Well Im right there with you. Personally I dont like to let anyone drive my s4, I mean I worked hard to get that car, why should I give them the chance to potentially cause damage to my car.

When its a personal car, however, people are a little more hesitant to hand over the keys. If they dont want to its fine by me, I just help them with the bags and hold the car by the curb until they are ready to park it themselves. The only time we don't allow this is when we have huge events and we need to park hundreds of cars within a very short amount of time. But on the regular business day, I would say that most of the cars that come in are in fact rentals.

As far as damages go, the company that I work for covers up to a certain amount, and then it falls in the employee's hands. That covers theft as well.

In all, I think that Valet parking is a very touchy subject with the risks involved. With all the stories out there and the videos on youtube of idiots doing burnout's in other peoples cars it does make my job a bit difficult at times. Like you said its more convenient to park yourself.

 

This is why I have the two cars to drive. Every morning I wake up and take a look at my calender and if it looks like I have to go somewhere with risky parking situation, I just grab the keys for the MB E320. Like many of you, I don't let others drive C4S.

 

I worked valet about 10 years ago and I would not believe what we would do with cars. Sometimes the customer would be too drunk so he needed "overnight" parking, so my coworker would take his car to "overnight parking." Overnight he would go to the clubs all over chicago with the car. This was a jag type r at the time. Now that I have my 997, I would never give it to a valet, as I myself use to really give these cars a push. For some reason I would get more ferrari 360s valeted than porsches, maybe cause porsche drives are much more passionate about there cars than ferrari. Anyway becareful out there w valets, they don't get paid much so this is what they live for!

 

Thanks for being honest. However, you have confirmed my worst fears. I thought I was just paranoid about joy rides... The worst part is, damaging the car in some subtle fashion (like over-revs), that may lead to problems in the future. Of course, when you take it to a dealer, they'll deny your warranty cuz you over-reved your car. Fun!

Also, not all valets KNOW how to drive a manual. They'll get by... I even had a Discount Tire technician sitting in my Z3 for what seemed to be a minute or two, just rolling backwards, braking, rolling backwards, etc. Turns out he couldn't find reverse.

 

You go Tiger!

 

Out here in Beirut, it is a nightmare and pretty much every where (including McD, well, one branch but STILL) has valet parking.
Some are ok with you paying them their "fee" but most are just down right obnoxious and rude.
valets come up to me and start hassling me that I am parking on the STREET where they park cars (to make his life easier).

I approach in a friendly manner, but if they respond rudely to me, I put my foot down and make a huge fiasco about it.
I get on average 4 valets a year fired for their insolence.
They are the scum of the automotive world. They've left me with such a foul taste in my mouth. I don't understand why they don't just let me park in peace!

 

I don't trust the Valera either

My method to park is to

1. Give them $10-$20 and have them park it out front (simply backing it into a spot a few feet from me while I watch and not disappearing to some remote lot).
2. Give them the money and park it out front myself.

Money always solves the problem.

 

while it does solve it
sometimes you have disgruntled ones who take offense that you are "buying them"..
again, I have to deal with these jerks pretty much everywhere I go...

and I feel it is ridiculous that I need to pay them extra to reject their service
man, I wish that whenever someone didn't want to do business with me, they had to pay me!

 

I never got the concept of valeting: is it so 'prestigious' to have someone else park the car? Or are ppl really that lazy? I'd avoid those places all together.

 

Many places around here it's close to impossible to work around it. If you want to eat at "restaurant X" you need to valet or drive around for an hour trying to find an open meter / non restricted parking space.

 

qft.

 

That sucks. I can relate though since I came from HK and many good restaurants are located at the nicer hotels.