ciccone376

Yeah so I bought a wonderful Weathertech car cover, works awesome, been loving it for the past 3 weeks. I bought the cable to run under the car to secure the cover and I locked it with the little metal padlock provided. Again, been working fine.

So this weekend I noticed the wind was really starting to pick up, approx. 15-20mph...cover was doing a good impression of a sailboat sail and eventually the back of the cover came loose, ok I fixed that..no biggie I moved on.

Sunday was a beatufiful day, took the top down, drove etc. Came back, applied some spray detailer to get the car ready again for the 'sleep' in the car cover. At 4:30 (in VA) the weather was still awesome. Go to play so Xbox, come upstairs at like 6:30 and DARK as night and WINDY as hell, I look outside, HOLY CRAP my car cover is off the front and back and guess what something hits me "Oh no!!! if that cable got moved and the padlock moves up the door.....!!"

Sure enough, go outside the padlock has neslted itself snugly against my drivers door! Its raining at this point so I quickly unlock it and put the cover in the house..I look with a flashlight at the door and don't see anything..but deep down inside I know there has to be a scratch...

sure enough, this morning I go outside and there are a lot of small scratches above the door handle and a nice long 12" scratch going from the door handle down towards the rear fender. WHAT A B*TCH!!!!!!!

Luckily, the local detail shop says they can buff them out, as they aren't deep.

So my advice...DO NOT USE THOSE STUPID METAL PADLOCKS IN HIGH WIND!!

Actually, anyone have any good advice to secure the car cover using nylon rope or securing it to mounting points on the frame of the car instead?

later
Ciccone

thongfoto

Yeah, I know the night you're talking about. My lawn furniture flew all over the place. My neighbor's cover was off of his too. However, my Covercraft Stormshield didn't budge at all. Was yours custom-made? They tend to fit tighter and don't allow air pocket. I also use a cable-lock (cover was $300) take up the slack on the cable and hide the lock under the car. So far so good.

CBeyond

Wow, I'm sorry to hear about that.

Something similar happened to me last year, and I posted about it a couple times to warn others. I have the Covercraft weathershield, and I was using the cable and lock sold with the cover. The front end of the cover came off during high winds, and the lock smacked against the lower part of my driver side door for an hour or two. I have many tiny scratches in that area, but they're low enough that they are not extremely noticable.

Since that happened, I still use the cover, but I've taken a couple precautions:

1. I loop the cable through the hole on the driver's side of the cover several times before attaching the lock. The idea is to take out the slack in the cable, so if the cover does come off, there won't be much room for the lock to swing and hit the car. Also, the way I attach the lock, it sits above the hole in the cover. That way, there is always a layer of fabrick between the lock and the car. It's hard to explain, but maybe I can post a picture later if you're interested.

2. I use a bungee cable with two hooks to hold down the front end of the cover. I felt the front was the end most in danger of blowing off, but I think you could do it for the back end too if you were worried about it.

wanabe

i use nylon rope on mine (thin)... but it hasnt been through a really tough wind. i use it mainly if i am in an area where i want to put a little more security on the cover.
btw, if you need any help with those scratches, be sure to post a message in the wash & wax forum-

s2kpdx01

1 word: garage!

Young_R

garage is so nice. I dont think i can live without um.

CBeyond

I would relate the story of how the garages for my apartment building are currently being rented to a dimwit who stores restaurant equipment in them, but then you'd just tell me "3 words: Buy a house! "

That is advice that is equally useless in Los Angeles.

RazorV3

sorry to hear that. good luck with taking out the scratches. that storm came out of no where right? one minute the weather is nice and calm, next minute there are 20 mph wind gusts and heavy rain.

PortugueseS2K

To the Moron who posted "Garage", i would say "Prozak"

dolebludger

20 mph gusts are the norm for us in Central Oklahoma. If a car cover won't withstand that, it is just flat defective. There however, is something to be said for NOT buying a convertible if you live in an area where you can't have a garage. One GOOD thing about our location is you just can't sell a house for much over $100K unless it has a three car garage. Mine is a 4+ car and is even heated and cooled (sort of) to where it won't get below 60 degrees in the winter or above 85 degrees in the summer. I guess I live in this gawdawful place for some reason.

Thanks,
Richard