Sainsbury's car washes suck, part two.

It is unfair not to explain.

I always understood that supermarket car washes only took "normal" cars, that is to say 5 door saloons and the like.

Anything high, or anything with odd shapes I had always thought were a no-no, but they have a large list of things to avoid.

I looked at the list and took the trouble to remove my rear parking mirror (which is part of the car and is factory fitted), since they stated not to have one, just to be on the safe side.

And it ate my car.

The first spray went okay, then the hard metal dryer bit came across, spraying.
It went up the front in front of the mirrors and, as soon as it cleared the top of my right mirror, which is slightly lower than the left one, it came straight for the windscreen.

It smashed straight through the mirror and then lifted up, but had got inside the frame and so it lifted the front of the car off the ground repeatedly.

I sounded my horn as soon as it touched, but it took the woman a good couple of minutes to stop it.

When it hit the mirror I was a bit concerned, but then it just exploded the whole mirror unit and I was really genuinely scared that it was coming through the window.

When the car started lifting up and down I was not so bad, but everyone else was understandably shocked, although I was becoming worried about what it would do next - with the sensor failing and knowing it could pick the front of the car up, I was worried it might come down on the back and crush the kids.

It took far too long to stop it - I sounded my horn and after a while a customer came over and stopped the machine, but to be honest that does not seem good enough - if a window had broken and water was being sprayed at a kid in a child seat they could easily drown in that time, not to mention being crushed or hot wax through a sun roof (if someone was daft enough to open their sun roof!).

I was going to drive to Milton Keynes tomorrow, but now I cannot as I cannot really go up the motorway with no mirror, a smashed frame hanging off the side and, hopefully not, but possibly, a bent superstructure, where the body rises beside the windscreen and the door hinges attach.

[UPDATE: David tells me it is called the 'A Post'.]

I guess it will have to be a hire car.