"Your brush scratched my car!"

[MEP001]

A woman showed me some pretty bad scratches on her hood and a few around the sides of her black Tahoe. I compared the scratches to the video of the pattern with which she scrubbed, and it looks the same. I don't think she's lying about the brush causing the scratches, but even though she didn't clean the brush before she used it she expects us to repaint her car. She did use high-pressure soap first, and her argument is that it should be enough. Any suggestions as to how I might go about telling her that it's not our fault? Anyone else have a similar situation, and how did you handle it?

She's already threatened with a lawyer (In my opinion, the average person doesn't have a lawyer on-hand unless they have a habit of abusing "the system"). I've already gone through and posted large yellow decals that say "Clean Brush Before Use" and "Use Brush At Own Risk." I already had the "Clean Brush" one up in the bay she used.

 

[Fatboy769]

Mep, I've had a couple of similar situations before. Both times I told the customer to contact my insurance co. They did and the insurance co contacted me to see what I wanted to do. I told them not to pay anything and I never heard any more about it. I figure that 1) that's what I have insurance for and 2) when the insurance co tells them that they are not going to pay, it makes them look like the bad guy. Keep us informed on your situation.

 

[pitzerwm]

You can tell her to contact her insurance company and that they will contact your insurance company and they work it out. I have a large sign near each brush that says "wash brush off before use" You would think that she would have seen the scratching and stopped rather kept going.

 

[Kevin Reilly]

MEP I was taken to small claims court a number of years ago regarding the same thing. "Brush scratched his black pickup"! The Judge asked me if I had instruction signage that said "check brush before using" or words that that affect and I said "Yes"!

I happened to be working late that evening and the Judge drove into the bay, I acknowledged him, pointed to the sign, he looked at the sign and then ruled against him.

Now his truck was an older vehicle and he was a scammer, but the Judge ruled against him because of the signage. If it were to happen again I would bring a photo of the signage.

 

[mjwalsh]

Mep1,

I would do like Kevin Reilly suggested. I would not go through the insurance company in this instance unless the insurance company insists upon it because of wording in the policy. The reason is the precedent & what is the norm for our industry. It was her responsibility to check & rinse the brush before use----especially with the posted sign. Another reason being that all it takes is about 2 claims in a few years span to trigger rate increases. That is what our agent told us about 7 years ago. We had to not have any claims for a few years for the independent agent to even be able to shop around for another underwriter.

 

[soapy]

I have had this happen a couple of times and this is how I handle it. I pull my own car right into the bay. Then I clean the brush like the instructions say and go about washing my car with the same brush right in front of the person. Then I rinse off my car and ask them to show me the scratches that the brush caused. When they can't show me any scrathces that is pretty much the end of discussion.

 

[bigleo48]

I did the same thing as Soapy...however I used my buddies black Porshe 911 C4S...that really drives home the point! Brush no scratch...dirt IN brush scratch.

Big Leo

 

[MEP001]

I wish I'd thought of that at the time - my dark blue car would show scratches as well as her black Tahoe.

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[rzeavy]

hi mep

If it is a "regular" customer I would offer to pay for detailing her car.
If you never seen this person before then stick to your guns.
You can win the battle and lose the war..

 

[JustClean]

I had last week ago something similar. A guy blamed my IBA for pulling out his automatic antenna while he put a CD in his CD player during the wash...

Anyway, since then I put up an incident report sheet that I will hand over to the customer to fill out with make, model, damage, witness, bla..bla,..

At the end it says that we will investigate the incident and will inform the customer in writing. This gives you time to go through the video footage, the customer will calm down and you have really time to think, investigate and to make a proper decision. The mistake I made was to let the customer look at the video footage. Won't happen again - only in court. (He even wanted to have a copy to go to his lawyer. No way!)

Just my 5 cents.

 

[MEP001]

If it is a "regular" customer I would offer to pay for detailing her car.
If you never seen this person before then stick to your guns.
You can win the battle and lose the war..

The scratches are through the paint.

I've never seen her before, but I'm not usually there at 1:00 in the afternoon which is when this happened.

 

[MEP001]

Update on this issue: We tried to get her insurance to go through ours, but hers said no. Our insurance assessed it and denied her claim, saying that we hadn't shown negligence and that we've had no other complaints of the same type. She called again screaming that the letter she got said that we didn't turn the claim in in time - I guess she doesn't get that the agent would never have come out and examined her car. Her last words were "I'll see you in court."

Here's the kicker: before we ever turned in the claim, she tried to demonstrate how the brush scratched her car by bearing down really hard, which she didn't do the first time. There were some very small marks left, but not through the paint. Our insurance guy said that those will buff out and he wouldn't have put the claim through if the rest were only as bad as those. He'd have recommended that we pay for a detail, buff and wax. He agreed, off the record, that the deeper scratches were different.

I'm more convinced now than ever that she had previous knowledge of the scratches and is trying to get us to pay for a paint job. Looking at the video I can see her scrubbing the vehicle around where the scratches were, but the strokes she made in the video do not at all match the scratches. It looks like she was trying to follow them. She also backed her vehicle up before she started with the brush, and I think it was to make sure she was in camera view since she looked up at it at least twice.

She had just made a claim for hail damage a week before to her own insurance - I guess she expected new paint and wasn't going to get it from them, so she came to us.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

There are some people who always want to try and get something for nothing. You definitely took the right avenue when dealing with this *customer*. Good luck, hope everything works out.

 

[Kevin James]

Does your sign say " Wash brush with wand before using on vehicle"

What kind of brush do you use?

 

[MEP001]

Does your sign say " Wash brush with wand before using on vehicle"

The bay she used did at the time, and as of that day they all do.

What kind of brush do you use?

Erie hog's hair. We all know it doesn't scratch.

She scrubbed her whole vehicle, but the scratches were only in small areas. I even looked to see if she stuck the brush in the fender and picked up grit just before she moved to the hood where the next "batch" of scratches started, but she didn't.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

I want to go back to a world dictated by common sense and honesty. I haven't had to deal with anything like this YET, but I know that the day will come. Lord, give me strength!

 

[Kevin Reilly]

MEP You have to decide how far you want to go with this. With what you have already said she is way off base! I personally would bottom line her and say you are through talking. If she wants to take you to small claims court you'll be there with the video, photos of your signs and the fact that she's only 1 of thousands of cars washed at your carwash.

You mentioned that she was turned down a few weeks prior because of "hail" damage to her car.

When the so-called damage was done at your wash did she inform you about it or did she wait a week or two before telling you.

By offering to detail her vehicle is OK but with what you've told us she probably won't be satisfied.

Again, you have to decide how much stress you want to go through but in my opinion it is a "robbery without a gun" and I would take her to task.

 

[bigleo48]

Mep

I would tell her to go away! See her in court if she takes it that far. Then she'll be in for a scolding by the judge.

I've had a few of these and none have ever taken it to court since they know it won't fly.

Some are scammers and others are just ****ed that they scratched their car and are looking for someone to blame.

BigLeo

 

[rph9168]

I agree with Big Leo. She probably feels if she puts up enough stink you will give in but I doubt she will take it any further. Even if she does she stands little or no chance of winning.

 

[MEP001]

She probably feels if she puts up enough stink you will give in

I know that's the case. Remember she threatened with a lawyer right at the beginning. I need to do a search to see if she's made many similar claims to show the judge, if it gets that far, that she has a pattern of this sort of thing.

I'm certain that if it does go to court she'll lose with the evidence we have.