Yesterday, I noticed a series of fine scratches on the front of the B-max's bonnet and pointed them out to my wife (it's her car); she was suitably horrified. We tried to think about journeys that we had made in the past week or so, and where we might have left the car. Could we have parked the car under overhanging vegetation or where someone might have brushed past? We drew a blank ....... and then wondered if it could be a cat that had jumped up onto the bonnet and found itself scrambling about trying desperately to gain a grip on the polished surface.
Has anyone else noticed this sort of thing on their car? We're now wondering about the best way of dealing with it - the scratches are too fine to think about touch-up paint and I'm contemplating the pigmented polish that works, I assume, by filling fine scratches. Anyone got any ideas?
Thanks, H.
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I doubt the cats. My cats are always on the cars, and one at least is as dumb as a brick and is for ever falling and sliding. No scratches, though often paw prints. Even smears of pw prints in the dust, usually each set about an inch wide and in pairs 3 inches apart or so, contain no scratches.
Are the scratches too much for t-cut or similar?
I've never done very well with the pigmented polish. It doesn't seem to hide much.
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I've usually managed to get rid of fine scratches and scuffs by rubbing them well with ordinary car polish, buffing, and repeating if necessary.
I also think it unlikely that your scratches would have been caused by a cat.
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Thanks for the replies. T-cut might just take out the finest of the scratches. I'm not sure if the 'whiteness' that I can see is the undercoat or just the way that the scratched mid-blue reflects light.
My son was up at the weekend with his similar metallic-blue Mazda AND his cat. I'll give him a call and see if he has any pigmented polish that I can try before I go down the T-cut route. I promise that I will not torture the cat.
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How is the car washed? These hand wash places can be careless about dropping their cloths, then picking them up with grit on them. That'll produce some nice scratches if they're not thoroughly rinsed first. Machine washes can also get grit in the brushes, but that will usually produce parallel scratches.
T-cut is a fairly harsh rubbing compound. I'd opt for polish first (if you've any). Different grades of rubbing compound are available from paint specialists.
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I've seen what will no doubt have become mystery scratches applied to cars by fat women with studded handbags, breathlessly squeezing their ample hips between vehicles in car parks while distracted by prodding at their mobile phones, no doubt discussing something important on facetweet.
But this is of course in Cheshire.
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Thu 12 Apr 18 at 14:25
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...should have used that one to explain your wheel..... ;-)
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Doesn't need explaining, more or less invisible to the human eye in fact.
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>>>by fat women with studded handbags, breathlessly squeezing their ample hips between vehicles in car parks
Not just Cheshire!
Actually one of the most likely ways to collect "cat scratches" on the bonnet is to drive forward into a supermarket space behind a car facing the same way so they have to drag their shopping and backsides all over your bonnet to load up.
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>> I've seen what will no doubt have become mystery scratches applied to cars by fat
>> women
Thin women too no doubt - they are perhaps more tempted by narrow gaps.
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>> Thin women too no doubt - they are perhaps more tempted by narrow gaps.
Yeah, maybe, but the fat ones spend much much more on blingy handbags. ( that is a known fact by the way ) They don't have to fit you see...
Same with convertibles, a disproportionate number of them are driven by fat women and bald blokes. Trying to buy appearance you'd suppose.
Doesn't explain why so many Corsa drivers have sticky out ears though, that one remains a bit of a mystery.
Don't believe any of this? Conduct your own survey!
;-)
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>>Same with convertibles, a disproportionate number of them are driven by fat women and bald blokes
Not seen many fat women driving Westfields, however.................................
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No idea bout cats, but dogs claws can and do scratch the paintwork. Near to us you need to watch the swans too, they peck at the reflections of themselves in your paintwork, lots of little dents.
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"No idea bout cats, but dogs claws can and do scratch the paintwork."
So now, the dog comes into the frame. My wife demanded a dog against my wishes and better judgement, hence I can now blame her.
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>> "No idea bout cats, but dogs claws can and do scratch the paintwork."
>>
>> So now, the dog comes into the frame. My wife demanded a dog against my
>> wishes and better judgement, hence I can now blame her.
