Here’s how it works and why we do it
It’s that time of year again- Car Wash Coupon Season at Tom Dwyer Automotive! During Portland’s dry summer months our parking lot stirs up a lot of dust and we don’t want our clients driving dusty cars, so we created Car Wash Coupon Season to solve the problem. The season goes from May 15 to September 15, and we’ll give you a coupon for a Washman car wash for purchases over $100. So why don’t we just wash your car here instead? Even easier, what about just paving the lot and being done with the whole thing? These are some of the most frequent questions we get, not just in summer but throughout the year, and Carwash Coupon Season gives us a chance to answer them as well. Here’s your handy guide to Car Wash Coupon Season…
Why don’t you just pave the lot?
There are several factors that, when combined, make it all but impossible for us to pave the lot in the foreseeable future.
We did try to pave it, many years ago, but that idea was crushed by the City. Our parking lot is actually the end of SE Tenino Street so we asked the City of Portland about the possibility of paving. They had no intention of paying for any improvements at their cost, but were adamant that any improvements we made had to meet their standards. A client who owned a local construction company at the time explained the golden rule when dealing with the City on matters like this: “it is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission”. He explained the positives and negatives of just moving ahead and paving without permission, but we decided to do things by the book. We invested five thousand dollars for engineering the plans and researching the possibility of paving the lot, determining the project would require about $60,000.00 in drains, sumps, curbs, etc. We didn’t pursue it any further.
One other thing influencing this decision is our contempt for pavement in general. There is already too much pavement in the world as it is without our contribution! Pavement keeps water from absorbing into the ground and reflects heat back to our already heat-soaked atmosphere. Pavement keeps vegetation from acting as a carbon sink and adds no beauty. If other factors made it possible to pave we might still consider it, but since we can’t we might as well appreciate the up-side.
Could you just wash the cars there?
Sounds simple, but it’s not. We’re very close to the river, so we (and the City) closely monitor our discharges. If we washed cars here we’d have environmental impact problems with the runoff into the river. We service a large volume of cars, and washing all of them would require capture and disposal systems for every drop or risk damage to the environment. Our clients know our environmental commitment isn’t just greenwashing, so that’s a risk (and an expense to prevent the risk) that we can’t accept.
Since we can’t do it ourselves, we offer coupons for a company that’s already made the investment to do it right. Washman uses biodegradable soaps and solutions, as well as capturing and recycling all the wash water. They’ve already made the investment to do washes right, so we rely on them.
What if you at least vacuumed my car?
We used to vacuum cars, but we stopped out of respect for our clients. Our vehicles become extensions of our selves, and people maintain that expectation of privacy even when they drop their cars off with us. You wouldn’t believe the things people leave in their cars, from fragile breakables to money to weapons and more! We didn’t want to intrude on our client’s privacy, and didn’t want the liability if something was damaged or missing, so we decided it was best to stop vacuuming altogether.
Paving, washing, vacuuming… that about covers it! Now that you know the story, come on down and enjoy the celebration of Carwash Coupon Season!
