Brushless Car washes

[aliluya 0]

did you put the car thru the was when you had really hot brakes by any chance ?

[Dnz 0]

Two things,

Brakes - The groan because e36 brakes love to rust when wetted. So when you have em in the wash they get a lil rusty, so your first bit of braking will be over the insta-rust they get.

To prove it, wet your rotors when the brakes are cold, and see the magic.

DME - Its somehow that the drainage by the front window makes it overflow into this compartment, flooding the dme. Yeah, some dumbass design fault. The cars like being handwashed anyway..

[Jimocles 0]

On the damage thing, I once saw a car in a roller type car wash, get its window wiper ripped off, which got stuck in the roller and proceeded to beat the sh*t out of the car with its own wiper, not pretty, dumb bugger should have driven out, but just sat there and took it, needless to say he made sure the gas station paid for it

[E30_318i 0]

Apparantly the Nissan 350Zs have been having trouble in car washes too.

the door handles can be opened by the brushes as they sit verticle on the edge of the door, so it would prolly be best to lock em up.

Edited May 16, 2005 by E30_318i

[shadowninja 0]

In the May 2005 edition of 'Consumer' Magazine letters to editor:

"Mirror Rip-Off

Recently I drove my car through the carwash at a Shell service station. The driver's side mirror was damaged beyond repair by the carwash brushes (replacement cost was about $600). When I told the attendant he said the fault must have been with the mirror, as the one on the other side had not broken! I then talked to the manager, whose response was that he had taken his car through it once and the number plate had been broken off.

He pointed out a notice at the carwash entry stating that use was at customer's own risk. Does this absolve Shell of any responsibility for damage?

John Morton, Christchurch

[reply from Consumer]

The Consumer Guarantees Act provides you with guarantees which suppliers cannot contract out of. Regardless of any signs, they must carry out their service with reasonable care and skill. If you followed all the instructions when using the carwash, then clearly the side mirrors should stay on your car. Given that most, if not all, cars have such mirrors it is hardly anything unusual for the carwash to cope with.

You could take a claim against the service station to the Disputes Tribunal.

(John forwarded a copy of our response to Shell, and asked "Should I take the action advised or will you contribute to a replacement?" Shell paid the repair costs in full)."