Spoilers torn off, windscreen wipers broken off, paintwork scratched or even a rear-end collision at the end of the car wash: Time and again it happens that a vehicle rolls out of a car wash spotlessly clean, but is also damaged during the cleaning. Who is liable? The question is not always so easy to answer, as a civil law dispute before the district court in Munich shows.
The plaintiff in the proceedings was a woman. She claimed that when her husband drove her Nissan SUV into a car wash in Unterhaching, an employee used his hands to lift the roller moving towards the vehicle over the roof of the SUV. As the vehicle continued to move, it happened: the employee let go of the roller. It banged loudly. According to the plaintiff, the roller allegedly fell down without braking, hit the tailgate, bounced off and fell onto the tailgate again. Damage: 2223.25 euros. The victim wanted the money back from the owner of the car wash.
But he waved it off and claimed that the plaintiff’s husband drove into the car wash after the manual pre-cleaning, but ran over “at least one driver of the drag chain” on which the vehicle is moved forward. The husband then bumped into the lowered roof roller. This was then pushed over the hood against the windscreen and then onto the roof, while the SUV continued to drive into the car wash.
An employee therefore instructed the husband to reverse again to the starting position. For this purpose, the roof roller of the car wash was raised. The roller definitely did not come into contact with the rear of the SUV.
According to the conviction of an expert consulted by the court, neither the plaintiff’s description nor that of the defendant car wash owner is plausible. The court agreed with this assessment and thus denied the plaintiff’s claims for damages. Because it is “not certain with the necessary certainty” that the SUV was damaged in the car wash. Both the descriptions of the plaintiff and that of the defendant “cannot be brought into line with the damage.”
The court was also unconvinced by the plaintiff’s objection that she went shopping with her husband before driving to the car wash and that they did not notice any damage to the tailgate when loading it. The reasoning for the judgment says: “According to general life experience, a significant damage area can also be overlooked in an everyday event such as loading a purchase.” The plaintiff was “not able to prove that the damage in question was caused in the car wash.” The judgment of the district court is final.