[jna4cob]

As a member of the T-Bhp family, I am privileged to be a part of this prestigious family of automotive enthusiasts.

I searched the forum if I could find any reviews on 5K Car Care based on experiences of our T-BHP’ians. I couldn’t find one, hence I decided to write a detailed post of my experiences based on which other members can take an informed decision.

5K car care promotes itself as an expert in auto detailing industry with 11+ years of experience, 125+ franchise outlets, 2000+ vibrant employees and 25,00,000+ happy customers.

They provide multiple services like car wash, interior and exterior cleaning, detailing services, engine carbon cleaning, ozone treatment, covid care treatment, etc.

My experience at 5K car care with their sales team:

One fine morning, with a lot of expectations and hope to get 2 of my cars detailed, I visited 5k car care (Fun Mall branch, Coimbatore). I enquired with them a week back and there were lot of follow-up calls to bring me to their outlet. All went good until now. I regularly maintain my cars in pristine condition with a lot of care. I wash all my cars at home. The products I have been using are Sonax car wash shampoo, Koch Chemie Pol Star for interior cleaning, Koch Chemie Plast Star for exterior plastics, Turtle Wax ceramic Spray coating, Turtle Wax Inside Job for the interiors, Meguiar’s leather conditioner for the leathers inside and Sonax windshield fluid. All went well until one fine day when I decided to get my cars detailed by a professional due to a lot of surface contaminants on the paint. The waxes I applied on the car didn’t last long due to the surface contaminants. I didn’t have much experience using clay bar and other polishing products. So, I decided to go with 5K car care after seeing a lot of positive reviews about them on Google (which itself seems to be fake, more on it later).

I wanted to get a basic paint prep/car polishing to remove the surface contaminants so that I can continue my usual maintenance routine at home. I went to them and asked for their charges for a basic paint prep treatment. They said the charges would be around Rs. 3,500 and they would also offer some discounts if 2 cars are done at the same time.

I went there at the time and date of appointment with my cars. The cars here in discussion are my Maruti S-Cross and Skoda Rapid. As soon as I visited them, they tried to sell an annual maintenance package for Rs. 12,499 for which they would offer me 10 car washes, 1 Teflon coating, 2 ozone treatment and 1 interior cleaning. They would provide me 1 more Teflon coating as complimentary. (The word “Teflon” itself seems misleading). All of this is valid for 1 year and I could use these for any of the cars (even if I sell/change my vehicle). Seems lucrative for the price, right? But no, more on what happened below.

Now comes my service experience with them. I reached their outlet at 9:30 a.m. in the morning and I was their second customer for the day. They took my car, washed it, and dried it. They then took it to start the exterior detailing process, they carried out the entire process by parking the car in an open space under a tree. Here started my apprehensions about the way they work.

The worst part:
Time proposed to finish the work was 4-5 hours. I decided to take off and stay there to see the complete process and take delivery of my Rapid (due to my horrible experience with their detailing on S-Cross. I was not present at their outlet when they detailed my S-Cross). A young chap, probably around his late teens started the work. After some work had progressed, I felt like he wasn’t much experienced. I asked him about how many cars he has worked on before, he answered 2. That was a shocker. By the time I got this info, he had almost completed half of the work that too with no supervision.

Final Result:

Maruti S-Cross: Complimentary Teflon coating which they offered in the package was done for the S-Cross. They delivered the car late in the night so that we don’t notice their poor work. Entire work was shoddy. Plastic and rubber trims haven’t been masked. Lot of polish is remaining on it. I asked and they said it would be removed after washing and they cannot wash now because the wax needs a curing time of 24 hours. Okay, I agreed to it. After a week, I took my car to a car wash in Chennai. They couldn’t remove these white marks even after trying for so much time.

They also said that they would remove scratches on glass, headlights, and the entire body. Nothing was done. They just applied wax to give a glossy look. The scratches remain as is. One word, absolute waste of money.

