[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by mac187

So this is the report post one month of operations. When I had been there, no one cleaned the glass. I too spotted it on the way back, hence did it myself. Also, the door wells and door frames were cleaned before the automated wash and they didn't wipe down the same after the wash.

There are jets in the machine, when I had been there they told me its not working yet. Wasn't the same fixed when you had been there?

Below is the pic of the jets. The jets are supposed to be high powered swivelling types. I imagined that it would good a decent job if it was working.

They cleaned the door wells and window frames with their dirty cloths in my case.
Their jets to clean the underbody were not working.

[Tassem]

Thanks for sharing! This is great news if the establishment lives upto expectations. Its almost on my way back from work and I'll drop in one of these days. I'm sure this guy will start noticing a lot of tbhp members if he delivers results.

Slightly OT - The best automated car wash I've seen in India so far is one in Kerala! There is an EasyWash (I think thats what its called) booth at a pump in Edapally, Cochin. Every time I visit, I make it a point to go there.

About 10 people work on your car in tandem with the automated unit. The whole process takes less than 15 min and your car looks new inside out! i'm not exaggerating. I'm absolutely anal about how clean my car is. And they deliver. Simply brilliant!

You dont need to get out except when they clean the interiors. Plus the employees are honest. More than once they've found money especially while cleaning the centre arm rest and left it on the seats. I wish I could say the same about my office valet guys. Sigh!

The cost is 350 all inclusive. Worth every penny.

[Mister_M]

This Wash-Station is just around 200 mts from my home.

After all our T-BHP reviews, I left early from office on Monday to try out their Exterior car wash - only to discover from an dis-interested guy out there that they are closed on Mondays

The same guy told me that they would open at around 9:00 AM next day morning and work until 8 ~ 8:30 PM. Trusted his words and went back yesterday at 7:50 PM again only to discover that they have decided to wind-up for the day with another ANHC in their "Q".

When they can have a huge board in front of their shop with all pricing details, I wonder why can't they define and display their working days & Working-timings too? Let me check again if I get luckier today with Pronto.

Cheers!!
M

[Schoudhury]

One of my friend took his car for washing there yesterday.
I was not all impressed by the quality of work, his car had shampoo marks all over the roof , not sure why they have not cleaned it properly .
Also the owner, after seeing TBHP stickers on his car, was telling him that TBHP members are expecting too many things in that pricing and providing -ve review in this thread .
If the quality of work is not good , then we are bound of provide feedback which is true, so that people can take a call depending on that .


I feel this place is only good for just getting the car cleaned if its very dirty and you need it to be cleaned ASAP.

Also my friend told me that, he had checked the bristles of the machine which is used for cleaning and looks like the same is already giving up

I might go there tomorrow for getting my car cleaned .

Cheers

[Smokeymist]

I took my bike TB500 to this place today for a services and their service is below minimum standards.

I reached there in the evening at 330 types and they were servicing two innovas. One is at the ending & one is ready to move into the machine. I was standing without anyone even asking why i am standing there for about 15 mins. One guy finally recognized me and my bike and asked me if its for service.

So , finally they started cleaning with a jet of water and one guy with barely any knowledge on cleaning started working on the bike . He was not even jetting the bike properly. Then he started with ruthless wipes and started interchanging clothes from tires to body and body to tires and my heart was almost in my pants :( and i stopped him and informed the owner on this and he started scolding that guy and started giving instructions on how to clean the bike and making him to do so . So this guy is learning how to clean on my bike. :-(

Then comes the final part, they started applying polish..To my surprise after applying the polish all over they started the water jet again to clean off the polish..I was just dumbstruck with this move and couldn't even speak a word.Not sure if they do it like it. But to my knowledge after applying the polishing they were supposed to wipe it off with a smooth cloth..I want to get out from there with out any delay..They aired the water off and said bike is ready. They wiped the body with a normal cloth with water marks all over.God!! This is the first time i have ever seen my bike so dirty.

Guys!! My humble suggestion.They just don't know the basics of cleaning don't ever try this place for your bikes. If i could have paid rs.99 to any apartment cleaning guy they would have done a better job with out all the fancy equipment they have.

[shankar.balan]

Nett take is that Pronto is rubbish eh?

Good. Serves me right for trying to migrate from Sidhu's super 3M service just because idiotic Pronto is closer to my house...

