Had a very bad experience yesterday night, went to smart energy car wash at serangoon north avenue 5 and the clear coat of my car got badly damaged. Needed an urgent carwash so decided to give this place a try as it was near my place. When we went there, there was only one staff who couldn’t even speak English. We decided to go with the premium package which costed $12.
After payment the machine started doing it’s thing, washing and presoaking the car with soap. The staff then came up with a tyre/wheel cleaning brush and a towel (which were from the same bucket) and started scrubbing and rubbing the car even though it was supposed to be a touchless car wash. After the machine air dried the car, the staff went to use a dirty towel to further dry the car.
After driving back home, I realised that the clear coat of the car has been badly scratched up all over the place. I called up the petrol station and they told me to go down. The counter staff called the manager and he said that he will come down. The manager, Mr Avinash, came took a look at the car, rubbed the scratches with his hands a few times and then said “sorry ah sir, I can’t do anything about this”.
Then he started to tell us that his terms and conditions state that they are not liable for any damages caused and that if we didn’t want the staff to use the towel, we should have informed him earlier. The staff didn’t ask anything, he just automatically started to use the towels on our car. After he realised that our car has been scratched, he started to use an airgun on other cars instead.
The manager then claimed “maybe you all went home used another towel, scratched the paint then bring back here”. And he wasn’t willing to do anything about the issue. A check on smart energy’s Facebook page shows many ppl also complaining about their cars being scratched.
Too bad we didn’t check their reviews before going over. And sadly, there are no rules to protect us in such circumstances.
Any advise on how to proceed from here?