Skoda Rapid: Same as above, no scratches removed. Just surface de-contamination and waxing is what I got. And next comes the worst part and this was what triggered me to write this post. There were saltwater marks and they used 2000-grit sandpaper to clean it. I stopped the guy and asked him not to do it. He assured me that 2000-grit sandpaper is mildly abrasive, and he will polish it and make it scratch free even if there are any scratches. Final output - Gone are my windshield and other glasses. I compared it with another beater car at our home which is almost 14 years old. The old car has much lesser scratches. All my care for the car for the last 5 years was demolished within minutes. Now comes the ASM of the store. He says that we should never use sandpaper to polish glass and the damages cannot be reverted. He just shouted at the guy who did this. He didn’t offer any solution. My night visibility is completely ruined. I made a trip to BR hills in Karnataka for New Year. Day time visibility seems pathetic too. Lot of vertical and horizontal scratches on the windshield when the sun is on the opposite. I was worried and I started searching the forum if I could find some solution to fix this. I saw a post from Vivek.ks where he has tried Carzspa HSR, and the results were pretty good, and they removed scratches using a Cerium Oxide treatment. Search on the internet also suggested that Cerium Oxide works on clearing the windshield scratches. Finally, a ray of hope. I had a call with them, and I have planned to try them the next time I visit Bangalore.

Suspicious Google Reviews: Their google reviews also seems to be fake. At the time of writing this review, I see the 5K car care outlet (Fun Mall, Coimbatore) is rated 4.8/5 with 4368 Google reviews. I find the same review text repeated in most of the reviews. Also, by analyzing individual reviewers, I found that almost all the reviewers have written only one review in their lifetime and that is for 5K car care. The same reviewers have reviewed multiple 5K car care outlets across Tamil Nadu too.

Final verdict: I will never try them nor suggest to any of my friends or family members. Totally inexperienced staff. The only thing they are good at is car wash as I saw a lot of cars lined up for car washing. The ASM himself explained that they don’t polish the clear coat scratches, they just use fillers to fill in the scratches. I am sure the scratches will get exposed once the fillers go away. There was another customer who visited the outlet when they were working on my car. He had given his Nissan Micra for detailing, and he literally blasted the people there. I was not aware of what the issue was, but he took his car to the 5K car care Head Office to complain before he makes the payment for the services.

People make mistakes but they can always be corrected. They did not make a single effort to do so. I even asked them if they can fix the windshield by using the Cerium Oxide treatment. They “politely and sarcastically” declined. I have decided to pay from my pocket for fixing the windshield (I hope the scratches are mild enough and it can be fixed by Carzspa). I will keep you all updated on whether Cerium Oxide works.

Thank you all for patiently reading this long post.

[hserus]

5K is useless. Last year, I was in a hotel near Coimbatore airport and took my Endeavour to a nearby 5K outlet for a wash.

All the time I was waiting for the car, a succession of staff kept walking up trying to sell me one "offer" after the other. I think there were more fellows trying to sell me useless package deals and offers than were washing the car.

To top it all, the wash was done ham handedly, I could get the local boy who comes around with a sachet of clinic plus shampoo and a dirty cloth to do a better job.

Didn't avail myself of any "offers", and have not gone anywhere near a 5K outlet after that

[jna4cob]

Originally Posted by hserus

Didn't avail myself of any "offers", and have not gone anywhere near a 5K outlet after that

Completely agree with your comments. I realized it very late. Now I have no other option but have to finish the package within a year and never ever go back to them.

[rajeevsulu]

About a year ago I went to a 5k outlet here in Erode. There is nothing good about the franchise. Their washing is bad, they try to sell their annual packages, their waiting room ac does not work. I never went back again

[govigov]

I went to their 5k car wash sundarapuram, coimbatore outlet after looking at the reviews. They said they were booked out and wont be able to handle my car and to come back tomorrow. Sounds fair, and I had some time left to kill, I stayed back and watched them work on a couple of cars. The same cloth that was used to clean the running boards underneath the doors were used in the same swift motion to clean the doors as well. I mean, they did not even dunk it in the water, just straight from the front running board to the front doors, to the rear running board to the rear doors. They were using a single bucket system. I left and did not return.

