(Photos: Service Advisor Memes) For the sake of this piece, I’ll admit my faults: in one of my cars there are two empty water bottles and an empty Gatorade bottle in the backseat footwell and the other one has tools scattered around the backseat and a console full of old junk mail, fuel receipts and car-wash scent squares. Why am I admitting to how trashy the inside of my cars are? Because even if I doubled the amount of junk that was currently in either one of my rides, I’d still look straight-up perfect next to some of the cars that are rolling around in public right now. Cars that have enough dog hair all over the seats that you’d swear someone was still making those sheepskin seat covers that were popular in the 1980s. Cars filled to the brim with fast-food castoffs that were lazily tossed in the backseat. Minivans that look like the ground zero of a french-fry and Play-Doh explosion, with the tangy hint of brat vomit in the air. Ashtrays that have been overflowing since the last Presidential administration, or worse, open spit containers. (I just gagged at that particular thought.)
I wish I could tell you why some members of society have decided to just give up and become breeding grounds for the disease that will wipe out half of humanity, but I can’t. They don’t see it as a problem, like hoarders don’t see it as a problem. But when these cars come into a shop and the mechanic seriously considers finding a new career choice instead of getting into the SUV that is growing a previously undiscovered strain of mold, that’s a freaking problem. Behind the counter, the chances of getting one of these rolling CDC cases is minimal…not impossible, but minimal. I could tell you all about a Dodge Stratus that had slimy carpet. No shit, slimy. Like “large amounts of algae” slimy. But the wrenches have it worse, and some of the service advisors get the joy of trying to not retch while checking out a customer’s four-wheeled Petri dish. Don’t believe me? See below:
This is bad, but typical for a brat-hauler: fast food debris, random snacks thrown around, the odd piece of clothing. It’s disgusting, sure, but this is salvageable. And that’s a good thing, because the owners are going to be upset if they don’t get the free car wash and detail with their oil change.
Fingernails. A cup holder. Full of fingernails. Every time I look at this picture, I retch. This is a level of psychosis that should warrant treatment…involuntary treatment.
And yes, even a litterbox. I own cats. I love my cats, but the litterbox is home to some of the most volatile odors on the PLANET.
You want to see UPCG in rare form? Watch me go off on someone who thinks that because I’m the worker, that I shouldn’t have anything to say about how the car’s interior is. You aren’t the second coming. You aren’t infallible. You are disgusting, your car is a no-shit health hazard, and you need to go wash the interior out with a pumper truck’s fire hose. I’m amazed that shops don’t have a “Wall of Shame” that has a picture of the owner, the car, and the garbage inside of the car in the waiting area.
CLEAN YOUR [Edited by BangShift.com]-ING CAR OUT!
Looks like she/ he/they are living in it..
If the interior is this bad its more than likely the car has never been maintained, the driver is completely incompetent and is in fact barely human at all!
Oh my . I see some cars and vans going down the road with all kinds of papers on the dash , you know like its there construction office desk , but those picks are disgusting.
One of the things I do when interviewing a prospective hire is walk them back to their car. I know they think it’s just me being nice, it’s not. I figure if their car is in kept condition, that they will do the same in my office. To answer the question that is puzzling you, yes, I’ve decided not to hire someone based upon their car cleanliness.
So this total knock out female,36DD/24/36 with skills and brains to match, has a messy vehicle, you don’t hire them..
Ya, OK..
My house is spotless, Well as spotless as a car guys can be.. It’s because of my wife more than me, but her car isn’t anywhere near as clean..
By “car cleanliness”, are we talking horrors like above, mere clutter (most of my tools stay in my Jeep, along with a blanket, work jacket, & a couple extra odds & ends – not always organized, depending on how late i was tinkering), exterior (it’s a dented, $450 XJ that sees grids fairly regular, it gets washed when i get tired of cleaning dirt off the sills before work), or a combination there of?
Though i suppose it also depends on the field of work one is applying for – dress thy self (and vehicle) as required.
I work for a company that receives repossessed cars. We’ve gotten many disgusting vehicles over the years including suicide cars with brains splattered across the ceiling. The worst is a tie between a meat truck that sat in a repo yard for months, during which time the meat spoiled and developed hundreds of pounds of maggots(the smell still haunts me) , and a car in which we found somebody’s big toe. Yes, a big toe!!! WTF!!! To this day I still think about it and who it belonged to.
Big Lebowski anyone?
Fu#king digusting. I bitch about dust on the dashboard,there is no excuse for that sloppy gross sh!t. Clean up!
I’ve seen trucks with holes cut in the floor of the sleeper so they only stop for fuel. Always driven by 3-4 males of middle eastern decent. One came into our shop with a driveline issue and we refused to work on it, the stench was horrendous.
I once got into a truck that was like the first pic, to include several partially eaten burgers. When I scan tool on the passenger seat as I got in flies emerged from under the seat. I got out, shut the door and told the service manager I wasn’t working on it.
He got in a huff, went outside and hopped in the truck to show me up. Not 20 seconds passed before he hopped out, came in and told the guy we weren’t touching it unless he cleaned it up. The guy just looked hurt and left never to return.
I worked at a Chevy dealer years ago, had a woman bring an Astro van in that looked like the first picture, only with about twice as much trash, but the worst thing was the 30 or so dirty baby diapers! Told the service writer they could fire me if they wanted, but I would never work on that van again.
“I could tell you all about a Dodge Stratus that had slimy carpet. No shit, slimy.” Are you sure the carpet was shit-free?
A couple months ago, I was taking the kids for a walk around the block and found a Mitsubishi Montero (the larger, four door version) where every inch of the passenger compartment except the driver’s seat was crammed full of stuff. I recall a fair amount of it was cat food and kitty litter. Made me wonder if the owner was both an ordinary hoarder and a cat hoarder.