Strange chemical attack causes $300,000 in damage at Seattle car dealership

Wild West Trucks has been around for decades- I've purchased both a used '93 Jeep Wrangler and a $200 Chrysler beater at this dealership, and they are less than a mile from where I currently live (no, I don't live under the freeway overpass, yet). I have also worked with the chemical that was used to damage the cars: Airplane Stripper. The stuff is extremely corrosive and toxic: you brush it on in one direction, let it sit for a bit, then pressure wash it off. I'm not sure how they (vandals) were able to create an aerosol version to carry out their attacks, but it seems both bold and insidious. I am unable to post the video of the attack, but if you go to the source website you can watch as a new car with temporary plates drives alongside the dealership (on Lake City Way) spraying the chemicals on the cars as it goes past them.

Perhaps it is a disgruntled customer or employee? Perhaps another dealership (there are several along this particular road, at least 7 that I know of that weren't hit by the attack). On the plus side, the dealership is offering heavy discounts on some of the damaged cars, if you don't mind driving a vehicle that has splattered spots of missing paint.

SOURCE

A Seattle car dealership was hit by vandals in a strange drive-by attack caught on camera, and it’s not the first time. Wild West Cars on Lake City Way is cleaning up after the New Year’s Eve attack. It’s the sixth bout of vandalism they’ve dealt with in recent years.

In this incident, $300,000 in damage was caused in just 30 seconds. A destructive chemical corroded more than a dozen of their cars. The chemical is generally used to peel material off airplanes down to the bare metal. In some cases, the damage is so bad it would cost more to fix the car than it's worth. Wild West says they will disclose damage to potential buyers and likely offer heavy discounts.

a reply to: seattlerat

That's pretty crazy.

Think about the complexity of this , from the aerosol ,down to the temporary plates.

I wonder if the owner of the car dealership was holding a beautiful daughter hostage in return for cheap merchandise..

We are talking Hannibal Smith level planning.. I mean all its missing is a glorified armored potato gun and one middle aged man with a cigar , Starbuck, an angry weight lifter with a Mohawk and a gold fetish, and an asylum escapee ,and you have an Ateam episode.



Respectfully,
~meathead

Forget lemons

those cars are literally ACID - or whatever CAS# of the chemical

wonder how insurance will treat it and how cars will sell.. as salvage?

Vandalized 6 times ?

What is this dealership doing to continually piss people off ?

I sure would hate to get that in my eyes, an errant droplet flinging off of a hastily operated paint brush would probably ruin one’s day.
Are they a shady dealership?
I used to work for a dealership that if something like that would have happened, everybody would have just assumed it’s a pissed off customer getting justified revenge.

a reply to: seattlerat

How hard is this stripper to come by?
I doubt ace hardware has the stuff.

originally posted by: abe froman
What is this dealership doing to continually piss people off ?

Being a car dealership.

The stuff is actually not to hard to get a hold of. It's not regulated or controlled on a high level. Worked with the stuff a lot when I was in the navy, we used to refer to it as baby sh*t due to it's nasty green crap appearance and the smell it gave off. I am sure putting it into a aerosol form wasn't very difficult either.

a reply to: Bluntone22

That is some pretty nasty stuff. A friend of mine had a body shop and he used it once in a while to strip fenders down to bare metal quickly. It has to be done correctly and neutralized right after. It can be bought but you would need to be a body shop or have an account to buy it around here. It is sold at auto stores that sell paint. Some body shops may buy it direct if they mix their own paint.

They will have to strip everything down to bare metal or replace it, it also is hard on magnesium and pot metal stuff like mirrors. I actually used it to strip my old truck down at his shop with him.

Chances are they will not find the supplier of that stuff, a lot of people could have access to it if they know the right person.

originally posted by: seattlerat

Perhaps it is a disgruntled customer or employee? Perhaps another dealership

Perhaps the dealership itself, hired a couple of radicals to spray the cars, so the dealership could claim compensation from their insurance, and also sell the cars at a discount, making a total profit greater than if they sold the cars new and undamaged themselves.

It's a great marketing trick.

Cars not selling fast enough.

So, we need a marketing ploy to move the inventory off lot.

Best to discount the prices, but need a good reason to explain why such steep discounts, and don't want to lose money, just move the cars.

Hence the brilliant plot.

Insurance covers the damage, and the cars get sold quickly, and the dealer makes even more money than usual.

These creative marketing folks.

Whatever will they dream up next?

That's really sad to see.

It was not Aerosol form either, it was shot out of a Super Soaker type gun (Toy). You can see in the video they did not spray it like hair spray, but rather it spewed out like a projectile.

I would have shot both in the head. Don't ever damage property that's not yours and run off.

Wonder if it was ELF(Earth Liberation Front) and company. With that wold assume they attacked the newer SUVS. Then again why go after a a used car place, weren't they usually attacking the new SUV dealerships? Older SUVs, worse pollution?

originally posted by: abe froman
Vandalized 6 times ?

What is this dealership doing to continually piss people off ?

Probably band-aiding flood cars to work for a few weeks to be sold.

I use the stuff all the time on my car projects, its some pretty efficient stuff.

a reply to: abe froman

Insurance fraud? That or maybe just one really mad customer.

a reply to: seattlerat

It's easy to get it in aerosol form. Just go to your local auto parts store and pick some up (I did so this past weekend). Hell, even Home Depot has it. At $13 per can they would have spent a ton of cash to do that much damage. I think someone else already said that it looked like it was sprayed from a super soaker type gun, so they probably bought the gallon cans. Even still they would have spent a good bit of money to do this.