Car Washing Horror Stories

Now you can quote $300+ to fix the damage :D

Acuracl98 said:
Wow this is the best thread ever :)



My story- Ive been reciently detailing a few of the neighbors cars charging about 100-175 depending on the condition and size of the vehicle, which is fair for the time i invest in doing them. My nextdoor neighbor comes over interested in me doing their expedition so i explain what i do and what i use , (pc, rotary, etc) , and gave him a price of 175- wash, clay,polish,seal, interrior. Well i guess he wasent to thrilled with the price and decided to "invest" that money in some products and do it himself..About a week later i was going outside to do my daily QD and noticed my neighbor outside with a bunch of products layed out on his driveway, the claymagic kit some kind of dishwashing liquid and a kitchensponge and a box of SOS pads. I needed some entertainment so i decided to wash my car and observe my neighbor. Gives it a good rinse than breaks out the clay bar.. before washing! He clayed for about 25 mintues, big long strokes with almost

no lube around the whole car. his next step was washing his chrome rims with a fresh sos pad, next was a nice washdown with the kitchensponge, He let it airdry since it was white.. i guess waterspots dont happen to white cars :p I thought he was done.. but he was breaking out the orbital with a brandnew wool bonnet and some turtlewax compound paste! I decided i would do my interior so i could continue with my observations. His next step in his detailing process was to get a big chunk of compound and spread it on the hood and buff it around with his wool bonnet on the orbital.. this process took about an hour or so. After he was done he gave it a wipe down and threw on a coat of what looked like some old simoniz wax. buffed off with same towel he used for his "compounding" and called it a day. What a sight to behold the paint was a very dull white with little, if no reflection, sitting on some nice scuffed up dull chromies :D On a lighter note my leather seats were the softest they have ever been, i think i must have condtioned them 4 or 5 times while trying to make myself look busy while observing my neighbors first detail. Sorry about such a long story, but it was the funniest thing ive seen in awhile. I would have offered to assist him but hes one of those "I know everything " neighbors. :nixweiss
Click to expand...
 
Acuracl98 said:
Wow this is the best thread ever :) .... I would have offered to assist him but hes one of those "I know everything " neighbors. :nixweiss
Click to expand...



Dude, it's time you told him to step up to the big leagues



356-b.jpg




The Lemon Pledge is Da shizzle ma nizzle:xyxthumbs
 
My sister has some nasty car-washing habits. She has a black '97 Olds Regency with about 99.9% swirl coverage. She washes it ocasionally and sometimes I give her a hand and try to show her the ways of Autopia, but my efforts are in vain. She just keeps saying that she doesn't care about her car as much as I do and it's too much work. I just don't get it. If she'd let me polish it out and protect it, keeping it in relatively good shape would be simple. All she would have to do is adopt the 2-bucket method, buy a few detail-quality products (wash mitt, car-wash soap) and spend about a few hours a month. I've polished a few areas with the PC and made a very notable difference. One of these days I'm gonna do the whole car and maybe after she see's how good it can look she'll change her ways. I've seen her do the wipe down with the window squeegee, dry the car after rain with the same squeege, wipe 3 weeks worth of dust off the paint with a dry rag, etc. It kills me to have to share the same driveway, LOL.
 
Hah! my sister will be driving soon and im already looking for a product kit to order for her present! Honestly your right once your car has been polished and properly preped maintance is a breeze! I wish more people would see it that way, but than again that would put the majority of this board out of business :D
 
ABSOLUTE HORROR STORY.....



Ok, so my cousin is a college age kid who is in a fraternaty. The guy recently got married so his frat brothers thought it would be funny to do a little "work" on his car.....a gorgious black ss Impala. So at some point during the reception they snuck out and COVERED the car in some unknown sticky fluid that I later geussed to be either honey or maple syrup. They then proceeded to plaster the car with birdseed and cheetos. So I walk out of the church and my cousin is standing there in silence looking like he is about to cry, the car is COVERED in birds, and his wife was diligently scrubbing at the birdseed mess with a tablecloth IN HER WEDDING DRESS. I honestly didn't know whether to laugh at the scene or cry for his car. Needless to say, he took it to a professional because I didn't want to touch it.
 
