Signs Good or Bad or Ugly

[DiamondWash]

Now I know we have all heard that too many signs make a wash look trashy but in cases where those signs had a great affect to the situation at hand make that statement wrong just for instance today I had a customer came back to the wash and said that the doors closed on his vehicle and scratched his rim and gouged his tire (mercedes benz) chrome 20 inch rims so I asked him what happened and he said that as he was pulling trough the dryer and that the doors closed and damaged his vehicle, so I pulled up the video and clearly see that he backed up off the in floor loop detector causing the doors to close now the doors didn't auto retract, but we have this sign because of people backing up in winter and causing the doors to strike their vehicle and the doors stay open until manual reset. I told him that he caused his own problem by not following the rules of the sign what do you say?

 

[Whale of a Wash]

I leave the autos doors up unless below freezing,But my electric eyes would stop that from happening. If you have no eyes i would get some as it is fairly normal for people to back up in the dryer. use the loop for dryer shutoff, but the eyes for door closure, if it happens once it will happen again, and always on an a very expensive car.

 

[Waxman]

Kleen Rite sells a set of photo eyes that would prevent this like Whale O Wash said.

Prt # TPA0524AC SET

 

[DiamondWash]

Insurance ruled in our favor because of the sign, they said because of the guidelines that the sign states and the customer did not follow/ignored them that when he backed up released liability from me and put the responsibility on the customer for any damages that may occur on them when the insurance co explained this to them then they understood the meaning of the reason for signs. but yes we are taking steps to prevent this from happening in the future.

 

[MEP001]

Is there any liability if somebody does something stupid and their are no signs stating anything about that?

If it goes to court (usually small claims) it will usually go in favor of the car wash if there's no proof of negligence.