[motomaverick]

After seeing the washing center with Sidhu from 3M while we had gone for a test drive few days back. I was thinking of trying it out and yesterday I decided to find some time and check the place out. Let me sum it up in the points below:

Positives:
Quick wash, takes not more than 7 mins

Negatives:
Small kids doing the interior vacuuming and wheel well cleaning
Greasy stuff applied to the interior dashboard to clean it
Waxing is an eye wash as the liquid wax mixture is too light and the blow dry machine just throws the wax away
No under body cleaning available, though the jets are there below the chasis but the force of water is not much
The end points of the bristles in the machines have split ends that can cause swirl marks
Very hard muck will not be cleaned by the machine

All in all I would say 2/5 for this place. I would not recommend it. For the same price I can get a better wash at 3M

Here are some pictures of the process

Cleaning the engine bay area


Interior Vaccuming


Thats the machine to wash the car


The car placed at the correct position


After the wash I saw the stronger muck still remaining


They placed the car under a tree to clean the glass that resulted in some dirt on the bonnet


Here is a video of the wash process, sorry I stopped it before you can see the air blower. Somehow unable to upload it in Team-bhp, hence, the link

Pronto Car Wash

[Mister_M]

I finally got my Hatch washed here on Wednesday.

Here are my generic observations:

1. The Service Station is quite new and for the Owner Wazeem, this is a completely new venture = lack of initial knowledge. He himself agrees "don't expect so much on my first month; let me graduate; I am still solving & addressing the teething issues that happens with almost each new firm".

2. He already receives a hand-full number of cars for wash (I too notice this as I pass by this place quite often) each day due to his attractive price tags. This might earn him his minimum profit / achieve his base targets; But if Pronto needs to be established as a "Brand", they definitely must work really hard and smart and try meeting out the pit-fall points that our Fellow BHPians have listed. Expectations of a "Car-User" and "Car-Lover" will definitely be reasonably different!

3. Pronto suffers quite a heavy attrition rate. He even claims to be paying around 10K to his boys but none of them stays more than a month. This directly leads to customers facing un-trained / less-trained boys who does a poor wash-job. Customer-Handling / customer-management is almost zero due to this very same point and this is a huge "turn-off" at this place today.

4. Though they have invested a crore for the machines (they even plan to bring in some more sophisticated machinery soon), "a clean car" is all what the customer wants. No customer would want to listen to any of their in-house problems. Pronto - Are you Listening??

5. Wazeem did quote our Sankar Balan sir's case. Seems after his Team-BHP comments, they have now started using Micro-Fiber cloth for cleaning and are now charging small sized UVs (includes Yeti, Maruti Omni, etc...) at the price of Sedans instead of UV pricings. Looks like a welcomable move; Hope all other concerns are addressed soon too.

6. According to Wazeem, the brushes used in the machines are made of polyethylene which are soft and are expected to last for around 30,000 washes. I am not an expert to dig this further, may be other BHPians can throw some more light to this.

7. They are confident about their Exterior detailing aspects (especially at their prices). When demanded more about their interior detailing, they simply agree and request, "sir, please don't compare us with a brand like 3M for interiors".

Was I happy with the wash?

I took my car which was quite dusty after a 600+ kms drive. Total time spent for washing + manual wiping off at some deep / dark spots was around 15 mins (end-to-end). I am sort of "OK" (though not fully satisfied) for the less time and money spent (especially after a long dusty trip). Any day, this is better than a petrol-pump water-wash center which is more un-organised and unclean in my view.

For more professional (especially interiors) detailing, our Sidhu at 3M would be my choice too.

If Pronto lives their dream of establishing themselves as a "Good" brand by themselves in the due course of time (3 months? 6 months??), it would definitely be a "nice-to-have" feature in the neighborhood

Cheers!!
M

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Mister_M

I finally got my Hatch washed here on Wednesday.
Here are my generic observations:

5. Wazeem did quote our Sankar Balan sir's case. Seems after his Team-BHP comments, they have now started using Micro-Fiber cloth for cleaning and are now charging small sized UVs (includes Yeti, Maruti Omni, etc...) at the price of Sedans instead of UV pricings. Looks like a welcomable move; Hope all other concerns are addressed soon too.

M

Glad to hear that they are taking consumer feedback seriously.
However, I am clear that I will go to them only for an external wash job.
For all other serious cleaning, detailing and care requirements, 3M it is...

[sumathindra]

Uploading the video of the wash I did 2 weeks back

http://youtu.be/ZDFgftpgqS0

[shankar.balan]

Quoting myself as per my LittleBigFoot thread!

I am sorry but it most certainly WAS the Pronto wash that did my A Pillar and B Pillar glossy black Plastic Covers in! Hundred percent proven... I went there today for a quick surface wash along with my wife. It had rained and my car was rather spotty and dirty today.

Everything was fine in the wash but when those rollers had finished their job, I noted that the right side ( Driver side) A Pillar cover corner edge was again broken off in exactly the same place as it was before. I am 100% sure this was on account of the action if those fibre loaded rollers. The vehicle was perfect when it went into the wash. and the A Pillar on the passenger side, which had broken off on the previous visit and which I subsequently glued back on, managed to stay put this time and did not break off.

