Autowash

lost $ 23.00 there, the car in front of me lost $ 8.00. People find somewhere else. This car wash doesn’t always work!

This review is for the Autowash in Northfield. I have given them 3 chances to see if their wash would improve but my car has looked grimy and dirty each time. I paid $ 15 today in hopes that the top of the line wash would miraculously be better. All it did was cost me more money. I’ve gone to convenience store car washes that do a much better job. I did send an email to the company letting them know that I would be writing a review. If you are okay to wash it yourself, you might have better luck. Don’t waste your money.

This review is for the dog wash specifically. I have no experience with the car wash.
I typically go to Petco Unleashed in Capital Hill as it is close to my house and the staff is top notch.
Today I walked in 2 or 3 minutes after they stopped doing dog washes and was turned away. My fault, not theirs, no big deal.
So, I decided to see if there was somewhere else that was open later as we are going out of town tomorrow and I need to get my dog washed tonight so that my in-​laws didn’t have to deal with a giant smelly dog in their house.
In comes Autowash… open 24 hours a day, only 15 minutes further down the road, sure why not.
Showed up and the place looked decent. It was clean, the equipment in the dog wash looked nice and they even had the windows open in the dog washing room which allowed a good breeze to come in.
Initially had to swipe my card a few times to get the machine to read it (this will come into play again later on) and started with 10 minutes. A little short on time for $ 10.00 but the 24 hour option is worth the extra couple of bucks.
Problems started with the shampoo setting on the machine. The problem was that there was no shampoo coming out… at all… no signs of any suds. To be clear, I have a large St. Bernard and even the smallest amount of soap is enough to work into a lather with all of her hair. Tried shampooing for 5 or so minutes and then gave up. Moved on to conditioner just to try and get the dog at least smelling decent even though I couldn’t get her clean. Conditioner setting worked well and did what I needed it to do.
Moved on to the dryer. Typically, self washes have a blow dryer that has a tapered end on it in order to get the appropriate air pressure needed to actually dry the dog. This one did not. It was a 2 – 3 inch hose and that was the size of the opening as well. Not even close to enough air pressure to dry a dog. Tried for a quite a few minutes, which involved swiping the card a few more times ($ 2.00 a pop) in an attempt to not have a sopping wet dog in my car. Last swipe didn’t take, machine shut down, $ 10.00 to start it again, scrapped the situation.
Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled with the dog wash. On my way out I noticed a sign that had a number to call with questions or comments. So I called the number to let them know about my experience and see if they’d be willing to help me out at all.
I reached Dennis at the number on the sticker. I explained the situation above to him and simply said «I’d love to give you guys a second chance if you’d like to offer me a free wash. If not, if there is any way I could get a refund due to the poor experience that would work for me too.» I was then told by Dennis that «people don’t talk to people like that and it was not cool for me to put him on the spot asking for a second chance or a refund». Also, «I was being aggressive and people just don’t do things like this». I tried to clarify for Dennis that I worked retail for a long time and was always frustrated when people immediately asked for a refund and didn’t give me a chance to fix the issue. That was all I was trying to do… just give these guys a second chance to see if my experience was a fluke or if this was just how things worked at Autowash.
Dennis then went on to say that he inspected the machines earlier in the day that that if there was an issue then it would have to have started between 2:00PM and when I washed my dog which was at 6:00PM. Honestly, I don’t care when the issue started but he seemed to be insinuating that there was really no issue and that I was being a jerk for even suggesting it.
Dennis then spent a couple of minutes racking his brain as to how he could get me another dog wash (I guess I’m either the first person to try calling the number after a poor experience or Dennis is really new and was truly confused). He offered a free car wash which I should have just taken and moved on… but I didn’t as I was still hoping that this was an alternative dog wash I could use and really wanted to give it another shot. He then said that he may be able to get me some tokens and leave them at the vet clinic across the street but that I would have to go there during business hours and that he wouldn’t be able to get them there until…
This is where I just stopped the conversation. I explained to Dennis that I didn’t appreciate him trying to make me feel bad about asking for a free dog wash after the experience I had. I should have just asked for a refund and moved on.
Either way, I will not be going back. You can keep my $ 16.00 for the shitty dog wash. I’ll just have to make sure that I make Petco or UShampooch (less than a mile away from this place for those that are looking for a quality self wash in the Stapleton area) earlier in the day.

Awful car wash
After washing, I rinsed my truck for 4 minutes and soap suds kept appearing as if there was still soap coming out of the sprayer, or the soap they use leaves a residue that is hard to rinse off. This exact thing happened last time I washed my truck here.
Now I have to go home and drag out the garden hose so I can properly rinse all of the soap off of my truck

Cleaned the car decently. Wheels were left pretty dirty and the sides of the car were not dry at all.

I thought I’d go for the top wash so spent $ 15.00 thinking I’d get a nice sparkling car afterwards. My car was still left dirty. I just want to set the background so you can understand that to begin with, the car was not so dirty that it would take a heavy duty wash. I only drive to and from work and it’s not a particularly dirty route and there was no bad weather to make my car very dirty.
When I left the car wash, there was still dirty on the edges of the windshield (front and back). It was left with water spots all over and the wheels looked no different at all. I wrote to the email address on their website to let them know how disappointed I was with the level of service and I got no reply. I will not be going here again to waste my money and I’m going to tell all my Stapleton neighbors not to bother, either.

Unless you enjoy handing out $ 10 bills, then by all means, this is your place. Twice, I have had to pay twice to this automated system to get a basic car wash. Another, canard unique to this establishment is that should select the $ 8 wash, you will not get your vehicle blow dried. This is purely a «profiteering driven» operational design to shakeout cash from its customers. Eventually, there will be no customers, because we are quickly smelling out the rat… what a waste of real estate.

4 stalls for manual washing and 3 auto washes. Kind of expensive for an auto wash. There is also a dog washing station though, which is a plus! The manual stalls also take credit cards, which is the first time I have seen this. It’s certainly convenient not to have to worry about getting/​having cash and making change or wasting time loading quarters that could be spent on washing. I drive a large SUV (dodge durango) and the $ 12 wash did a great job everywhere but the hatch, which was left somewhat dirty.