Car Wash Guy Tip Of The Day
By Jose Valdez
Being the Car Wash Guy is not easy, often you feel more like the Shell Answer man doing such a column. Indeed we get some crazy questions. Here is on question, which takes the cake as the most bizarre question of the month. A reader writes in to ask:

I had a vehicle cleaned in a car wash in Scottsdale Arizona and it was said that they put a tablet as a fresher on the carpet on the drivers side of my car. Well, as it turned out the air conditioner blew a chlorine smell that burned my eyes and nose and made me cough until I left the vehicle.

I took it to the Ford Dealership and the service manager and the mechanic both said that at first it smelled like carpet cleaner. But as the air conditioner ran it smelled more like a chlorine tablet used to clean toilets something with a chlorine smell. Have you ever heard of a car wash anywhere putting a chlorine tablet as a freshner in a vehicle?

I am gathering information so that I can take this to court. I have not had the ability to contact the car wash because my ex-husband is the one who had the vehicle cleaned before handing it over to me in a trade from a court order. I received the Ford truck and he received the Lexus from me. I did detail the Lexus at the Lexus dealer and they have never heard of anything like this. We traded at the mechanics shop so that I could have them change the oil for a drive from Phoenix to Seattle where I now live. My ex-husband did tell his lawyer that the car wash put the tablet on the carpet on the driver’s side. I saw no evidence of that. Apparently he saw them do it. My mechanic took the vehicle from my ex I did not drive it or get in it. The mechanic did find the smell while checking the air conditioning. When we turned on the heater there was no smell at all! Really! So strange; If you have any experience or may help me with an experience like this I would really appreciate it.

Bizarre indeed. Some car washes use small tablets to put in their reclaim tanks. Usually not chlorine, perhaps something else; perhaps a worker mistook the tablets? I doubt this is the cause however. Does not sound legit. Sometimes people have stuff under their seats and for instance a Pool Chlorine gallon container had leaked and the carpet extractor pulled the dried chlorine to the surface of the carpet and the circulating air sent it thru the car. Also doubt this. The car before you had terrible stains from animals in the carpets and no one cleaned out the carpet extractor tanks, possible, but generally an operator using it would smell it and then clean it out, as it would affect them too and be very difficult to work with. Possible, but not probable.

Scottsdale water has had to use Chlorine flush due to the floods in Mesa, to make sure it stays safe, if water during the non-rinse cycle leaked into the ventilation duct during the wash and stayed stagnant in a pool inside; it might have rested there until you turned on your car? This could be your issue due to a leak in the plastic duct and also you will need to make sure the dealer fixes this to prevent CO2 from getting