Car damaged in carwash - help!

wildheart83

I put my car through one of these car washes on tracks, car got a bit stuck and when I drove out I realised the car wash had punctured the 1 week old tyre at the front.

I submitted a claim form to the company, who have come back saying it's not their fault, the machine was working fine and it must have been my fault or damaged elsewhere.

Is it worth taking the matter further for the sake of (technically 2 new tyres) the cost of a tyre? I'm just so annoyed that they can blame me for it!

System

Why 2 new tyres? It only punctured one

Can you prove it was the car wash?

wildheart83

because the tyre it slashed was only a week old, and the cost of replacing that one.

I still have the damaged tyre and you can see it's been gouged by something rather than an impact.

I'm not sure how I can prove it was the carwash other than it was fine before I went through the carwash and flat when I came back out

sandraroffey

a similar thing happened to my ex husband. he had one of those dodge (american) day van, and going through the car wash (automatically) the wheels jammed and it couldnt move anywhere. they had to turn off the car wash thing and he had to back it out. ruined tyres at the front of course, but they said he should have been aware that the wheels were bigger/wider than a normal car. and on a day van like that, tyres are mega money.

jackieb

Surely it's still just the cost of one tyre though?

Takeaway_Addict

It is just one tyre, the fact the other one is 1 week old is irrelivent.

OP, can you prove that the machine was at fault? If not then move on and take the business elsewhere.

F_T_Buyer

A car wash smashed my wing mirror which was folded in! I complained at the time, but the chap running the garage didn't care and pointed to the sign saying 'car owners use at their own risk'.

fluffnutter

It's two tyres because typically you replace both at the same end (I assume). However, seeing as the tyres were only replaced 1 week ago (both or all of them I assume) then surely you'd be able to get away with just the one.

That aside, it all comes down to liability. It's a bit of a grey area. You'd have to prove that their machine was faulty or you were badly advised as to how to position your car etc. Can you do this?