O’FALLON, Mo. – It was a cold and snowy winter in the St. Louis region. When the weather broke for a few days in late January, we saw drivers flock to wash the winter waste off their vehicles.

“I was taking my son to the orthodontist. I was like, this car needs to be clean. I’m just going to run by the car wash real quick,” St. Charles County resident Alicia Johns said.

Johns says she went to the car wash at the Circle K on Highway K in O’Fallon, Missouri, just as she’d done many times before. But this car wash quickly became worrisome.

“It felt like somebody hit the back of my car, just a little bump. And we kind of looked at each other, and then I felt the bump again. I turned around, and I could see the brush,” she said. “And then all of a sudden, we heard this—the best way I could describe it—like a squeezing sound. And then all of a sudden, the back window busted in at us.”

Johns shared pictures of the broken rear window and dented tailgate from moments after the incident. You can still see soap suds from the car wash on what was left of her rear window.

“You’re trapped somewhere and there’s glass breaking in at you. And had my toddler been in the car, the glass would have hit him. Luckily, it was just me and my son in two front seats,” she said.

Johns went inside and spoke with the attendant, who contacted the store manager. They called the police and filed an incident report. She then called Circle K’s corporate office, reported what happened, and was given an incident number. The next day, she says she got a call from the district manager.

“She said she reviewed the footage. Looks like the big brush that goes up the back of your car and over it malfunctioned. She submitted all that information to corporate. And again, somebody would call me with what to do next,” Johns said.

But that call never came. From late January to early April, Johns says she repeatedly tried to contact anyone she could at Circle K but got nowhere.

“If the answer is no, like they’re not going to fix it, fine, just tell me; somebody respond to me. But the fact that nobody’s responded to me through emails, through online requests, through phone calls, it’s just disheartening,” she said. “I feel like they just don’t really care about their customers.”

Johns says she eventually paid a local body shop $1,700 out of pocket to install a used door. It looks fine but lacks the automatic features her van had before the incident. Before the repair was made, she had to drive around with only a plastic sheet covering the busted window.

After speaking with Johns, FOX 2 contacted Circle K. We wanted to know why, according to Johnson, the company had not yet addressed an incident that happened on Jan. 27. Circle K responded, saying they would investigate with their claims and car wash teams and follow up with us. While we waited for their response, Johns says she finally got one.

“I finally got a call just out of the blue from one of their claims adjusters asking me about what happened and then saying they’re willing to pay out for it,” she said. “They’re paying for what I’ve already paid and then the estimate to actually get it fixed correctly.”

We are dedicated to making our customers’ lives a little easier every day, and we clearly missed the mark with Ms. Johns at our location in O’Fallon. First and foremost, we apologize to her for her car wash experience. We have confirmed the damage to her vehicle resulted from a car wash equipment malfunction, and we will be reimbursing her shortly. We will strive for continuous improvement in handling claims like these to ensure customers are taken care of and back on the road in their vehicles as quickly as possible.

Statement from Circle K to our Contact 2 Team:

“I didn’t hear anything until you guys came. Previously, it was just like talking to a brick wall; nobody would respond to me. Continuously calling. No phone calls back or they’d say they’d call me back and nothing would happen from it,” Johns said.