car wars

I bought a new car last May. It's a 2009 Nissan Altima SL. While next time I will pass on the leather interior (very glad summer is ending), I like the car quite a bit. I have therefore resolved to take better care of it than I did my last one.

About a month ago I took said car to get it washed. I went to the Genie Car Wash on McKellips and Lindsay in Mesa. As they were finishing up -- washing the windows and drying the car -- a gentleman who worked there approached me. He pointed out a scaly-looking white build-up on my car. He said it had been caused by exposure to hard water and sunlight, and unless I had that build-up removed soon, it could cause permanent damage to the paint job.

One thing you can always count on -- almost as sure as death and taxes -- is that car people will always try to sell you crap you don't need. For that reason, and the fact that I didn't have the $100 the guy wanted to remove the hard water scale, and because I couldn't think of a time when my car had been exposed to hard water, I told him I'd take it to the dealership where I bought it to get a second opinion.

I went home and tried removing some of the scale myself and it didn't come off so I figured there must have been some truth to what the guy told me.

After work last Thursday, I took my car to the same car wash to get the oil changed. The oil change comes with a free car wash -- just a cheap standard wash, nothing fancy -- so I had that done too. While they were finishing the wash, I expected someone to tell me that I needed to fork over another $100 to have the scale removed but this time no one said anything. As I approached my car, I was surprised -- and not surprised -- to see that the scaly build-up had been removed.

So the lesson here is, if you frequent the Genie Car Wash on McKellips and Lindsay and some dude wants to charge you $100 to remove scaly matter from your car, kindly punch him in the gut and tell him where to go. And then have him actually wash your car.