ABSTRACT.- The influence of car wash facilities over the water quality in Craiova In Craiova, as in most of cities, one of the most profitable businesses is represented by the car washes. These constructions are located all over the town, but especially at the peripheral areas, where most of them are off-hand from different materials and do not have a unitary aspect. Although, theoretically they are built according to some well drawn up projects, the reality in site does not always correspond with the endowments mentioned in technical documentations. Albeit obtaining a construction and functioning authorization for a car wash supposes, not only a project, but also certain authorizations from the Romania Water Department, Ministry of Environment, the number of car wash facility is increasing. On Rāului Street, in Craiova, there can be numbered at least 13 car washes. All these huts made up of metal sheet are located on the once green space which covers a collection channel for waste waters. The waste waters mixed up with detergents and other cleaning substances resulted from the washing process are discharged directly into the sewerage system of the city. Because they have a high content of toxic substances, these waters are corrosive causing the damage of the sewerage pipe materials which, in time, start register leakages. So, part of the waters are infiltrating into the nearby soil, into the underground water layer present at a small depth (-0,80; -1 m in the marginal areas in the south and west of the city), and the rest, through the sewerage system, arrive in the Jiu river (the place where the waste waters are discharged), as the city does not have a waste water treatment plant in operation.
Key words: car wash, waste water, sewerage system, emissary, water quality