[.:4:.]

[QUOTE=commodorenutt;6072494]I hear ya'

It always amazes me how drivers treat company cars - particularly reps and field service guys who are in & out of them throughout the day. They are a representation of the company, and should always be kept neat & tidy. I'm wary of "over shiny" fleets - ie how much are the service guys charging customers, but I'm equally wary of crappy vehicles that give the impression the person driving them will treat your job the same.

On one hand, we had a guy who would put smelly socks & muddy football boots on the front seat - only because the back seat was full of empty maccas bags, that only got emptied out when it reached "high tide" - ie when they started spilling over the armrest & onto the console when braking. And if the smell wasn't bad enough from the socks, the pungent odour from the rancid pickles in the back seat would just about curl your toes on a hot day. He never realised that smell got into his clothes, and you could smell him when he walked into the office. It was that bad.

At the other extreme we have a coffee lover, who gets his car hand washed every saturday, because he enjoys their coffee, and takes pride in his car. He also spends half a day waxing it, and has been known to use nearly a roll of 2" packing tape to get the pesky bits of grass out of the carpet, that the vacuum cleaner won't shift.
It looks better than the new cars on the fleet, and it's over 3 years old now.

One guy really impressed me - he has a soft bristled brush & microfibre cloth in the glovebox. When he's 5-10 minutes early for an appointment, he dusts all the crevices of the dash, a/c vents - everywhere - even the rim of the rear view mirror! The thing is immaculate. I sat in the car with him one day, and we were 1/2 hour early. He asked if we could swap seats so he could clean the passenger side - yet it looked better than detailed cars on the dealers lot. When I told him how impressed I was, he simply commented "it's my workplace, I spend many hours in it, and I like it to be clean & tidy at all times." It's so impressive it still has the new car smell in it.

I only allow eating in my car on long trips (a bad experience with ants led me to ban chocolate & lollies from the back seat). I don't keep the outside as clean as I should, nut I make sure my immediate "zone" of the interior is as nice as it can be - regularly wiping it down, cleaning the screen etc. At least "my space" is clean. Nothing worse than a stinky car, especially parked in the sun on a hot day.[/QUOTE.]
Mate my work ute was bought for a manager who gave no f's about anything and touch parked and all the rest. So when i got the upgrade (managers get utes tradesmen get vans, and im a tradesman), the manager copped the sack. The ute was grot. Not just a bit of dust, but tea bags and dried up apple cores and tomato sauce in pretty much everything. Wax and grease remover took care of most of the touch parking paint from other cars then a wax made it look presentable. The interior had to be shampooed and in general cleaned up and it did not smell nice at all. Turns out xl ranger seats arent brown. This was all off my own back because i have to spend my days in it and i dont like grot. Interior took about 16 hpurs of my time to make it inhabitable. And thats on a car with under 50k on the dial. Its done 90 now but im happy for passengers. When i got it it was windows the smell and i would not accept a passenger.