Vehicles damaged in West Allis car wash; business to pay for repairs
Vehicles damaged in West Allis car wash
Four people say their vehicles were damaged at the Tsunami Express Car Wash in West Allis on Feb.10. They told Contact 6 their vehicles were scratched and two cars' back windows were smashed.
WEST ALLIS, Wis. - There are few things as satisfying as a car wash on an above-freezing February day in Wisconsin. Unless you're one of the people with cars damaged on Feb. 10 in the Tsunami Express Car Wash in West Allis.
Vehicles damaged at car wash
The backstory:
"The next thing I know, I'm watching my back window shatter," recalled Tracee Born.
Born says she waited in a line to drive through the wash around 5:30 p.m.
Born, along with Marilyn Owens and Hailee Soper, all wrote to Contact 6 saying their cars were damaged one after the other. It happened at the Tsunami Express on Lapham Street.
"The shards of glass were being blown throughout the rest of my car," said Soper, whose back window was broken. "I just ducked down in my driver seat, waiting for it to be over."
Damages and cost
What we know:
Estimates provided by auto mechanics show the women's cars all have more than $5,000 in damage.
Owens' rear windshield wiper was torn off, but that's not the most expensive part.
"There's scratches in the glass," Owens showed Contact 6. "There's scratches in the underbody."
All three women have insurance, but for Owens it's still a major expense. She says her plan doesn't cover a rental car.
FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX LOCAL Mobile app for iOS or Android
"I have to cover a $1,000 deductible, and I'm supposed to be without a car for a month," said Owens. "I work two jobs. I can't afford that."
Owens leases the car and says her contract requires the damage be repaired.
When Soper spoke with Contact 6, her car was in the shop.
"They had to completely replace the window," said Soper. "With all the paint damage, they had to strip the paint completely and redo it."
Born says her car was a total loss with $15,000 in damage.
"I ended up having to get a whole new car," said Born.
Filed claims
What they're saying:
The three women met in the car wash lobby as they filed claims with Tsunami's insurance carrier. There was also a fourth person, who sent Contact 6 pictures of damage to his car. He also sent an email stating that his claim was denied.
"No customer before or after reported similar damages," the email said. "Tsunami can't be held responsible for damages received prior to the wash."
Three weeks after exiting the Tsunami car wash, only Soper had positive news to share.
"I did hear that my claim was approved, but I have not heard anything since," said Soper.
Owens and Born were waiting for updates from Tsunami Express and its insurance carrier.
SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News
"It was not just a singular problem," said Owens. "It was all of our vehicles. All of them."
The women said despite attempts to contact Tsunami, little information was forthcoming.
"I have not heard anything from the car wash," said Born.
Contact 6 reached out to Tsunami
The other side:
Contact 6 reached out to Tsunami on their behalf. The car wash arranged an interview with its Vice President of Operations, Blake Ketner.
"This is not the expectation for service delivery," said Ketner. "Where we fell short, we are going to make it right."
Ketner assured Contact 6 that all three women's costs would be covered in full.
"It will not affect their pocketbook," said Ketner.
As for the denied claim, Ketner says after hearing from Contact 6, Tsunami realized a mistake had been made.
"All four (customers) have been approved to complete work," said Ketner.
How it happened
Dig deeper:
Tsunami told Contact 6 the damage took place during an isolated and rare event.
"I've never seen anything like this happen," said Ketner.
Ketner says the damage was caused by a ratchet strap left in the bed of a pick-up truck that attached to their equipment.
Ketner says employees are trained to look into truck beds for foreign objects before a vehicle goes through the wash. This happens at two checkpoints, at the point of sale and the loading station.
On that day, Ketner says the ratchet strap got through the two checkpoints.
A ratchet strap is used to fasten cargo in a truck bed. It consists of a strap, metal hooks and a metal ratchet mechanism.
Ketner says the ratchet strap was pulled out of the truck bed by a curtain in the car wash. From there, the strap transferred to a piece of equipment called a wraparound, which spins brushes sideways to clean the sides of the vehicle.
"The ratchet strap got lodged in the wrap and then started to hit vehicles," said Ketner.
Ketner says an employee stopped the car wash after hearing something hit a vehicle.
What's next
What we know:
Ketner apologized to the customers with damaged cars.
"Where we've found gaps in this process, we're making rapid adjustments to make sure that it doesn't happen again," said Ketner.
Later that day, all four people confirmed they'd heard from management at Tsunami and were reassured they'd be compensated.
Ketner later emailed Contact 6, saying "we're moving forwarding with handling these four cases internally so we can help get their vehicles into repair shops as soon as tomorrow morning."
It was welcome news after weeks of spinning in place.
Ketner says the business has a partner which handles damage claims, and that all aspects of the incident are under review. The car wash was inspected for safety and reopened.
Contact 6 was able to use the car wash without issue. Tsunami Express opened the Lapham Street location last year.
Email response from Tsunami Express
What they're saying:
We are aware of the reported incident at our West Allis – Lapham location on February 10th. After investigating, we believe this was an isolated incident caused by a foreign object that became lodged in the wash material — a rare occurrence that was not reflective of normal operations or equipment performance. Upon identifying the issue, our team acted immediately to stop operations and prevent any additional vehicles from being affected.
Regarding the four claims: we are actively working to resolve repair or reimbursement for three of the four customers you mentioned. Through your outreach, we discovered that the fourth claim was inadvertently denied in error, and we are correcting that immediately. We sincerely apologize to that customer for the delay. Going forward, we are reviewing our claims handling process to ensure this type of error does not happen again.
Incident reports of this nature are uncommon for us. We take significant pride in our soft-wash process and equipment maintenance. However, when something does go wrong, our commitment is to respond quickly and make it right for the customer.
Since the incident, we have inspected the equipment at the West Allis – Lapham location and taken corrective steps to prevent a recurrence.
The Source: Information for this report comes from Marilyn Owens, Hailey Soper and Tracee Born, and West Allis Police. Four Tsunami customers provided documentation including photos and repair estimates to Contact 6. Information from Tsunami Express comes from emails and Blake Ketner.