What's Happened to Hutch's?
Your Boulevardier has been taking his vehicle to Hutch's Quik Lube and Car Wash off and on for decades. Of late he has just used the Quik Lube and let the free carwash certificates pile up in the glove compartment, but today he decided to go the whole nine yards.
The oil change was fine, but the car wash was not.
First, the worker greeted Your Boulevardier as "boss." Why this annoys, one cannot precisely say -- but it does. Perhaps it seems vaguely reverse-classist; I'm a customer, yes, but I'm not the boss. Then began a hard-sell of an upgraded carwash. Your Boulevardier drives a pickup truck, and the vehicle does not require an upgraded anything. After the employee finally agreed to just provide the service that was included with the oil change, the vehicle was left in the vacuum bay.
Eventually the pickup came out the wash and was driven to a spot in the bright sun -- and left there. Nobody dried the car for at least ten minutes; by then, why bother? When the wiping was done (sloppily) and the Armor All was applied to the tires (again sloppily) the employee waved a towel and shouted "truck!" She then proceeded to show off her bloody knuckle to Your Boulevardier; why, it is not clear.
Upon entering the vehicle, Your Boulevardier found that the vacuum job was mediocre at best. It's freely admitted that this vehicle is not easy to vacuum, but a little more care to get crumbs and dog hair from between the seats would have been easy and paid big dividends. There was even dirt remaining under the floor mats.
One other thing to note: Hutch's used to provide a postpaid comment card, coupons for future visits, and a rewash guarantee with all washes. No longer. Perhaps they really don't want to know how they did and don't want their customers to return. It can be arranged.
It pains Your Boulevardier to post a curmudgeonly gripe like this on the blog, but it was not a good experience at Hutch's today.
Labels: cars, curmudgeon, CV businesses
posted by Your Boulevardier @ 10:44 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Part of what happened was that Mr Hutch died a couple of years ago. I think his sons were running it for a while. It has recently been sold to someone name pendleton (I think). Note that the stylized H in the office area has been removed.
I'm not sure, but I think final straw was when one of Mr Hutchinsons grandsons, a pre teenager, was swept off of a ski lift in Nevada by an avalance and killed.
It does seem to me that the place started going downhill about then.
I'm sorry to hear that the service at Hutch's has fallen so much. I hope that you find a new place to get your truck washed.
When you pull in to the garage, you might notice a sign listing all of the things that will be inspected as part of the service. One of the things listed is the windshield wipers. My wipers weren't inpected at any of my recent trips to Hutch's. I know they checked and topped the various fluid levels and they checked the air pressure in my tires. But nobody came near the wipers.
Perhaps some letter to the new owner will make him aware of the issues. And I'm certain he is unaware of the power of the blog. That could mean doom to Hutch's.
I stopped going to Hutch's a few years ago when I noticed things I had in the car (especially money for the parking meters) came up missing. I went back twice and planted a dollar each time somewhere in the car. It was taken EVERY time! What more is there to say?
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