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Self Serve Customers are driving me to drink
- Thread starter DiamondWash
- Start date
DiamondWash
Well-known member
I feel like I'm doing battle with a bunch of Brainless Medieval Vikings at my wash lately, no respect for ones property, I should start my own dirt company selling by the pound at this rate! Owners who operate strictly automatics and no self serves are lucky because some of the people us self serve guys have to deal with on a daily basis, we are lucky not to be in Jail or the Funny Farm..............WAIT that's what we own are Loony Bins where the crazies and Lunatics come.
Sorry for the Rant just one of those days.
Sorry for the Rant just one of those days.
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You're not alone...it can be mind boggling some days.
mjwalsh
6 bay SS w/laundromat
Just thinking out - loud ... I know that in itself can be dangerous
... I wonder how much extra grief some of us have by going 24/7 vs more restricted hours. We are 8AM to 10PM ... we still have many of the mind numbing experiences but I can't help to think that it is even tougher with the 24/7 format. I am aware of the need for overhead doors & a lock & unlock process ... to do the open & close thing ... so I apologize for oversimplifying when it comes to that. Also the bottom line revenue has to justify the extra expense of more employee man-hours ... it is a bit of a "catch 22".mike walsh www.kingkoin.com
I said this back in 2015 and it hold true today. People are just plain BA$TARDS, there’s no getting around it and I don’t say this lightly, self serve car washes are nothing more than a magnet for the scum of society. Now that we have cameras I can’t believe things that go on at the car washes when it’s dark or there’s no one around, it’s disgusting the things that go on. This is what has going this last week, Drug deals, people in digging in the garbage cans or dumping out can looking for that special treasure, household garbage dumpers, carpet cleaners dumping their waste water, guy’s urinating on the back door, a guy puking on the door at 2:45am, a guy on a bicycle breaking into trash doors on the vacuums for loose change at 1:50am. So far this year I’ve had the police at the car wash more often than the Super Walmart down the street has. I’ve got better video than they do. Basically all we are, is a place for society to come and wipe there a$$. The car wash business wouldn't be bad business if it wasn't for the customers. I think I'll have 3 fingers of the good stuff now.
After tolerating this nonsense for years we finally came to our senses. First off, we now ban mudders. When they come in, we explain we don't allow this here. Guess what, our mud cleanups have significantly decreased. Next, when we see someone dumping household garbage, we ask them to take it somewhere else or risk a fine for illegal dumping. You know what, that problem has also decreased. As far as pickups cleaning out their bed, we put a stop to that unless the pickup bed has been swept clean. In general, if we see something outside the realm of something related to car washing, we attempt to curtail or stop it. We try to be as polite and respectful as possible, but if the customer becomes belligerent or disrespectful, we will not hesitate to have an illegal trespass warning issued. In our case, it seemed like a majority of these problems were caused by the same people over and over again.
So after reading all the posts, I have to laugh cause we all need a place to vent our frustrations and we all seem to have the same problems in the business, also maybe we need to start something like COA Carwash Owners Anonymous where we can all get together and talk about our problems, Like hi my name is Ken and I own a Car Wash, Hi ken!! Well today at the carwash…blah, blah, blah. Cause if we let all the BS get to us we are going to be going to meetings anyway, except it will be AA meetings, and I will be like, Hi my name is Ken, I am an alcoholic because I own a Carwash and this is what happened today…LOL just cheer up, I’m making light of the subject cause things can always be worse.
Kevin James
Active member
What do you do hang out at the car wash 24/7. Most of our problems happen when no one is there.
MudMoney
Well-known member
Last month I put up a gate and the after hours dumping is gone.There is one vacuum out front with one trash can that never gets much use maybe $50 a month and the use hasn't changed.I live on site & sleep better @ nite not having strange noises getting me up with a shotgun in hand!
DiamondWash
Well-known member
Well Hunting season is here so is the cold Brrrrr I wonder if my self serve bays will become the after hours butcher shop, what a year it has been and yet I smile 
.