Of course I brought it to their attention. The owner was not there and the other chap dressed in white who was there would not accept the fact. He did say I should have told him about this first before getting the car washed a second time. But I said I wanted to experiment and prove this to myself first.

Finally he did accept it after a fashion. I also told him that I will not be coming back in my Yeti for his Auto wash. So I paid him Rs 250/- for the external car wash and drove away.

Again Pronto did not see fit to give me a bill and nor did he even offer me one. I then went straight to 3M and got that small edge piece of the A Pillar re-stuck with some strong feviquick and had the carbon fibre sticker job also re-smoothed over. The A Pillar appears fine now but we all know that the problem is there. I will change those plastic covers by and by. And I will never be able to go back to Pronto to get my Yeti washed.

The design of those A Pillar covers being so pointy at the edge near the bonnet, actually creates a ready made recipe for disaster, on account of the auto wash roller fibres getting caught there and literally pulling it and breaking off the edge piece.

[Soumyajit9]

Originally Posted by sumathindra

Uploading the video of the wash I did 2 weeks back

http://Youtu.be/ZDFgftpgqS0

OMG, I'm never gonna give my Baby Beat to any automated car wash ever. I am a little terrified seeing those massive brushes moving across the car. I'm sure you all had good experiences. But not me.
My friendly neighbourhood guy does it peacefully and with love n care

[Schoudhury]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Quoting myself as per my LittleBigFoot thread!

I noted that the right side ( Driver side) A Pillar cover corner edge was again broken off in exactly the same place as it was before.

That day when you showed the damage on your yeti @3M store and thought that someone tried to take it off the car , to be very frank I had no clue why would someone try to take those plastic pieces of car and nothing else .
But this seriously crazy and I have no word to explain this .
I have seen some Audi, merc and bmw's getting washed over there , so I just hope those car didn't get damaged because of this .
Most importantly the owner knowing the reason for the damage , if any .

That's really really bad .

Cheers

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Schoudhury

That day when you showed the damage on your yeti @3M store and thought that someone tried to take it off the car , to be very frank I had no clue why would someone try to take those plastic pieces of car and nothing else .
But this seriously crazy and I have no word to explain this .
I have seen some Audi, merc and bmw's getting washed over there , so I just hope those car didn't get damaged because of this .
Most importantly the owner knowing the reason for the damage , if any .

That's really really bad .

Cheers

The edges of the plastic pillar covers are sharp and pointy as you saw.
Also, they are not flush with the bonnet in the Yeti like they are in the case of most cars.

There is a small amount of space there which could get those brushes fibres caught up. When those fibres catch, the pressure exerted by the rollers is sufficient to reach the shear strength of those plastic end bits and therefore they break.

Having literally seen this whole process in front of my eyes, I am sure that what I am saying is correct...

[vishwasvr]

Ok so I wanted to check this place out and since I had to run some errands in and around HSR Layout, I decided to club all my activities yesterday.

I reached Pronto at around 15:55 and noticed a car being washed. So I took the opportunity to film the entire process.

Once that was done, I was asked to park my car at the washing area. I wanted an exterior wash only because I was pressed for time.

I took photos of my car before the wash. They removed the antenna from the roof of the car.

I'm not sure if the pressure of the water jet is good enough to remove tough stains/mud from the car body.

Only wish the pressure was slightly higher. But that's just my guess.

After a rinse, the car was spray shampooed. Once that is done, the car gets washed again.

The drying part was rather interesting. It was blow dried front to back. But I was guessing that it may not do a 100% job. There was a lot of water droplets left behind. Also the blow drying started from just above the number plate and there was a lot of water still stuck on the honeycomb grill on the bumper. This was disappointing. I think it should be called Semi-Automated car wash. But I didn't have really high expectations.

Once the operation was done, I was asked the drive the car across the street for a final drying by hand.

The chap used 3 different cloths for cleaning. But that was not effective because the cloths were rather dirty.

The entire process lasted about 20 minutes I guess.

Good bits:

-Quick washing.
-Reasonably priced.

Scope for improvement:

-High pressure of water jet can help remove tough stains.
-High pressure air can blow off all the water droplets.
-Manual drying/wiping can be avoided if the air is blown at high pressure.

Overall impression:

Pretty good. Would not mind going again provided things improve in the future.































I paid up and drove away feeling pretty good, but only for about a 100 meters and then the rain gods decided to piss me off royally!
Just drove for a short distance and it started pouring! So much for getting my car washed and then paying for it! Was just forced to take things with a pinch of salt and I was on my way back!