Waukee Auto Wash

Very disappointing. I drive past this car wash many times to go to a different one down the road off Hickman that is a bit cheaper (hand wash). Well, I kept thinking I should stop in and give them a chance, aside from the time I went to wash off a piece of rental equipment from Mulch Mart and I really didn’t care much if it was «perfect» or just half-​way good enough… anyway… They have a lot of hand wash bays so there isn’t much of a chance of having to wait, and like I said it is closer to my house.
Well, several disappointments:
1) The pre-​soak didn’t work (far right bay when facing south). It was just a weak trickle, and the pre-​soak is perhaps the most important part of a wash. I tried pressing the button a couple of times. I *SHOULD* have pulled the pin right there, just $ 2.50 in and gone to my other place, but no, I’m an idiot as I sort of expect these things to work out in the end. I figured if I used the high-​pressure soap and just let it sit a few minutes between time running out and starting a new cycle I’d get a similar effect. You can probably guess what happened, but read on…
2) While inserting coins to start the second cycle, the machine gobbled up one of them and never gave me credit. Nice, now I need to open the car door and dig in the ash tray for another quarter. What should have ended at $ 7.50 is now $ 7.75. Fine, I was maybe going too fast, lesson learned. But I’ll never go back anyway to apply this lesson.
3) After three cycles (I have a large SUV that typically goes pre-​soak cycle, soap cycle, and final cycle of rinse followed by spot-​free rinse.) and the previously mentioned $ 7.75 total, I get home to clean my windows with a streak free cleaner and I note that my car is still dirty looking. This is (shocker) a result of the pre-​soak not working.
Final verdict, I’d avoid this place. I know that I will from now on. I have little tolerance for things that don’t work and waste my time/​money. I wish this were a positive experience because I hate driving another 5 minutes to get to my other car wash (that SHOULD be «too far away»). But I have to choose the place that actually works and at least I save $ 1.50 and get an extra 90 seconds of wash time.