BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WPMI) — Julie and Bob McDonald of Seminole thought it was time to wash their brand new Toyota Camry.
After all, it looked pretty dirty.
And the warning system on the car told her, there was something on her backup camera preventing it from working.
“We thought it was Alabama red clay,” says Julie. But it was not.
“She parked out here on the lawn and said, we’re gonna wash the car,” recalls Bob. “ And we were getting ready to wash-“
“-got all of the equipment out-“
“Nothing. Nothing came off.”
The once gleaming white paint is now tinted a dirty light brown, and rubbing the surface produces a rough, scraping sound.
It wasn’t long before the McDonalds learned there were others dealing with the same problem.
Many others. And they all had one thing in common.
They’d driven down Baldwin County Road 104 between Robertsdale and Silver Hill that same morning, November 6th.
That’s when the McDonalds and others went into detective mode.
“We called the DOT to find out if there was anything on the roads,” says Julie. “First we called the body shop and asked them about it. Apparently they had already had 40 people call that day. And they said they didn’t know what it was. They were calling it an asphalt sealant…”
But that was a guess.
“Yes, that was a guess,’ she says. “And the DOT said no, that’s not what it is.”
Meanwhile, at a body shop in Robertsdale-
“They wasn’t too happy about it, I’ll tell you that,” says Aaron Johnson.
He and the others at Holland’s Auto Pros were in the process of changing their name to Rettig Auto Pros.
And that when people started driving up with that same mysterious substance on their cars.
“It was a bunch of customers,” says Aaron. “They would come in and say they noticed it. They don’t remember riding down a dirt road. And they washed their cars and it would still be there. And that’s when they started coming in and getting estimates. Because it was something deeper than just dirt.”
It doesn’t show as starkly on darker cars, but it’s there. A quick comparison of a used and clean buffing pad shows that.
“Depending on how bad it is, there have been some we had to do some wet sanding on. But most of it, it just takes a lot of time and a lot of buffing.”
If you’re lucky.
And that’s anywhere between 15-hundred and 2 thousand dollars… not counting the plastic chrome pieces that have to be replaced. Some heavily damaged cars might require a new paint job.
The McDonalds have yet to get their diagnosis.
Aren’t they furious?
“How do we get furious at?,” says Julie. “What’s it going to do?”
“How’s it gonna help?” say Bob.
As for right now, the goo on the road appears to be gone.
But the McDonalds and another couple have started Facebook pages where these unfortunate drivers are comparing notes and looking for answers.
You can visit them here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/546713141417510
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569215332841