Acuracl98 said:
Wow this is the best thread ever :)



Glad I started the thread. Had a good feeling there would be some cracker stories around the world. These latest ones are awesome. That one with the SOS pad and Paper Towel is a ripper.

Keep them coming
Click to expand...
 
Great thread, best wash horror story i have seen.



When i was at college a few yeras ago I worked part time at Supermarket. The supermarket had its own Petrol/Gas Station with a car wash.



I get a call Rich..... we need you over in the petrol station we have a small problem. The car wash had chrushed a brand new mpv people carrier! The brush that goes across the top of the car came down on the middle off the roof. Luckily no one was hurt. Its not just the swirl marks you need to watch in these things!!!!
 
Some people sure amaze me. I saw the neigbors washing their car. From what it looked like they were washing or QD the car with windex. A black mercedes. Poor car. I should start offering my services to the neighbors.I know the guys upstairs got very imprezed when they saw my ex black car after some AIO.
 
How about a kid washing his car in the middle of winter at a gas station with the windshield washing fluid that is on the poles, and that little brush. He was going at it, just kept scrubbing back and fourth and wipping of with the squeegy(sp) part.
 
Real quick one that happened to me years ago.



Back in the day, when guys needed to get an old car cleaned and out the shop, the would use a kereosene/ water mix. Got the car clean, and left a little shine behind as well. So I decided to try this out for myself on one of my older cars, since I did not have any time to really do the job right. Now the guys at the shop have done tis for a whie and new how I needed to use, But I paid them no mind. They said go 6:1 (6 being water), but I felt the car needed a really good cleaning, so I went 3:1. Well, I got the car looking clean and shiny, but I forgot to hose off the sidewalk as I was doing the wash (this was back in the late 80's). So I am now rushing around to finish everything up, when I caught a nice patch of the mix on the sidewalk, slipped, feet up in the air, and then landing hard on my ***. The guys at the shop were hanging out on the their break when this happened, but I couldn't hear anything since my tailbone was all up in my brain. I just laid there for what seemed like an eternity before the guys finally came over and gave me a hand up. All the while they helping me, They're trying their best not to laugh out loud. Course, that didn't stop my pops though. I thought he was going to have a stroke that way he was busting a gut.
 
I've seen some pretty bad stuff before. I've seen a woman use a brush at the coin op (the foaming ones) on her caravan. She pulled in, didn't even rinse the van. Just started going at it with the brush on the VERY dirty and muddy paint. She started with wheels 1st, then did the paint. She was even scrubbing the underbody, then going back to the paint. After wards, she dried with what looked like old diry rags.



Some people just amaze me. I've seen 50 000 dollar cars and suvs washed like this too. You name it, caddys, BMWs, etc. I guess some people just think that scratches and swirles are "normal" in dark colors.



Ever since I joined autopia, and started taking detailing seriously, I seem to notice how bad every cars paint is except mine. On a sunny day at a stop light I'll check out other cars finishes, and probally 90 - 95% of them are swirled and scratched to ****. It sure feels good to walk out to my truck in the bright sun in a parking lot and seeing its the only vehicle there that is not swirled. ****, even all new cars at a dealership are swirled.
 
When I was about 14 I helped my friend wash his moms white mustang and we used SOS pads to get some of the road grime off the rocker panels behind the tires. Thinking back I don't remember noticing any damage. The rest of the finish must have been in bad shape too. I also remember my sister waxing my dad's truck when she was like 10 and every time it would haze up she would just put on some fresh wax to make it shinny again. This went on for a while before my dad noticed and stopped her.
 
koko_b_ware said:
Some people just amaze me. I've seen 50 000 dollar cars and suvs washed like this too. You name it, caddys, BMWs, etc. I guess some people just think that scratches and swirles are "normal" in dark colors.



