Car Washing Horror Stories

My next door neighbor washes his 2 Lexus trucks and his Jag with car wash soap...sounds ok so far. But he also uses a big long scrub brush for everything, it looks like a mini broom. I'm betting it's supposed to be used for cars, but I believe it's some cheapy pep-boys brush.



He scrubs everything with it, wheels, wheel wells, paint, glass - everything! The cars are dried with big beach towels also - it makes me cringe! I gave him an old absorber I had as I get a new one every season...I just couldn't watch the drying anymore!



I admit to some pretty bad methods way back when. My brother and I used to wash my parents cars with big hardware store sponges and dishwashing liquid. When I first started to enjoy what i thought was detailing, I used a lot of meguiars products from pep boys - with the old blue pep boys towels for everything (back in like 97). I still have a few lying around for various house-scrubbing work, they are anything but plush!
 
How about this one



Work mate met a friend of his at a dealership the other day and saw one of the car wash guys there dip a worn chamois into a big puddle of dirty water, wring it out and dry a car with it

Not only that but he was using it at a speed not much slower than a rotary on it's lowest speed.



Scratch as you dry

Glad I started this thread - it's a goodie.
 
Here's a new one from one of my customers - his mother washed her car with velvet laundry soap (looks like hand wash soap)

Ended up scratching it a fair bit



Tiz amazing
 
A friend and I decided to wash our cars this past weekend. My car is in the signature and he drives a white isuzu rodeo. It took him about 15 minutes to completely wash his car. It involved the use of only 1 sponge for EVERYTHING. wheels, glass, and paint. after he was done drying (with a bath towel *cry*) i was only done with the front bumper, the hood, and the two front fenders, so he just sat down an watched me. As he sat there I kinda told him what I was doing, prerinsing with the foam gun, gently gliding the mitt over the paint while spraying foam, rinse the mitt out alot, etc etc. After I was done we both pulled the cars out from underneith the carport into the sun. his question to me "what are all these scratches on my car?" "those are from how you wash your car" "will wax take them out?" "I'm afraid not, but i have things that will take them out." "why doesnt your car have any?" "I wash properly" "no, your obsessive!" "ya, and?"
 
One eager to clean lady. Brand new black Jeep. One plastic bristle scrub brush on a pole. Heavy duty industrial strength "soap" more like lye in a bucket, stong base (farming supplies). Extremely hot water mixed with "soap". The horror! :scared:
 
When I was in high school, my mother had to borrow my car for some reason that I can't remember. It had snowed the night before, so my mother takes a GLASS Coke bottle out of the back of my car (at least it wasn't a beer bottle) and proceeds to brush the snow off the car with the glass bottle... WHAT the eff was she thinking?!?! She proceeded to scratch every panel and window on the car. I had permanent white looking streaks on every window, and it looked like someone keyed the whole car (hood, trunk, everything).



Replacing all the glass with a repaint was more than the car was worth. I ended up selling the car for $400 bucks to some guy that wanted the engine only.



I love my momma, but sometimes.... :cry:
 
usdm said:
Dude, it's time you told him to step up to the big leagues



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The Lemon Pledge is Da shizzle ma nizzle:xyxthumbs
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THIS was/is the best/funniest post I've seen in a very looong time! THANKS!



As a matter of fact I read this quiet a while ago and was wondering what happened to this thread, and here it is !!!! YES!



:lol



When we got our brand new Touareg (dark blue) at the dealership they put the finishing touches on the car by using really dirty rags to wipe off some water. I was very close to not sign the papers and "earned" blank stares when I insisted that they should stop NOW doing what they did..........
 
Funny that this thread is back as I was just about to post a new story I witnessed the other day.



Walked out to the front yard with my little girl to play, and I look across the street at the resident lunatic family in the neighborhood. The little boy in the family is on top of the car with a gigantic pressure wash type spray nozzle and one of those two sided dish sponges. No soap, and no ladder used to get up to where he is. He climbed right up the hood and windshield of their brand new Saturn Vue with said objects in hand and proceeded to swirl it up. I had to take my daughter back inside. I can't let her see things like that.



Here is the "detailing" supply. Used with abrasive side on paint. [shudder]



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My Dad got mad at me this weekend because I wouldn't let him use a white terry cloth washcloth to wash his truck...... :shocked
 
There was this one time, I was washing my old car. As I was wiping off the wax, I noticed something wrong with the reflection. I saw myself, but I thought I saw someone else behind me. I turned around and saw no one.



(This thread is about horror stories, right? :p )
 
As a not new to autopian ways autopia member, some of these stories make me so speechless,i just want to absolutley vomit in disgust from all these stories,i don't even want to imagine how their interior has been treated,and i would charge a hefty penny to even touch one of these vehicles to make it look half decent.



I absolutley refuse to use a automatic swirl-o-matic,my mom knows better than to wash and the car and induce swirlies,because she knows i will kill her, on the other hand my sister doesn't wash her car periiod, if she does it's with a brush,and in up and down motions,circular motions,and it's with eek! dawn :grrr :bolt :nomore: and she has used wheel acid on steaming hot wheels a few times until i gave her a stern autopian chat, now she uses my fuzzy washmitt & carwash shampoo, a meguiars wheelbrush,and a soft tire cleaning brush and tire cleaner, and now i don't have to walk out into the garage and see swirlified cars :hairpull :hide:



All my friends swirl their cars, i don't even bother trying to clean their rides as they are filthy inside & out...
 
This happened during the spring. I saw my neighbor wash her CR-V with a brush. One of those long handled ones with the big, floppy, swirl-inducing strands for the washing. She puts it on the ground FACE DOWN, then proceeds to scrub her wheels and tires with it. Without even rinsing it off, she wipes it all over the side of the car. Some parts, like the rear quarter panel, she didn't even get, just hosed off and rubbed a towel on it. I was going to go over and offer my services, but now I'm too scared to see what kind of shape they are in.
 
I used to wash my folks car with tide and an old browned face towel in the houston sun. dried with any old towel. One bucket, tire brush, then amor all. My parents taught me well.



When I got my first car I "stepped up" to car wash shampoo and a 99 cent sponge which i used on everything. Dropped sponge on ground, no problem. One Bucket. Dried with any clean towel I could find. Cleaned wheels and tires with a2z. black magic tire wet. windex used as QD. I thought I knew what I was doing.



New car used GC with cheap wash mitt and old *** brown chaimois. A2Z, tire wet, and Megs quik wax with any clean towel. 2 Buckets. started wondering why other cars had a certain glow to them.



Found Autopia, read a lot. Now I have stuff in the mail as I write. I dreamed about washing my car the other night. I have a problem.
 
ExoticFetish said:
Found Autopia, read a lot. Now I have stuff in the mail as I write. I dreamed about washing my car the other night. I have a problem.
Click to expand...



Your problem is only just beginning. Wait til the stuff arrives.
 
I'll chime in. Last summer my sister and her b/f (soon to be my future brother in law) come over with my sisters car... caked in white residue. She says "will you wash my car for me?" knowing it's never been washed I said yes. I asked again what happened, she said "he waxed it" he said "Yea, I put the wax on, and told you to wipe it off, you were just to lazy" so she left it to sit there. He just uses regular old Turtle Wax Paste, the $3.00 jar from AutoZone to wax his truck with. He's not AS bad, at least he doesn't wax with Pledge. But when I explained to both of them the proper washing method, they said "it's just a car" and when I explained to them what a claybar is and used for, they couldn't stop laughing. I plan to detail both of their vehicles sometime in the next couple weeks as my wedding gift to them. Gonna have to use some SSR polish, then apply a couple coats of EX-P.
 
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