My wife bought a Mini Cooper last year and she's very dedicated to its upkeep. During the warmer months she typically washes it every weekend. Needless to say, the lack of an available garden hose during the winter months has left the car looking rather salty. She won't use traditional car washes for fear of scratching the paint, but we've found a touchless wash at a Mobil station in Wellesley, the next town over. It doesn't do a great job, but it removes the road salt and most of the grime. We stopped there last night on the way home from dropping a friend off at the airport.
It's an automated wash. You feed it a credit card, select your wash preferences, drive in and let it do its thing. We got the green light to go in, the door raised and we entered. And nothing happened. There was a very strange, toxic-smelling odor inside the washing station and after about a minute I suggested that we back out (the door hadn't yet closed behind us). Having spent eight years on the bench as an organic chemist, I have a good nose for things which are best not inhaled.
We reported the problem to the attendant and requested a refund. We didn't have a receipt because the wash usually 'just works' and we didn't request one from the machine. We're talking about seven dollars here. But screw the seven bucks. We didn't want to read about someone becoming injured from whatever fumes were in that building. Something was clearly wrong and who knows what would have happened if the door had closed and someone became trapped in there.
The attendant didn't seem to care about any of this - including the safety issue. He insisted that the washer had been running all day. I'm sure it had been, but things break, sieze up, whatever - especially in this recent cold spell we've had here. We got the distinct impression that he thought we were trying to con him in some way. For those unfamiliar with Wellesley, MA, it's a town where crime just isn't that noteworthy. Plus, we didn't exactly look like hooligans. The right thing for the attendant to have done would have been to walk over to the washing station, take a whiff of the toxic/nasty/whatever air, recognize that there was a problem and shut it down. A refund or a future free wash would have been nice, too (they can generate codes which the machine will accept), but that just wasn't going to happen. After all, we were obviously just trying to scam him out of a free wash.
We left, shaking our heads in disbelief. I've never seen such a blatant disregard for concern about safety. The guy didn't even acknowledge what we told him about the fumes. Plus, he totally alienated us over what would surely cost the Mobil franchise a lot less than seven bucks. There was most definitely something being emitted inside that washing station. It took me several minutes in the fresh air to eliminate the irritating feeling in my lungs and Ali was still feeling it when we got home. Fortunately, whatever it was had no lingering effects.
Alas, the Mini is still caked with salt. The forecast for the coming week predicts temperatures in the 40s, so maybe I'll be able to break out the garden hose.
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