cat on hood problem

C

Carl Anderson

New member
I have a 3 series Jet Black BMW. I have been spending the last 2 years learning to detail, and thanks to all of your help I am able to do a pretty good job. My problem is we do not, and due to our home location, will not ever have a garage. We have 2 cats that are outdoor only due to my daughter's asthma. They have recently developed the habit of jumping up on my M3.s hood; ironically, they leave the Mazda and Volvo alone.



Using my car cover is impractical as I live in Seattle and it rains all the time. It takes forever to dry it, and where do you dry it?



I cannot consider eliminating the cats as I am a veterinarian and love these cats almost as much as my car; well, to be honest, probaably not that much but my wife and children do.



Is there such a thing as a hood cover? Any ideas of a way to solve this problem? Worst case scenario is I continue to use paint cleaner/polish to remove the prints and scratches PRN. If I go too far I will just have the hood repainted. The thought of being able to do this gives me some comfort.



Thanks in advance for any help.



Carl
 
Is it possible to leave your hood open for a few days when it sits in the driveway? Not all the way, just enough to change the angle so it is not comfortable for the cats to lay on the hood.



Other than that, hard to say what to do. Do you park on an incline, would it make a difference on the 'slope' of the hood if you backed in?????
 
Pwalk, unless he has it full tilt it prob won't work. I have the same problem and just like you the cat seems to like my CTS and not my daily beater. I say use the cover and then take an old soft comforter and place it under the cover over the hood. This is what I have done and it works fine. If you have a deck hang the cover and comforter over to dry out when it rains. Yeah its a pain but it beats having my hood destroyed or having to kill my neighbors cat. Sure he wouldn't appreciate it. I even use two covers and the comforter on the hood and trunk. My first layer cover is a real nice Noah cover and the second is some cheap piece of junk one I bought on ebay for $30. Well worth the effort, mines white so I couldn't imagine black. Good Luck
 
hmmm, maybe put cat treats on the hood of the mazda :)



btw, what year M is it, i just bought a 99 2 months ago - i'm in love with the cosmos black



jason
 
Suggestions of animal cruelty will be summarily deleted (one already has been). This topic arises occasionally, and almost always quickly devolves once someone suggests that the animal be harmed to take care of the problem. So, please keep the suggestions on-topic and violence-free, or lockination will ensue.



Thanks,

Tort

(putting on the rarely-worn moderator hat)
 
(Small warning, the site has sound/flash)



Dr. T's Nature Products



Take a look at the De-Fence Dog and Cat Repellent.



I've never used their stuff, yet.



I'm going to give the Cobweb Eliminator a try at my parent's house. They live on the water, near a marsh. The spiders are bad in the carport. Their droppings ate through the paint on my mom's van. :eek:



I've heard moth balls will keep animals away????? Not sure if they work.



[SOAP BOX] On a side note, please consider the ecological effects of allowing cats outside. [/SOAP BOX]
 
Any one tried one of those motion sensing ultrasonic jobs.

A friend had one to stop cats crapping on her lawn ,

she reckoned it did something.



No idea where to get one stateside maybe diy store??:nixweiss
 
you could use a 'scatmat'... its a plastic mat that gives a very mild electric shock when touched. Its used to train pets to stay off furniture. Just don't leave it plugged in if its going to rain :)



You could sprinkle a trail of pepper around your car, or mothballs (havnt tried them yet though). I used the pepper trick alot to keep local toms from peeing on my rims. Worked great until the pepper blew away, then you have to redo.



Now I have a cat repellant kit. Its four little containers that you fill with pellets soaked with citronella and other smells. You stake them in the ground and its supposed to keep the cats away. I never got a chance to use it though since I've moved and there arnt any cats around here.
 
I have a cat problem too .. the neighbors car .. not mine .. he likes to p*ss on my BBQ and sit on my car hood. I started using a baby crib fitted bottom sheet on the hood. It fit on a Silverado, a 4Runner and now my Passat. The elastic corners holds it on and if it gets wet I just hang it on a nail and it dries.



And as far as the BBQ goes .. no more comments ..
 
My cats used to like sitting on my hood. Since I like my cats, I didn't want to do them any harm. What I did to break them of it was to shoo them off (loud vocal commands with a threatening approach) everytime I saw them on it. It honestly worked in a short while. Keep in mind that they may leave small scratches on your hood when you startle them, so a car cover may be a good idea while breaking their habit. Now they know that on top of the car is a no-no, so now they just lay under it. This keeps us all happy. Squirting them with water would work, also.

I had some other ideas for my neighbor's cats, but I'll heed TortoiseAWD's post above.



Dave
 
This is offtopic, about dogs, but thought I would share, my gf has one dog that enjoys riding in cars, as soon as she goes out into the driveway she will pull towards a car. When I took her out she saw my covered car and another uncovered car, he he, she looked strange at my car and pulled towards the other :D I think covers are very good deterrants.
 
If you cover the car the cats will still come... they will just sit on the cover. Put sticky tape (carpet tape, duct tape, etc...) sticky side up on the cover or something to protect the car. Cats hate having things stuck to them and after going through this once or twice they will never think of doing it again.



Worked for me to keep one of the neighbourhood cats of my BBQ... no harm done to the animal and my thoughts of using a more 'permanent' solution to the problem went away :)
 
Well, we once had a stray cat in the neighborhood, I had my Weathershield cover on which is made of a nylon type of material and my gf only had a Noah at the time.

The cat did some damage to the Noah, luckily the car was totally fine but I'm fairly certain when the cat tried to jump on my car with the Weathershield, it slid right off, only made a tiny tear in it probably in attemp to hold on to it :D



Now we both use the Noah with Weathershield on top. Deters the rain great too :up
 
This might sound a little unfriendly but I would buy a supersoaker and lay in wait for the cat to jump on your hood and when he/she goes to warm their tootsies on your nice M3 bonnet give them a squirt,they will soon get the message with no harm done.just MHO.
 
The pet store near me (PetsMart) sells a device to train dogs/cats to stay off of the furniture. Basically it's a mouse trap with a hard plastic cover over the top of it, think of it as a shield. The cat/dog jumps onto the couch, triggers the mouse trap, there is a loud smack and the animal gets scared away. The shield will prevent the animal from getting hurt. It also triggers the trap. Think of a mouse trap with a clip board over the top of it. Touch the clip board and the trap goes off.

You could put on your car cover then lay down a thick towel to protect your car and put the device down on top of it. The only draw back is that its not very big.
 
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