Range Rover Evoque's Boot Gets Snapped Off In Painful Car Wash Fail

If you value your paintwork, automated car washes are best avoided. Brushes are great at causing horrible swirl marks in the finish, especially when they’re giant ones rotating at speed.

One Range Rover Evoque went through such a facility and came out with something much worse than some scratches, however. In the footage above, we see the boot on a first-generation example of the mini Range open mid-wash, and no one thinks to hit the emergency shut off switch.

As a consequence, the open tailgate is bent back on itself, destroying the hinges and most likely causing some damage to the roof. The immediate aftermath is not a pretty sight.

We’re not entirely sure where this particular Circle K car wash was, but it looks like a continental European number plate on the Evoque, not that this narrows it down much. The footage isn’t quite good enough to make out the country designation. There’s a question mark over the ‘when’ too - the time stamp in the CCTV footage says 2020, although it only seems to have gotten online attention very recently.

As for why the Range Rover’s boot opened, we have a number of theories. The owner might have just knocked the button either in the cabin or on the key. The Evoque does have a ‘gesture open’ function for the boot, which could have been triggered by the elements of the car wash moving under the car, although it’s only supposed to do so in close proximity to the key. Or it could have simply malfunctioned - there are reports from some Range Rover owners about issues of this nature.

Whatever the cause, the result is the same - one very sorry-looking Evoque.