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Home Updated: 9/06/02 List Entry

Red Carpet Car Wash

Date: ~1998
Location: Peoria Il on Sheridan
Reason: My wife's Plymouth Duster needed a wash one day, so she took it to a local Red Carpet Car Wash. This is one of those businesses that put it through the wash for you and then dry the car off as it comes off the line. The duster was put on the tracks behind a large truck. As she was watching it, the truck skipped the tire moving tracks causing it to slow down in the line. As a result, the Duster was slammed into the truck's back bumber hitch. She screamed for someone to fix the situation, but no one looked too concerned. The bump jarred the truck back into place allowing both vehicles to roll out towards the dryers.

She asked to see the manager on duty in order to get an explanation of what happened and to determine how to resolve the damage on our vehicle. To her surprise, the manager REFUSED to even come out and talk to her. She was quite upset over the event and ended up driving off in disgust. She called me on the cell with a recap of the mishap and the relunctance for anyone to even acknowledge what had happened. Furious, I called the company and demanded to speak with the manager on duty. After a few minutes, the response from the lady who answered my call was "He is too busy to talk with you". AAARRRGGGHHH, no indication when he could talk nor any courtesy effort to have him call when there was time for him to talk to me. I slammed the phone down and called another local Red Carpet Car Wash in another part of town. The reason for this call was to determine if they were corporately owned or not. Unfortunately, they were an independently owned businesses, so I couldn't call the corporate office.

When I got home that night, I checked the damage and determined that most of the impact was taken by the license plate, which had a nasty gash in it. With some piece of mind that the damage was minimal, we decided to simply add that establishment to the list and direct or patronage to another car wash in the area.

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