My wife owns a 2006 750Li BMW, and she's only ever had it washed at Alfie's. Although it's less than six months old the paint has swirls all over it - BMW advised it's because the car wash she uses doesn't clean/replace their rags often enough, as a result scratching the paint surface. Compare this to my SL500 which is 18 months old - not a single swirl on it (I use another car wash on PCH). But that's not the reason my wife doesn't use them anymore. One of their staff was unfamiliar with the gears on the BMW and ended up jamming the car into gear and lurching into the car wash with the door open; this punctured the driver's door on the building. Accidents happen of course, and they accepted responsibility at the time. HOWEVER, as soon as my wife was off the lot their attitude changed completely. They were evasive about who the owner was, they wouldn't return calls on the matter, they eventually refused to even discuss the incident. Bear in mind that my wife wasn't in the car when the accident happened - so it was very clearly their responsibility. When they did talk to us they wanted us to repair the car at a (cheap) place of their choice - we wanted it repaired by an BMW authorized repairer. While we worked hard to try to keep this out of the insurance companies' hands and to work with them, the net effect was that we ultimately had to hand this off to our insurance company to be resolved. Our car has now been repaired at no cost to us. I strongly recommend that you do not use Alfie's if you have a high end car (due to the paint issue). If you ever have an accident there, get it in writing ON THE SPOT that they will pay you in full for the damage they have caused using YOUR repairer. Don't use their form as it simply documents the damage, and specifically excludes them from any responsibility. Use a blank piece of paper and get the authorized representative to sign. Better still, just don't use them.
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