Customers frustrated after car wash owner refuses to fix damage

WATCH ABOVE: Some customers at a car wash north of Toronto are angry after they say their vehicle was damaged. As Sean O’Shea reports, the wash owners are refusing to pay for repairs.

RICHMOND HILL — Helene Gooding and her husband Wayne are frustrated with an Oak Ridges car wash six weeks after a scrub and rinse left them with $600 in body damages.

“This isn’t right,” said Gooding, angered that the owners of the Ultramar station on Yonge Street refused to pay the repairs to their car or even open a registered letter with a formal complaint.

In March, the Goodings took their 2013 Hyundai Elantra to the station and purchased gas. Afterward, they ran the vehicle through the automatic wash. But during the wash, Wayne Gooding said the vehicle “hit something” near the end.

“We started honking and honking and no one came,” said Helene. Outside the wash, the couple inspected the damage: dents and scratches to the vehicle’s front left bumper; the front hubcap was also broken.

After speaking with the attendant, the couple contacted a manager and later spoke to the owner of the station, operated independently. They were denied compensation for the damage.

When Global News went to the station to videotape the wash from the sidewalk, a manager called York Regional Police. An officer informed the manager that Global was acting within the law.

Later, a brother of the owner spoke to Global News on camera. Awan Malik said the damage was “the customer’s fault 100 per cent” and likely resulted because Gooding didn’t properly put his left tire into the track of the automatic wash.

Malik showed a Global News crew how it would be unlikely for the wash machinery to cause damage. He said, however, that the car wash does gladly pay for repairs to vehicles when it is the company’s fault.

Global News was told by a manager there were three complaints about damage at the car wash in March.

This isn’t the only car wash where customers have reported sustaining damage to their vehicles.

Barbara Hughes of North Vancouver, B.C. took her late-model BMW through a car wash in New Westminster when a spinning brush smashed the windshield and caused other damage, estimated at about $15,000. She was also denied compensation by owners of that wash.

The Goodings say they wanted other customers to be aware of the treatment at the Ultramar. They considered taking the owners to small claims court but determined that it would be too time-consuming.