing you guides them not to do that and they still did? Oh well, their waste of money.

Cheers mate. :xyxthumbs:
Yeah, it looked like a chalkboard at first & was a great colour when finished.
Yes they were told even though I thought it was real obvious to stay away from the auto wash. Some people aye.

Some people just never learn. I kept thinking the hood was crinkled up, but it was the reflection of the insulation in your ceiling..HA!

You did the right thing by saying.."NO!"

HUMP

Thanks Hump! :xyxthumbs:
Haha yeah - I should paint a picture on the ceiling, something scary to freak people out.
Thanks - I think "NO" was the best option, even just for my sake.

Good grief! I'm just shaking my head.

After all that work...geeze, some people.

If anyone wonders about the damage that can be done by "the car wash," here's the answer.

Great 50/50 shots and work Aaryn!

Bill

Hey Bill.
Thanks buddy. :xyxthumbs: Yeah, I show these pictures to a lot of people to try & educate on the dangers of auto washes - shocks people big time. I was also taken aback with this one though but have seen very similar damage on other vehicle about town from the same auto wash!!! Doh.

Amazing turn around!

I can't imagine what that car wash looks like. I don't think I've ever seen one that would do that much damage in a single trip. Even on soft Subie paint.

Thanks heaps Desernate. :xyxthumbs:
From seeing the Subaru around town a bit, it often is covered in mud. I would say they drove it straight through coated in mud. In saying that - the next worse car with similar damage (especially the wheel scrubber marks half way along the door) I have seen was apparently a one time deal. Still - what the?

Did they admit to taking it back to the car wash or did they lie about it?

No, not at first. It was my fault. They came in & were immediately playing the blame game. Saying that all the scratches had "come back". I tried to be as calm as I could but I had to defend my work. As soon as I asked (knowing it had) if they took it back through the auto wash - all hell broke loose. The mother was very angry . . very! I took the daughter (owner) aside & went through the photos of before any work was done that I had to send to the insurance company, a lot of photos. After seeing the damage of the before, things settled down to almost silence as the damage was clearly very different.

Was that the car that Nu Finish took through 52 car washes or what? How many times did they run it through the wash, that thing looks like it has been wet-sanded!!

Excellent repair work on it :xyxthumbs:

Cheers mate. :xyxthumbs:
Unsure how many times but once is once too many. It did look like someone had wet sanded it, just not very well & a lot harder to polish.

Amazing job on that Subaru. I am assuming you tried to advise the customer on how to maintain the vehicle after it was corrected?

Thankyou 10secdream. :xyxthumbs:
Sure did.

Great turnaround while it lasted! Judging from the very dirty tires just 3 days later, I'm guessing maybe they decided to do a little "off-roading" and tried to clean it up after......big no no obviously!

Thanks Johnnyboy.:xyxthumbs:
Yep - good spotting! Got really dirty almost straight away.

1st... Nice work!

people are so ignorant..

question did you explain to them not to wash their car that way after all your hard work?

My customers are afraid to even touch there car when I'm done, haha. I sometimes go to the extreme when telling them not to let anyone wash their car but them after I show them what to use and how to wash and dry.

Thanks a lot HD.Detailing. :xyxthumbs:
Yeah I thought I had covered all the do's & don'ts & the obvious state of their Subaru maybe could've been a deterrent . . . apparently I can fix paint but I can't fix stupid!

Great work! Very nice!!! A crime they destroyed it so soon...

Thanks mate. :xyxthumbs:
Was a shame.


Thankyou everyone for your great comments & sympathy!!!
Aaryn NZ. :dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

I've "heard" that the people that own/work for the companies that actually build automatic car washes don't like it when they see threads like this because they like to tell people "their" car washes are safe.



In my opinion, there's only three safe ways to wash a car.

1. Touchless Wash
This is where nothing but water and chemicals touch the paint. No brushes, no moppy things swishing back and forth over it. I have a customer that I applied GTechniq to her car and told her to ONLY use a touchless wash and she listened and her car always looks great and swirl free.


2. Owner washed
That's where "you" the owner take ownership of the car wash process and educate yourself, then arm yourself with quality products and then use good technique and "think" about what you're doing as you're doing it. That is focus on the task at hand and NO SCRUBBING the paint like the average Joe Consumer.


3. Hire a qualified Pro Detailer
This is the only other good option, that is to hire someone that hangs out on a forum like this one, has been to a class that teaches how to "touch" paint and be ready to pay them a fair price to carefully wash and dry your car.
​

There's really no other way. I suppose there are some commercial car washes with owners that are up to speed and probably because they hang out on this forum or have attended a class on proper car detailing and at "their" car wash they train their employees to wash a car carefully. But I also suppose these types of car washes are far and few between.


Here's some topical articles on car washing...

Scratch your car for $5.00

The reality of the 100% Hand Car Wash

Do you wash cars differently?

DON'T WASH CAR !!!!!!!!!!!



:autowash:

 

[BobbyG]

To be honest Aaryn, the finish came out so nice in a couple of photos I thought you repainted it! I had no idea the paint had a decent flake in it until after you corrected it! :laughing: