Maybe I have been lucky, but this is my second MX5, and my third convertible (BMW E93), but never had anything unpleasant fall from above.
Until tonight.
Again maybe I am lucky, but my girlfriend obviously is not . Huge thud and splatter. Forehead, hair, seat, seat belt, roll bar, all thick with green splatter. My guess is an ostrich has learned to fly, to celebrate went out and had a large spinach based curry, and got caught short on its way home to the Surrey hills.
Took me about 15 minutes to clean the carā¦ but I can still hear a hair dryer going in the other room. Wine may be called forā¦
travelling up the A1 in a Club convoy years ago, lovely sunny day roof down etc. Heard what sounded like an explosion behind me, but couldnāt really see anything. Pulled into the next services to check the car over and found we had been bombed and it had hit the top of the head rest and gone everywhere, all behind the seat, the back of my shirt etc a most unpleasant experience. But only time in 19 years of 5 driving. So its a rare, but not unknown event! You have my sympathyā¦
Our driveway has a number of mature trees around it, which are used as roosting sites, so the roof on any convertible is always closed when parked there - and doing any top-down jobs on the cars involves lots of glances upwards!
I always keep a packet of baby wipes in the car to get rid of bird poo as quickly as possible (Amazon have quite a good deal at the moment), having suffered on other cars.
Even worse, I was passed by a Muck Spreader travelling in the other direction with āmuckā being liberally catapulted into the air of its rear wheels and into my open top car
Gull poo from the seaside with their diet of fish will strip clearcoat and paint in a matter of hours if not removed when still damp. Dry itās like acid cement.
I remember, many years ago, I was trying to impress a young lady. We parked up along the Bristol harbourside, on a lovely warm summerās evening. I got a bottle of āshampooā from a cool box in the boot of my car, along with two glasses of course. She was very impressed, I could tell. We sat down on a bench overlooking the boats on the water, when a seagull dive-bombed me. A direct hit it was too, all over my clothes, and in my wine. Kinda ruined the evening I can tell you, although my girlfriend almost split her sides with laughter. I could never get the stuff out of my jeans, and had to throw them away - bloody Leviās too !
At the moment, I have to park my MX-5 under a tree at the rear of our garden, and have to wash off birdās poo every morning. Pain in the butt I know, but I canāt let it stay too long on the paintwork.
Easiest way Iāve found to remove it, is to simply re-hydrate it with water, takes just a few minutes, and gently wipe it off and rinse again. Try to resist the temptation to scrape it off with a finger-nail (or thumb-nail) whilst it is still hard - it ruins the paintwork.
Get a warm damp microfiber cloth and put it over the poop for 30-40 seconds, then wipe off gently.
If anyone gets a clear scab/burn mark from an old poop on their paint, use Meguiarās Ultimate compound, again on a damp MF clothā¦brings it right off.
Has anybody tried the hairdryer method for restoring the clearcoat after an attack?
This was recommended on the Volvo owners Club site as Volvos are prone to damage to the top clearcoat (ask me how I know!). It looks a bit drastic but car detailers appear to endorse it;
lol what a load of poop. Get a damp MF cloth, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and that removes the poop better than anything. And as sad above if you have a clear scab like they show, use ultimate compound.
Ouch.
I have an oak tree overhanging the gate, and one year I made the mistake of leaving the house top-down at the wrong time.
It was unfortunate that I had to wait while the bin-men blocked the road with their waste-cruncher truck. A very strong gust of wind shook the tree dropping a small hailstorm of acorns, twigs and dead leaves into the car.
The bin-men nearly corpsed themselves laughing.
It took me ages later to find and extract all the bits of tree.
I live on the coast and seagulls are a real pain, I guarantee that if I clean my car, ( my main car, as the 5 is in the garage ) within a few hours Iāll have a huge gull splat on the clean paintwork the size of, and looking like a fried egg, so I get some wet kitchen roll , put it on the poo, wait about 20 mins and lift it off gently without scraping it, I wash and wax the car regularly because of this, to try and give the paintwork some protection.
The first big road trip in our MX5 was a tour around Champagne back in 2011. Weād parked in an underground car park in Reims overnight after taking the Eurotunnel the day before. Perfect weather forecast. With the roof down, we exited the car park into beautiful sunshine, turned a corner, looking forward to a great day ahead. Stopped at a traffic light. Big splat sound. Massive bird dropping across the centre of the windscreen and right up the centre console.
Miraculously, neither me nor the missus was hit. We havenāt had any other roof-down bird incidents since either. We always refer to it as the ālucky bird splatā which blessed the car!
. Huge thud and splatter. Forehead, hair, seat, seat belt, roll bar, all thick with green splatter. My guess is an ostrich has learned to fly, to celebrate went out and had a large spinach based curry, and got caught short on its way home to the Surrey hills.
