What have I been doing TO my Stinger today? Buggering up my TSW "Watkins" LR wheel, getting a car wash. When will I ever learn?!


Why did I break my resolve to myself, made last year when I got these spiff wheels first put on? "These are NEVER going through a car wash tunnel!" Well, a series of unfortunate events sort of weakened that resolve. The tl;dr version is: the unfortunate events made the wheels less than perfect; some I inflicted, some was natural attrition. And the end result is that I became less scared of doing damage in a car wash tunnel. Well, that is no longer true! I am NOT going to subject my "summer" wheels or myself to this abuse ever again.
Today, my car, having just been spattered by a very dirty rain; while I was about to turn onto the highway that leads to my street, I had a sudden "inspiration" to save myself some time and give Karl some business (last time I was in there was the end of winter to get an undercarriage spray, before I put the TSW wheels back on). Well, dang! That wasn't inspiration, it was demonic influence.
I didn't see it until I got home and walked around the car drying the last vagrant water droplets off. I immediately returned to report to Karl what he had done; because he had personally put my car into the tunnel.
His response? Not interested in seeing the damage, because he assured me that the problem wasn't his tunnel or his placement of the car. And I believe him, as far as him doing it right. But he blamed the car possibly having an out of alignment issue, mentioned "pothole" once and then said that he hadn't noticed these wheels were different from the ones I send through his tunnel during the winter: he admitted to noticing that they were sticking out beyond the tires a bit; but assumed, as the car had gone through his tunnel "a million times, hundreds of times anyway" (whatever!), that there would be no problem. However it occurred: in the tunnel the car drifted to the left and mangled the ends of every spoke and the rim between; but the LF wheel was totally spared. He said that his policy is to refuse to tunnel any car that has rims that stick out beyond the tires. Well, why did he not double check? Just because this is the same care doesn't mean it has the same wheels as winter: so, he should have looked twice to make sure these rims were out too far. I didn't know that there was an issue with this, but now I do. Live and learn!
I chatted him up pleasantly, hoping that he'd relent and offer some kind of compensation (I imagined the best I'd get out of him - this second time his tunnel has banged up wheels of mine! Heh!! - would be helping pay for Wheel Werks to fix the wheel), but all he said was, "With rims that stick out you have to hand wash only. Next time you come in we'll hand wash." Right.
I immediately went to work doing touchup. This is by far the worst damage to any of my black wheels, ever; the most extensive and brutal. My touchup kits (gloss and flat black) were seriously depleted, and the gloss especially started to get gummy. Grrr!!!
But, from five-six feet away you can't see anything; and wouldn't notice it if you didn't already know the wheel was buggered up. That is why I went with black in the first place: easier to make presentable when this sort of Crap happens.
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