When Is A Car Cover A Bad Idea?
02-27-2004, 09:12 PM
#1
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When a crazed squirrel gets stuck underneath it and trashes your paint trying to escape! .
My 10 month-old MY03 sits in the parking lot where I work in Agoura Hills, CA all day. I've used car covers for the past 10 years with good results, so I bought a Noah cover for the S2000 and use it every day. It works great and the paint looks brand new.
Yesterday, I came out around 5PM and started taking the cover off from the back of the car, as usual. I noticed a small hole in the cover over the rear trunk lid and thought "that sucks." Then I noticed that the rear trunk lid was scratched and covered with brown dirt. I rolled the cover over the top, which had no dirt or damage, and walked to the front to finish taking the cover off. There were a dozen 1/2 to 1" holes in the cover over the hood and a huge, 4" flap, complete with scratches and dirt near the passenger fender top! At first I thought some of the local crows that hang around on the trees had a war on my car, then I thought about the dirt UNDER the cover and the fact that there are a lot of squirrels and other rodents in the hills around the place where I work. All I can figure is a rodent of some kind crawled up under the cover, got stuck on top of the car and freaked out trying to get free.
The cover is totally trashed and two hours of very careful hand compounding (I painted guitars for a living for 10 years) and buffing removed all the scratches without killing the clear coat. I don't want to let my car bake in the California sun, but I'm afraid of this happening again. Aside from the occasional cat thinking the car cover was a scratching post, I've never had a problem like this before. Bad karma or just plain bad for my car?
My 10 month-old MY03 sits in the parking lot where I work in Agoura Hills, CA all day. I've used car covers for the past 10 years with good results, so I bought a Noah cover for the S2000 and use it every day. It works great and the paint looks brand new.
Yesterday, I came out around 5PM and started taking the cover off from the back of the car, as usual. I noticed a small hole in the cover over the rear trunk lid and thought "that sucks." Then I noticed that the rear trunk lid was scratched and covered with brown dirt. I rolled the cover over the top, which had no dirt or damage, and walked to the front to finish taking the cover off. There were a dozen 1/2 to 1" holes in the cover over the hood and a huge, 4" flap, complete with scratches and dirt near the passenger fender top! At first I thought some of the local crows that hang around on the trees had a war on my car, then I thought about the dirt UNDER the cover and the fact that there are a lot of squirrels and other rodents in the hills around the place where I work. All I can figure is a rodent of some kind crawled up under the cover, got stuck on top of the car and freaked out trying to get free.
The cover is totally trashed and two hours of very careful hand compounding (I painted guitars for a living for 10 years) and buffing removed all the scratches without killing the clear coat. I don't want to let my car bake in the California sun, but I'm afraid of this happening again. Aside from the occasional cat thinking the car cover was a scratching post, I've never had a problem like this before. Bad karma or just plain bad for my car?
02-28-2004, 04:53 PM
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Yikes - maybe it WAS bad karma - did you ever run over one of its relatives? On a fast run on Mulholland from Malibu Cyn to Kanan I hit a rabbit, hopefully a pair of them won't get into my cabin & multiply. I can't imagine this happening again, but I guess it did happen once, so.....
02-28-2004, 11:07 PM
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I make the Malibu Canyon to Kanan via Mullholland run every weekend when it's not raining. Maybe the rabbits were color blind and thought it was my car that hit their brethren! 
Rich
P.S.- Nice "Mr. Sparkle" photo from the Simpsons. He's "disrespectful to dirt."
Rich
P.S.- Nice "Mr. Sparkle" photo from the Simpsons. He's "disrespectful to dirt."
03-01-2004, 11:05 AM
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WOW, that's pretty bad. I used to park in an open lot all day and also used the Noah cover.
I started looking at tents for the car as an alternative. They have one at Costco for around $175. Not to bad, considering a new Noah car cover runs around $150 - $160. If your parking lot will let you, you should put up the tent and secure it.
I started looking at tents for the car as an alternative. They have one at Costco for around $175. Not to bad, considering a new Noah car cover runs around $150 - $160. If your parking lot will let you, you should put up the tent and secure it.
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