A driver ended up with na bill for more than £400 after taking her Mini into a £6.99 car wash.
Rachel Spencer was using the car wash machine at a BP petrol station when she heard an "almighty banging", reports C hronicleLive.
Rachel said: "I just heard this almighty banging and kind of clunking noise, and I just thought 'oh my god, what is that?'. I was in the car wash so I couldn't find out what it was, so I waited to the end and drove out and stopped as soon as I could.
"I drove it out and looked at the back and saw a part was missing. I had to go into the car wash to get the part that had been ripped off."
Rachel spoke to an attendant who told her to raise a complaint with Motor Fuel Group (MFG), which owns the car wash.
The company told her it was "investigating" her complaint, but later said there had been no faults and was told to contact her insurers for cash to fix the damage at a cost of more than £400.
Rachel said: "I had done everything you should do, I'd taken my aerial off, I'd followed the rules. I'm 45, I've been in car washes before, I know what to do and I know I didn't do anything wrong.
"At no point does it say that there is a risk of the car wash taking off part of my car."
A spokesperson for MFG declined to comment, but Rachel has received a new message from MFG, informing her that the company had "re-evaluated" the complaint and would offer her £402.60 "as a gesture of goodwill, with no admission of liability".
