Gas tank cover, automatic door lock, ouch
 

I had an interesting thing happen to me yesterday. I filled the gas tank on my Z, tightened the cap and closed the outer lid. Then I coasted my Z into a touchless automatic carwash at the station, punched in the carwash code and coasted in. After the mechanism of the carwash circled around twice, on the third pass I heard a loud clunk. I couldn't tell what had happened and I had to sit and wait until the car wash finished to see what the clunk was. Long story short the touchless carwash pipe ripped off my gas tank lid. After thinking about it, this is what I think happened.

Because I never manually locked the car doors, and never got the car over 10mph (coasting from the pump into the car wash), the doors were never locked after closing the lid. Then the vibration from the powerful jets of the touchless car wash popped open the lid. Finally during a pass the mechanism of the car wash ripped off the lid.

So be sure your doors are locked when you enter one of these....

Fortunately the damage was limited to the lid itself, the body was untouched. So a new lid, paint the lid to match and installation, less than $300. Could have been alot worse.

Ouch.

:iagree:

Bummer. Guess that is another reason I avoid those type of washes like the plauge.

wow, didnt know that thanks for the info, billy! sorry to hear about your car.

some carwash places have porters drive the car into their softcloth washes. same can potentially happen... not that i ever take my Z to the auto-wash.

I don't typically, but it was touchless (except for gas lids lol) and too cold outside for me to hand wash it.

Yikes man, I would never have guessed it would cost you $300 though! For a plastic lid? Quickly looking at it during fill-ups and washes, the thing looks like it's just a painted piece of plastic that screws right on. $300? Damn.

If it's not pre-painted then a huge part of the cost is going to be paint. Setup/prep work is what takes the most time with painting, so a body shop has to charge a lot for even small jobs.

True.

Wow that's crazy...

Dont they hand dry it after?

That's one expensive car wash.

Yeah and no happy ending :(

All joking aside. I sorry to hear that!

Manual spray flips the lid open as well. These things are weak!

Good story to post. I would have NEVER thought of this and could have been a victim as well. I always wash the car by hand myself, but hey...you never know how things change.