I'm not sure what the point is . Its unfortunate, but If I knew I had 3
inches of clearance , I,d be careful about what car wash I drive in. My Geo
storm taught me some very hard lessons about clearance , It actually got
stuck in a pot hole once,by the belly pans and required a wrecker. The city
paid me for two tires and wheels, and a wrecker bill. I lost 350 bucks on
that one, but I got tires and wheels. I lost my splash guards in a car wash.
Now the right one sits in my garage. You should be happy, they didn't rip
your oil pan out of it. And just because they said they wont reimburse you
no matter what, doesn't mean they wont when they get court papers from your
attorney. One of my rules of life is nobody pays you until they actually
have to go through the court room door in 15 minutes, Then they settle.
Because they wanted to see if you will actually show up or not. And see if
you haven't accidentally died either.
> wrote in message
...
>I recently took my 2000 Beetle 1.8t to an automatic, conveyor type car
> wash and it tore out my engine splash guard and damaged the side guards
> as well. The car wash says that according to the "International Car Wash
> Association" VW Beetle's are one of the cars on their damage alert list.
> They said the splash guards are usually either damaged from road hazards
> or are installed improperly after oil changes and are then damaged by
> the car wash conveyor as a result. Because of this, they will not
> reinburse customers if they are damaged not matter what. Now, I know my
> splash guards were in good condition prior to going through the car
> wash. I had just had my oil changed at the VW service 2 weeks earlier
> and I have confirmation from them that my splash guards were in good
> condition and they know how to reinstall them and I know I haven't hit
> any road hazards. Has this happened to anyone else? Does VW have any
> warnings about these car washes? If the car wash's know these cars are a
> problem shouldn't they either ban the cars or inspect the cars or have
> Beetle owners sign a waiver after informing them of the hazard? After
> ths happened I observed how cars go through the car wsh and the conveyor
> is about 5 inches high. The 2000 Beetle clearance at the belly pan
> (engine splash guard) is about 3-4 inches. When cars come to the end
> they roll backwards if there is no one there to jump in the car to drive
> it out. I think this is what happened to my car and it caught the belly
> pan from the back and ripped it off the sides.
>