Did the carwash clean your matts?

My girlfriend needed to go to Trona, CA to collect Hanksite crystals for her geology class. Finding that it would cost her about $80 in gas we decided to take my Prius because it would go further on less.

After eating a pancake breakfast at the community church; I found I had to drive my car on salty dirt roads to get to the actual collection site. Once in the morning and to a second site in the afternoon. We found some decent samples of crystals but we were suckers. We followed the rules getting to the site and by the time we got there, it had already been picked over by people who knew where to go.

The prius did well on the dirt roads and even off road. If I did it again I would reduce the air pressure back down to 34/32 psi because we bounced around a lot. Afterward we had a lot of sticky black mineral salt everywhere.

I took the car to a carwash that could also do the undercarriage. The did a good job but the remove and cleaned the matts. When the put them back they didn't secure them. By the next day they had crept up enough so that when I applied the brakes I couldn't stop. Fortuantely I had read about the problem before on Priuschat, so I managed to move the matt back, and no damage.

I think we should have a permanent posting of this problem somewhere so people will know to check their matts if somebody cleans their car.

I have a 2005 prius that is not affected by the special service/recall.