Ever since I joined autopia, and started taking detailing seriously, I seem to notice how bad every cars paint is except mine. On a sunny day at a stop light I'll check out other cars finishes, and probally 90 - 95% of them are swirled and scratched to ****. It sure feels good to walk out to my truck in the bright sun in a parking lot and seeing its the only vehicle there that is not swirled. ****, even all new cars at a dealership are swirled.
Click to expand...



I agree wholeheartedly. Every dark car I see on the road around here (Seattle) is a swirly mess. I stopped by the local car show last weekend to take a look at the old 30's -70's cars and hot rods. Every single car there was covered in swirls-even the ones with custom airbrushed flames, logos, etc. It's a real shame to see a beautiful paint finish marred like that because people think it's normal.

Before my enlightenment at Autopia, I used to visit the coin-op and use the brush on my black SRT-4. I decided something was up once I noticed the micro-scratches in the paint were in the same pattern that I used the brush on the car. I've since 'seen the light' and am very autopian when washing and detailing the car. In fact, I need to take it to an experienced hand with a rotary to undo the damage I've done :(. The PC doesn't touch it. :(

Back to the point, the 50K+ cars that I see at the coin-op are the ones that the driver's get out, spray the car with soapy spray, spray the 'no-spot dry' stuff and then take off wet. The really lazy ones just go through the 'no-touch' car wash. Problem is, there are two guys at the end of the wash that use these old rags to 'dry' most of the water from the car before you drive through the gigantic leaf blowers. Did I mention they also have two other guys that 'prewash' your wheels with a brush on a stick? yea.

All this for $15. Such a deal :D
 
Ugh, people around here are the worst! I was at a bmw meet one tmie and one of the ladys there decided since it was raining it would be a good idea to scrub some of the stuff off of the surface of her car. I looked over and she was using a CHUNK OF CARPET to scrub the surface of her BMW! :scared All the bird poop and sap just scratched up the paint. I have to admit though, I often wash my beater down by using some dawn wash soap and a broom:D
 
ill chip in in my own errors

I used to think that the holographic effects were made because of the shiny new wax coat. Still, I didnt like it and used some paint cleaner a couple of times a month

I one used dawn and a bownty paper to remove bird drapings on my hood. I instantly noticed that there was a big difference in the area where I used dawn. It took me like 2 months of waxing to get that area to look almost the same as the rest.

I once used rubbing compound on a scratch. I never did get that area to shine as the rest, but the scratch was gone :xyxthumbs
 
My mother-in-law has a Dark Green 2002 Toyota Highlander. Her last car was neglected so she go out of her way to keep this one clean. Every other week she scrubs it religiously with dish soap and a wheel brush. Swirls are rough. I asked her if I could detail it for her but she always says no. I explained how bad her practice is, nothing. It kills me.
 
koko_b_ware said:
[BI seem to notice how bad every cars paint is except mine. On a sunny day at a stop light I'll check out other cars finishes, and probally 90 - 95% of them are swirled and scratched to ****. [/B]
Click to expand...





Seriously I thought I was only nut who does this





This post should be renamed How Not To Detail Your Car. Even when I had no clue to how to care for my car's finish I don't ever recall using brillo pads and dirty dishrags. That is some crazy ish
 
I just came in from work and had to post this one too.



On my way home, I pulled into a gas station to get something. While I'm there, I see this guy over buy the coin-op vac wiping down his car with a rag. This thread popped right into my head, and i walked over towards him with one of my cards. he gave me a hard look like I was going to harrass him (I'm still in uniform). I just smiled and told him doing cars was a hobby of mine, and if he were interested, I would like to do his car for him. I kid you not, he had windex in one hand, and a grimey towel in the other wiping down his car. He asked what I charged, and I told him I would do it for real cheap (so far the damage he had done was not bad). Again he asks how much. I tell him about 50.00 for a wash, and I would throw in a polish and wax for free (the one step kind). He just laughed and said thanks for the card, and kept on wiping his car down with the windex.



"Windex cost me about $3.00, the towels are free, and my own sweat. Thanks but no thanks."



I thanked him for his time and walked off.



Maybe I should've hipped him to the Pledge?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top