Complaint Review: Blue Beacon Truck Washes

On September 13, 2010 we had a truck damaged by the Blue Beacon Truck Wash in Lodi, Ohio. The manager was informed and he took photos. He said the field agent would call. No one called us back so we called twice more.

On September 24, 2010 we received a letter from Terry Packard, Field Representative that speculated without examining the truck that the paint was washed off due to paint bonding failure on this new truck and suggested it would be covered under warranty.

I called Mr. Packard to inform him that it is a two year old truck which has been washed 29 times (17 times by Blue Beacon) and that our automotive paint expert said there is no evidence of any paint bonding problems. In fact, the paint expert said that due to the feathered and smooth edges to the damage, this was consistent with high pressure washing scrubbing the paint down to the raw material on the bumper.

Mr. Packard then changed his tune and claimed that the bumper showed significant rock chip damage in the photo and that was more than enough to release Blue Beacon from responsibility.

I called the Blue Beacon in  Vero Beach, FL and asked if they could wash a motor home that had a lot of rock chips on the front and they assured me that they could wash it so that no further damage would occur.

I contacted Chris Rose in Operations at Blue Beacon headquarters in Salinas, Kansas.
He said that the photo showed bubbled paint, at which point I wondered if it was the correct photo since there is no bubbled paint anywhere on this truck. He asked what color was the truck as he couldn't tell -- that's how poor the photo he was relying on was. After pressing Chris, he requested that we stop by another Blue Beacon to have the photo retaken. The truck was photographed and video taped by a Blue Beacon manager in Georgia.

I waited several days for Mr. Rose to call. He never called so I called today, October 5, 2010. Mr. Rose said it looked as if it was originally a black bumper painted white (this is the original factory installed bumper) and that there was some kind other paint wear evident in another area and this released them from responsibility.

It became clear that no matter what we did, they would cook up bogus reason after reason to get out of being responsible for damaging the truck.

We plan to spread the word that if Blue Beacon damages any truck, you are on your own for the repair bill.