Always pick at a scratch with your nails!

Yesterday, I had a customer call about us scratching his back glass on a van. He thought it was my Protovest dryer bags. Staff had seen it and given him my mobile #. I told him it was very unlikely but I would like to see it. It appeared to be a diagonal scratch completely across the window. I started picking at it with my fingernail and it began disappearing. It was a strand of chewing gum. I'd seen this twice before. When people spit their gum out on the highway, it gets hot, tires roll over it and long, skinny strands can be pulled up and blown on vehicles. They look just like a fine scratch once they turn black from dirt. Thank God I looked at his damage and picked at it, before I went into my long self defence speech about car wash equipment and my experience with it.

Car washing is always entertaining...you gotta take it all in stride.

I have seen this a few times! But you gotta love the LONG self defense speech!

Most of the time the gum strands just end up on the rocker panels behind the tires. It's rare to see it on hoods and back glass.

Another one: For years as a full service operator, I used my fingernail to remove yellow spots off customer vehicles after the wash. They appear to be about 1/8", a perfect circle, and yellow, like pollen. One day a truck came in covered in them. After getting them all off (for free of course), I asked the customer how he got so many. He said those were "golden spots" for him...he was a bee keeper and that was "bee poop" on his truck. Luckily, I hadn't been licking my fingers.

Not a month later, a regular customer comes in my office and says the proverbial "Come here, I want you to see something!". He takes me out to his bright yellow Mustang covered in spots. "Your wash never takes these spots off. What are they?" I said: "You may not believe this...it's bee poop." He answered: "That makes sense. I have a bee keeper two blocks away and those bees must think my car is a flower." Mystery solved.

HAHA yea come out to Northern California!!! We have bee poop on so many cars! At the full service I used to manage we even had a sign posted stating that the wash did not remove it. Its a pain, its like candle wax.

Funny thing, I pull up today and there is an angry customer pulling around for a rewash because he had bee poop! He was yelling at my girls telling them to scrub harder! I explained it had to be picked off! And that he is more then welcome to pull into a vacuum spot to pick it off! Would anyone pick every piece off on a $6 wash?