After working as a valet, I would NEVER valet any of my cars, EVER! I have stories...

oh, and you are right hornet, they no longer produce new McLaren F1's but they rebuild them from the ground up (even repaint to the color you want) if you buy one now.

disco

 

I would never let valet drive my car. Besides this car is my daily driver since i am still young. I have only one car basically. But no one touches the keys but me.. and wow that s a nice pic where was it located.?>

 

want.....to......hear.....stories!!

 

hahaha, nice Mclaren. There was one broken down in the middle of the freeway yesterday on 85 in the south bay area......by middle i mean middle lane.

 

I too am waiting for the stories!! I valet park once in a while but I might change my mind depending on how interesting your stories are.

 

the only one i've seen is the one that raced in le mans, the FINA team one i think, is the white one...but i only saw it in "zoo condition" (at a car show)

 

Wonder if it would put more than 180whp on vishnu's dyno...

 

i'm sorry but if you have a 1.5 million dollar vehicle, you're not worried about parking it anywhere, because if you truly gave a **** about the car you cold hire a group of mercinaries to hunt down and kill the mother****er dumb enough to key or steal it from you. and if it gets smashed, oh well, i guess i will have to dust off one of the lambos this week...

 

I also valeted(?) for a few months... DO NOT GET VALET PARKING!!! If the Valets have a special lot to park on, either pay the valet fee and tip extra well (at least $5) and park it there yourself, or do this and have one hop in the passenger seat if he needs to be there for some reason. If they dont park in a special lot, (and you should ask if they do), then they will just park it along the street in the 1st spot they find, many times illegaly, many times bumping the cars in front and behind them in a parallel spot, even pushing them forward sometimes (if you have a big SUV). You can do just as well on your own.
While I worked with a lot of fine guys, I would trust less than a tenth of them in my new evo. Not that they'd steal it, thats too oubvious, but most of them are strung out, or drunk, or high, or just incompetent. Some guys would take keyrings with those speedpass things and go fill up their own tanks, some would take minor things from the cars. Others (usualy the young guys like me) would just drive the crap out of the nice cars. I left a block and a half of burnt rubber in some guys camaro SS, drive the porsche around when it got slow, etc.

dont let them into your fast car, especially before break in.

 

Yea, NEVER let people valet your car, if you treasure the car.

Most valets, around here anyway, are pretty young guys who will abuse the Evo if given the chance.

Personally, I would park the Evo only in a high traffic area. You dont want people stealing the car.

Oh Please, get wheel locks and a good security alarm + Club(or other similar theft device). The wheels are really nice and expensive and they might get stolen.

 

Hell no I wouldn't my brother parked his Mazda6 at this store and some dumb *** hit his parked car and took off..

 

Well, I am valet parking right now (gotta love that economy) and we would never allow anything like that to happen. I've never known a valet to be drunk or otherwise under the influence--and if they were they'd be fired on the spot. I even had to fire a guy for stealing (pocketing money instead of turning it in).

I also understand how I may be in the extreme minority. What I would do (will do when I have the Evo) is give the guy 5 or ten bucks to have it parked up top. That should limit the potential problems.

Frankly, I think a lot of valet horror stories are urban legends. Pushing cars out of the way to get in a spot? Even if that is true, it has to be in the extreme minority...

 

AHHHH what the hell is under the passinger door!!! is that a scratch? **** if i had a mclaren that SOB would be my F'ing pride and joy.

 

Definitely true. It happens in DC all the time, Seen it happen. One guy I was working with had to go get a land-rover discovery, but we had parked in too close in front of him along street. It was a like a civic in front of him. He just rolled up against it, pushed it forward like 6 inches, and continued to get out of the spot. Where we worked, the only time you saw a manager was at special events that needed lots of people and organization, but for our steady contracts, like restaurants, it was usually something like 3 valets, and you're responsible for yourself. We had this one guy, couldnt stand his ***. He would park on streets blocks and blocks away, not write where it was on the ticket, and proceed to forget where it was. A few times myself or another young guy ended up running around the neiborhood looking for these cars... and then of course, you get no tip when you finally find it, as the patron has been standing there for like 15 min. Myabe you have a more upstanding valet company, plus you sound like a supervisor. I have worked on the bottom, and seen it all.. rest assured if our management knew what we did, most of us would have been fired on the spot...

and this is a debate for another day, but sometimes pocketing tips, instead of pooling them is completely justified.

 

HERE'S AN URBAN LEGEND FOR YOU...

I just recently worked a traffic homocide where a "valet" went to park some guys modded twin turbo 300zx... Well he went a little too far out of the way and took it for a little spin... He was doing 87mph in a 35 on a winding road.. Lost control of the car, flipped it upside down, and landed on a palm tree killing himself, and totalling the car... It took us 2 hours just to find the owner.. Needless to say he was just a little pissed about his car, he didn't care much for the kid that wasted himself.. Can you blame him though?