[jna4cob]

Extremely poor service and lackadaisical attitude by Team 5K Car Care

And I’m back. The 5K horror story continues. I did not learn a lesson to never trust these guys. As mentioned in my previous post, I had taken an annual package. So there were a few car washes and a few other services left. So I was in a dilemma whether to trust them again or not.
Before we move on to discussing about the new services, let me brief everyone about the resolution provided for the old mistakes (mentioned in my previous post).

Head of 5K Car Care, Coimbatore (Mr. Rahul, he said he was the head) reached out to me after reading Team-BHP reviews. He pleaded to remove the review for which I politely refused as I consider Team-BHP to be a knowledge source and this forum is one where other members can benefit from the experiences of fellow BHP’ians.

There were multiple calls to bring both my cars (Skoda Rapid and S-Cross) to their outlet to fix the issues that had happened during my previous visit.
This time, I wanted to stay with both my vehicles when the work is done. I took my Rapid to the outlet and availed their pick-up and drop services for my Maruti S-Cross.

Here comes the best of their services:

1. Maruti S-Cross – They hit the base of the front bonnet on the floor with a huge thud when they reversed very fast on a ramp and went and hit our i10 parked at the rear. No apologies, no regrets as usual from them.

2. Skoda Rapid – Rapid’s story is even more interesting. Last time they had scratched all my glasses using sandpaper. They said they will bring in an expert from Glass Polish India to fix the scratches. On reaching the outlet, they mentioned that they have the same polishing compound and will do it on their own (no Glass Polish India as there seems to be a charge that must be paid to the person).

This time their senior most supervisor took in charge. And guess what, I did not sleep for 3 days and regretted my decision for trusting these guys again and again. I was saddened to see my car windshield in the worst possible state. This was something I had never imagined even in the wildest of my dreams. I have attached images for your reference.

The complete windshield had swirl marks all over. I initially thought that these could be some polish residue that will go away once cleaned. But once I had a deeper look into it, I realized that I was wrong. These were permanent marks on the windshield. Since they polished my car in the open under a tree, there seems to be some stone which had stuck on to the glass polishing pad and this was what had created the swirl marks.

There was no hope in sight for the next few days. No calls or nothing. Their only motive was to make me remove or update the review without providing any solution. I am not able to drive in the night with all these scratches and swirl marks. I asked them for a windshield replacement for which they did not provide any response and began ghosting my calls.

I also reached out to the CEO, Mr. Karthickkumar Chinnaraj via LinkedIn. I explained to him that my intention was not to damage the reputation of the company but to arrive at an amicable solution to my problem. He asked for my contact number, but he never reached back to me. I messaged him again with the images of damage but as usual, no reply to that as well.
If the leadership is having this attitude, what else can I expect from the overall organization.

Lessons learnt by me from this experience:

1. Never trust Google reviews. Most of their reviews are paid as mentioned in my previous post with examples of fake reviews. They are rated around 4.9/5 (with 10,000+ reviews) which is practically not possible for even the best in their field.

2. I am planning to write to Department of Consumer Affairs and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) regarding the above point which is in violation of the “Indian Standard (IS) 19000:2022 ‘Online Consumer Reviews — Principles and Requirements for their Collection, Moderation and Publication” guidelines. The standards will be applicable to every online platform which publishes consumer reviews.

3. Always stay with the car whenever possible.

4. Always go for reputed brands in car detailing.

5. Ask for a trial or sample before committing on a long-term membership.

6. Have a thorough look at the materials they use for detailing (two-bucket method, using different cloth for different parts of the car or same old cloth for body, glass, tires)

7. Have a conversation with the employees who work there to understand their knowledge on detailing.

8. And the most important thing, look at how they handle other cars when you are at the outlet. The same will happen to your car too when you are not there. One who handles other cars roughly is not going to pamper yours.

Things I observed during my last visit to 5K:

1. Their managers are only interested in selling packages (which other members have reported on this forum too). Once you take a membership, their attitude completely changes. This was reported by others too when I had a casual conversation with those who visited the outlet when I was there.

2. There was a white Honda Jazz which was rashly driven by one of their employees during car wash. Most of these drivers think that it is cool to drive rash and mishandle others’ property.

