I spent $295 on the Diamond package, which is the top-of-the-line detailing package. The MDX was relatively clean to begin with, so my hope was for great leather conditioning, deep carpet vacuum & cleaning, dust removal from the small spaces and an exterior that looked showroom ready.
I dropped the car off at 8:00 a.m. for this detailing and for a remote start installation. I was told it would be ready around 4:00.
I called around 3:00 to confirm it would be ready and I was told it was all set. During the walk-through, I was surprised to find small debris on the front passenger seat, almost as if a vacuum filter exploded and they left some of the debris on the seat. Then I discovered the driver seat carpet was not vacuumed thoroughly. It appears they only had a large head attachment to their vacuum cleaner and couldn't get into the curves, corners or edges. I could have done this same incomplete job myself with a hand-held vacuum in under 15 minutes.
Jeff, the manager, apologized and said he'd take care of it if I waited a few more minutes. Fine.
He pulled it around a second time and I completed my inspection. Well, I quickly found that the carpets in the cargo area and the front passenger seat were not vacuumed thoroughly either. Then I found there were stains on the plastic edge of the back seat that I could smudge with my thumb, so clearly that had not been cleaned. It was evident there was a worrying lack of attention to detail when it came to the interior.
I walked back into the office said, "I'm not sure why I spent any money in this place, let alone $300." Jeff and one of his workers came out and I pointed out the problems. To his credit, Jeff admitted that the worker who cleaned my MDX didn't do satisfactory work.
I would have preferred he discovered this before he told me the car was ready, and before I drove the 45 minutes to pick it up. I mean, where is the quality control? Jeff had three chances to inspect the car: 1.) before he told me it was ready for pick up, 2.) before he pulled it around for me the first time, and 3.) before he pulled it around for me the second time.
The saving grace here is that Jeff eventually took ownership of the problem and said he'd redo the work himself that night and deliver the car back to my house (45 minute drive). True to his word, he spent several hours fixing the sloppy work and got it back to me at 10:15 p.m., and swapped it out for the rental car they had arranged for me.
That's another thing -- they advertise that they have a "luxury car loaner" if you buy the Gold or Diamond package. I confirmed with them during the initial reservation 3 weeks ago, then a day before the appointment that they would have this loaner car. They confirmed both times it was available. Turns out it wasn't, so one of the workers had to drove me 15 minutes to rent a car at Enterprise (on their dime). I learned when I gave my name to the Enterprise guy, that Toy Wash had made the reservation for the previous day and I was lucky they still had a car available. Lucky for sure, because the guy from Toy Wash, who had driven me to Enterprise, had dropped me at the door and left.
To sum it up, my wife, for whom this was a birthday present, is happy with how the car looks -- the paint looks showroom ready and the interior is clean. However, it was not a painless experience for me. I experienced high prices, unsatisfactory initial work, faulty reservations, no promised "luxury loaner car" and unneeded angst & inconvenience.
So, I begrudgingly leave 3 stars for Toy Wash mostly for the end result, but the whole experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
Update: 6/25/2015
I just got a call from Enterprise Rental Car who said that Toy had not paid the bill despite them leaving messages with Toy for two weeks. Enterprise was giving me a heads up so that I could try to get them to pay it because they were about to put the charges on my card. I just spoke with Jeff and he expressed surprise that it was not paid. Taking a star away from this because this experience continues to be a thorn in my side. read more