Result then.
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>> Doesn't explain why so many Corsa drivers have sticky out ears though, that one remains
>> a bit of a mystery.
>>
And wear baseball caps
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Good reason not to wash your car.. they never try in their white jeans if your car is filthy and risk messing themselves.
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Looking a a scientific answer a cat's claws have a similar hardness to human fingernails so they would measure around 2.5 on the Mohs scale.
Car paint is surprisingly soft registering around 2.5 on the scale
So can a cat scratch a car?
Possibly.
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www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2004-06/1086699197.Ph.r.html
So according to this, its not the claws, its whats adhering to the claws.
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Not so much adhering to the claws, but to the paws. Unless you have smeared muddy footprints indicating the cat was slipping and trying to grip with mud on its paws, then it wasn't the cat.
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Cats have retractable claws though and are obsessive about where they walk and cleaning their feet unlike those slovenly canines.
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You'd think, wouldn't you.
But have you ever been scratched by a cat? Did it swell up and go red, much more so than you would have expected from, say, a thorn bush?
Well that's a reflection of the nasty old s*** a cat has on it's claws.
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>> Well that's a reflection of the nasty old s*** a cat has on it's claws.
Indeed None of the scratches or bites from my dog ever swell up
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Sure you might contract blood poisoning from the mixture of cat saliva and bacteria coating their claws, they even carry a disease called cat scratch fever but they do pick the grit out from between their toes to avoid damaging cars. Considerate like that are cats.
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True. Very true. Just a shame that the grit is replaced by the guts of whatever the cat killed last.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 12 Apr 18 at 21:44
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The only cat we ever had that would take on a full grown rat rat was a big un-neutered ginger tom. Voles and mice are the usual fare. Most cats aren’t even very good catching birds. Requires a leap ahead of the bird a bit like shooting clays and they usually learn this from their mother. Dogs are far better at catching rats especially the terrier sort.
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We get rats and parrots on a regular basis. Frequently in more than one piece or with large chunks missing.
Both the cats are very fit, but are not particularly big. One male, one female, both "done".
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>> We get rats and parrots on a regular basis.
We used to have one in Weybridge but they turned it into a noncy wine bar.
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>> The only cat we ever had that would take on a full grown rat rat
>> was a big un-neutered ginger tom. Voles and mice are the usual fare. Most cats
>> aren’t even very good catching birds. Requires a leap ahead of the bird a bit
>> like shooting clays and they usually learn this from their mother. Dogs are far better
>> at catching rats especially the terrier sort.
>>
Our two youngest cats, just a year old, small male and female, have no difficulty with rats, but they don't eat them, just leave them disembowled under the kitchen table.
Squirrels are popular too - they do eat them.
We had a cat that specialised in pigeons. It used to wait on the roof of a nearby barn and peer over the edge. When a pigeon popped its head out from under the eaves the cat swiped it and then went down to pick it up to bring home to eat.
But I too don't think cats would normally scratch cars. Their claws are not so much hard as very strong, so they need the surface to have some texture first so that they can get a grip and rip it.
I don't think human fingernails could gouge strips out of a banister rail for example, or take your weight while running up a tree.
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>>Our two youngest cats, just a year old, small male and female, have no difficulty with rats, but they don't eat them, just leave them disembowled under the kitchen table.
Squirrels are popular too - they do eat them.
We had a cat that specialised in pigeons. It used to wait on the roof of a nearby barn and peer over the edge. When a pigeon popped its head out from under the eaves the cat swiped it and then went down to pick it up to bring home to eat.
So why would anyone want a cat???
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Because they are beautiful animals and interesting to observe. Subjective of course
Haven’t had a cat for four or five years now but sometimes I miss it.
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>> So why would anyone want a cat???
No-one in the right mind of course. All the disadvantages of pet ownership, with none of the give back.
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Not quite. I don't have to walk my cat every day, come rain or shine, in sickness and in health. Or put up with other cat owners/lovers on my daily walk. Or pick up it's richards, which usually takes a special kind of relationship!! :-)
Much less hassle when I go away too.