.
Robert2181
Member
We too get that and the washing out of the deer feed from the pick-up bed.
Car_Wash_Guy
Well-known member
Well Hunting season is here so is the cold Brrrrr I wonder if my self serve bays will become the after hours butcher shop, what a year it has been and yet I smile
I get that a lot during hunting season. Nothing like washing down a bay with brain matter all over the place.
I’ve said it more than once and I’ll say it again, most S/S car wash customers are BA$TARDS!!! The battle just goes on and on. This last week we had a guy come in and sideswipe the wall of one of the car washes, he took down 4 Extrutech panels in the process, peeled them right off the wall and left. Got a great plate number, to bad it’s not a good plate, expired 2 years ago and it doesn’t belong on the panel truck it was on. I’ve also gotten my share of Deer and Elk guts and hides over the years, nothing better than to smell the rotting dead animals. It just keeps getting better and better every day.
Ontario Car Wash
Member
Todays lady decided to fill up two trash cans and throw the rest on top of the cans and just onto the parking lot
while im at the next set of vacums cleaning them out and doing the nightly wash down.
She waits till i pop in the office and off she goes
to bad the idiot thru all her personal stuff out doctors bills , well fare etc
so basically all her info is there including her number
i called her to thank her for the mess she made and to inform her she had an hour to come back and clean up
or i would call police for misuse of the trash as there is a sign stating for customers only
so anyways she comes back and sends her 5 year old kid to clean up the mess while she sits in the warm car and probably gives me a 1star rating on yelp.
So i told the kidthanks and i would clean it up as for the mom i told her i just had lost all respect for her
lets see what tommorow brings
while im at the next set of vacums cleaning them out and doing the nightly wash down.
She waits till i pop in the office and off she goes
to bad the idiot thru all her personal stuff out doctors bills , well fare etc
so basically all her info is there including her number
i called her to thank her for the mess she made and to inform her she had an hour to come back and clean up
or i would call police for misuse of the trash as there is a sign stating for customers only
so anyways she comes back and sends her 5 year old kid to clean up the mess while she sits in the warm car and probably gives me a 1star rating on yelp.
So i told the kidthanks and i would clean it up as for the mom i told her i just had lost all respect for her
lets see what tommorow brings
Eric H
Well-known member
You have to do what is morally and socially correct even if it makes you look bad. When the lady is bad mouthing you to her friends tomorrow there is a chance that one of her friends will call her out on her behavior. At the very least they already know that she is inconsiderate.
I was driving with a friend last week and he says "I still can't believe how many people I see texting and driving! I wish there was a cop around to give them a ticket". The problem isn't that there isn't a cop...the problem is that no one is willing to say something to people that do something wrong. We all see things everyday that are against the law and morally unacceptable but somehow society accepts it because people are too afraid to speak up!
Although this time of the year is frustrating with all the hunters and mudders, a couple things I notice from it is: they spend $$ in the bays!! I always tell my help that they are job security! The ones that really irk me are the bucket and weep washers!! They are the most inconsiderate people that I cannot deal with. During the week if they are in a bay for a while I will always tell them that I dont really mind it on off hours but if I see a car waiting for a second they gotta go. Most are fine and agree, if I get a bit of lip I tell them to remove themselves from my property! More lip I will either wait until they suds up the car and put $$ in the bay and I will shut it off, if they are primping the car I will turn bay on and start washing it down(I know I am a dick). Weep season brings out the best. On another note, I gotta disagree with Randy on the "MOST SS carwash customers are bastards". I think most are fine, but the ones that are bastards make it seem worse and aggravate the hell out of us. I have mellowed quite a bit over the years, havnt thrown any water pump pliers at anyone lately.(not sayin it wont happen) But I have learned to just shake my head and give a sarcastic thank you to some of the problem people and save my energy more for the ones that really require it. Well enough for my rant off to work I go.