3. Use the same cloth for a minimum of 5 vehicles before even washing it.

4. I also observed that almost 80% of their employees who wash, and polish cars are in their early teens.

Now I am really confused on what I should be doing next. 5K Car Care Coimbatore head Mr. Rahul is not responding to my calls and their CEO doesn’t care. There are still some services left in the package and I do not trust them for any of the work. I want to get my windshield fixed. Skoda quotes around 14k for the windshield and I have to spend another 4k for my windshield film. They are not refunding even a single rupee for the unused services.

1. Should I take the legal route?
2. Or should I ignore and fix it by myself bearing all expenses?

I welcome suggestions from my fellow BHP’ians.

And there is one most important update: 5K car care is currently present majorly in TN and few places in AP and KA. They now plan to expand into the rest of India with Chennai as the base. So be prepared to experience one of the most awesome premium detailing services from the best in the industry - 5K CAR CARE…!!!

[harikr]

I feel your pain. I was also a victim of the 5K package (Saravanampatti branch) when I was in Coimbatore for one year. They lured me to take the package on offer and I too fell for it. The first washing polishing interior cleaning etc was done with me present there and they did an ok job. So next time I gave the car and left as I had some urgent meetings. They returned the car pretty late in evening and I couldn’t see much in the low light. In morning, I could see multiple wax patches across the car. The climate control sensor cover was missing and the car was smelling so bad. I tried reaching them, but they denied any issues when they gave the car back. Didn’t have the energy and mind to follow up with anyone there. Just advised my friends not to go there. And tried to inform the extended friends circle also. Anyway I am back to Pune now and has lots of good options here. Coimbatore lacks good detailing centres I assume. 5K is the only name that comes up when we search. There are lots of positive reviews. Either they are fake, or their work culture deteriorated over time, or those people haven’t seen good detailing process. Try to keep away from them.

[jna4cob]

A quick update on what happened after my previous post. The person from 5K car care started giving multiple reasons:
1. He met with an accident
2. Windshield replacement cost will be deducted from his salary and the company does not pay for it, and many more, etc. etc.
I finally decided to give up and get my glass polished to remove the scratches (more on this later). I informed him that he need not replace my windshield. There were services worth Rs. 5000 approx left in my package. I didn’t want to be a fool this time so I asked him for an apology email for what has happened and that this will not be repeated again in the pending services. He agreed to this and left.
Months went by. No update. I finally called him and he suddenly said that his company has decided to replace the windshield. I was shocked and felt like a fool here. I declined the replacement but he insisted that I should get it replaced. Here comes the next surprise. He says that the glass will be replaced at his store by some outside vendor and not at Skoda ASS. The reason he gave was that even Skoda ASS contracts windshield replacements to outside vendors. Extremely shocked and surprised, I decided never to trust these guys. I declined the windshield replacement offer.
I finally made up my mind to at least use the pending services and get rid of 5K car care and add the experience to my life’s lessons learnt. Today I called the person in-charge of Coimbatore for a wash. Called over 5 times but my calls went unanswered.
Completely fed up with 5K car care, I decided to leave this issue here for peace of my mind.

[shibulijack]

Thanks for sharing your experience and helping so many people in the process. This is the USP of our forum. True, unbiased reviews.

I was contemplating on getting my Honda City cleaned at 5k car care, Kovaipudur (mostly because of their Google reviews) but I’m not going anywhere near that place now.

[jeeva]

The name 5K in itself is misleading if you ask me!
Once upon a time in Kerala there was apparently Peter&Peter: the cheap alternative for Johnson& Johnson products. Guess this 5K is a rip off of 3M!

Had been to one of their outlets in Peelamedu area for a quick wash. Out came the freak chaps with a broken bucket, dish wash scrubber and a cheap knock off Harpic bathroom cleaner. I jumped back into the car and reserved out with my dear life.

[jna4cob]

Originally Posted by jeeva

The name 5K in itself is misleading if you ask me!
Once upon a time in Kerala there was apparently Peter&Peter: the cheap alternative for Johnson& Johnson products. Guess this 5K is a rip off of 3M!

Originally Posted by shibulijack

Thanks for sharing your experience and helping so many people in the process. This is the USP of our forum. True, unbiased reviews.

I completely agree. I am yet to hear a single positive review about them.