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>> walk. Or pick up it's richards, which usually takes a special kind of relationship!! :-)
Yeah why dont cat owners clean up after them? Because they cant climb the fence into next doors garden.
Filthy things.
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Yeah but the cats keep themselves fairly clean... :-)
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>> Yeah why dont cat owners clean up after them?
Cats are generally more hygienic and will bury their stools. Dogs however just crap anywhere and try and flick it away with their hind legs.
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>> and try and flick it away with their hind legs.
No they don't.
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>> No they don't.
What's with all the leg scuffing about after laying a cable then?
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> What's with all the leg scuffing about after laying a cable then?
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I think they are trying to cover it. Never seen them actually flick/kick it away, normally done near it but not at it the poop.
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Only boy dogs do it, only after a wee, and they are trying to cover it not step in it. You rarely see a dog step in poo.
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>> and they are trying to cover it
They never seem to do a good job. Unlike a cat who digs a hole and buries it ;)
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 13 Apr 18 at 17:02
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>>They never seem to do a good job. Unlike a cat who digs a hole and buries it ;)
Not our neighbours ginger moggy. It used to dump it on a gravel path, but a sprinkling of Jeyes fluid cured that. It then started leaving it anywhere on the lawn - have you ever hit cat turd with a mower, or even worse a strimmer?
Citrus peel, cut fine and sprinkled around seems to deter it at the moment, although I've had a couple of shots at it with a water blaster.
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The cat knows you don't like it BT, give it up because you won't win:)
Pat
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Cats are generally more hygienic and will bury their stools.
Usually by digging holes all over. I remember at my parents there were several cats always coming into have a poop. They used to get a soaking, took a few soakings but they stopped coming around.
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Actually burying their poo has little to do with cleanliness. Like a lot of animals cats mark their territory. A dominant cat will not bury it's poo but use it as a marker. Non dominant animals bury their poo so as not to threaten the dominant animal.
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>> How is the car washed?
Good question. Getting the rinse water off with a squeegee can produce scratches like that. I was appalled to see the valeters at a Mazda dealer using one, the MX-5 isn't going there for its service!
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>> T-cut is a fairly harsh rubbing compound. I'd opt for polish first (if you've any).
>> Different grades of rubbing compound are available from paint specialists.
>>
Meguiars Scratch-X is good for taking fine scratches away (particularly from the clear coat lacquer).
It is so fine, however, (much more so than T-Cut) that it is b***** hard work.
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"How is the car washed?"
Yes - I have considered that as well but, whilst I don't mind taking the 11yo Astra down to the lads at the hand-wash, the B-max is still in its first year of life and I wash it lovingly with Halfords car shampoo in purest East Anglian rainwater.
I had washed it only a fortnight before and I'm sure that I would have noticed the scratches if they had been present at that time. In fact, I only noticed them yesterday when I had parked the car on the drive in order to check the (automatic) front lights to see what they made of the misty conditions.
I suspect that blaming the cat will be as fruitful as blaming a Novichok poisoning on the Russians.
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>> I suspect that blaming the cat will be as fruitful as blaming a Novichok poisoning
>> on the Russians.
>>
...there's the answer, ask Borish......
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>>I suspect that blaming the cat will be as fruitful as blaming a Novichok poisoning on the Russians.<<
Free the cat - the cat is not to blame:)
Pat
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Cats? - not my favourite critter if I'm honest.
We have three neighbours who have cats. All three of them just kick the cats out and let them fend for themselves. We are always finding dismembered birds, bats and frogs in our garden. Not to mention the crap in our flowerbeds and getting woken up at 3 am when they are fighting. Get home in cold weather and 15 minutes later there will be one of them sat on the hood of the car warming it's ass.
They've only left paw prints though, no scratches.
Cats should be treated exactly the same as dogs - chipped, collared and controlled.
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Of course we all know the cat didn't do it but reading the thread reminded me... www.youtube.com/watch?v=K34sJoR1C20
One for Pat perhaps?
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Ford - B-max: Cat scratched the paintwork? - No FM2R
