“Going through an auto wash in a $100,000 SUV…”
A woman claims her Cadillac Escalade was totaled during a routine trip to her local car wash.
Lucille Ramirez (@ldrbb) says she and her husband loaded up their entire family—five dogs and three kids included—and headed to the car wash they subscribe to monthly. The goal wasn’t just a clean car. Ramirez explains they needed to get out of the house because their home, which was on the market, had a showing scheduled that day.
Until then, Ramirez says she’d never had an issue with the car wash.
“POV: Your Escalade gets totaled at the car wash,” she writes in the on-screen caption of her video, which showed the extent of the damage to her SUV. As of this writing, the clip has racked up more than 3.6 million views.
In her initial video, Ramirez shows viewers the back passenger side of her Escalade, which appeared crushed inward. One of the rear mirrors was also shattered—or missing entirely.
In a follow-up clip, she explains what led to the damage. According to Ramirez, her vehicle entered the wash behind a truck with a pump in the bed. That pump came loose, got caught in the car wash brushes, and began spinning wildly, slamming into her Escalade from front to back.
Ramirez says the inside of the vehicle never got wet and that the car wash’s systems shut down as soon as something went wrong.
Her dogs weren’t as lucky. She says they ended up with glass in their paws and some scratches.
“Other than that, no one was hurt,” Ramirez said. “Thank God.”
At the time, Ramirez says she still owed $67,000 on the Escalade, and the damage exceeded 75% of the vehicle’s value, leading insurance to total it. Even so, she praised the car wash for how it handled the situation, saying it was dealt with “the perfect way.”
Adding a final twist, Ramirez says she sold her house that same day—to the people who came for the showing while her family was stuck at the car wash.
If you’re taking a truck through a car wash, anything loose in the bed needs to be locked down first. Automatic washes use strong brushes and high-pressure water, which, in addition to potentially leaving behind calcium deposits or water spots, can easily knock loose unsecured items.
The safest move is to secure everything using ratchet straps or a heavy-duty cargo net. According to Camera Source, one of the best ways to secure items in a truck bed is to place the heaviest things low in the bed and as close to the center as possible, then secure them in multiple directions so they can’t slide forward or sideways. If you’re hauling small items, though, just keeping a cargo net pulled tight over the load can help keep things from shifting.
The outlet notes that a tonneau cover can also add another layer of protection, though other experts say there are pros and cons to driving a truck equipped with one through an automatic car wash. For instance, soft covers can flex, and even hard covers can rattle if they’re not fully latched.
If you have items in your truck bed and are planning to go through an automatic car wash soon, do a quick walk-around to check for anything that could move.
And if you’re carrying something bulky, awkward, or especially valuable, it might be best to skip the automated wash altogether in favor of a hand wash or touchless option. A few extra minutes of prep can save you from a major headache later.
People who came across Ramirez’s original video were quick to zero in on the truck ahead of her, with many arguing that the damage was the result of the other driver’s carelessness.
“So I’m guessing the work truck in front of you had something in the bed that got caught in the car wash buffers and ran down the side of your vehicle??” one man asked—accurately—before Ramirez later shared her fuller explanation.
“So the truck in front of you is the issue. That’s why we never allow anything [in] truck beds. Especially those gas pump/hose and nozzles,” another added.
At least one viewer chimed in with firsthand accounts of loose equipment in truck beds causing similar chaos.
“I run a chain of washes. I was on our Facebook group, and according to them, the grey truck had a fuel box in the back with a fuel pump hose,” one commenter explained. “That hose got wrapped up in one of the wrap brushes and smashed into the SUV over and over again. [The] loader should have never ever let that grey truck go through with that.”
Not everyone saw it that way. A handful of commenters questioned why Ramirez would run a vehicle like an Escalade through an automatic wash in the first place.
“Putting a hundred thousand dollar car through an automated car wash?” one person asked.
“Going through an auto wash in a $100,000 SUV is insane,” another wrote.
Still, several viewers pushed back on that framing, calling out what they saw as misplaced blame.
“Why are y’all mad at them that their vehicle was deemed totaled BY SOMEONE ELSE!” one commenter shot back.
“Y’all truly find any way to victim blame,” another added.
Motor1 has reached out to Ramirez via a direct message on TikTok. We’ll update this post if she replies.
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