What is causing this?

[thelimpingwhippet]

Both my wife's car and my NSX-T are under attack from an unknown beastie. Has anyone seem similar damage? Potential suspects are cats, squirrels, owls, rats or next door neighbour.

[Kaz-kzukNA1]

Sorry to see this terrible scar….
Can't tell from the photo on where about (height, XYZ plane, etc) the damages were done but the depth and pattern are way too perfect for any human or animal activities.
Seems as if caused by some sort of oscillating machinery, blade, etc.
Hedge trimmer, grass trimmer, polisher, etc.
Any building, garden, detailing work done recently around both cars?

Hope the damage is not too deep....


Kaz

[goldnsx]

A human or an animal won't be able to scratch such a 'perfect sinus-wave'.

[thelimpingwhippet]

This 6cm scratch is above the door of MrsD's Renault Captur which lives outside. No power tools used on the car and no building work nearby. I have had some scratches on the NSX polished out by a local detailer and then put it away in the garage for the winter. It is now worse than ever. I am contemplating a front end respray with a self-healing wrap. Alternatively I could move. I have added a photo of the NSX bonnet

[marknsx]

I think that would be sitting in your wife car with a gun waiting for the "squirrel" to reappear

[Hagasan]

The tight squiggles look strange but the other mark.. Do you have any large birds in your area. Maybe seagulls landing/slipping? Or cats jumping onto or off the car?

[thelimpingwhippet]

We have brown bats, magpies, crows, buzzard, pheasant, coot, cormorant and occasional red kite, but no gulls. One feral cat (called Fang - after Fangio) but no observed paw prints seen on any of the cars. The NSX damage was done in the garage which has an "arrow slit" opening to allow the bats in and out so other flying creatures and cats could gain access. I will look into installing a night vision motion sensor camera

[Kaz-kzukNA1]

While CCTV is nice, it could be not easy changing the position of the camera or initial investment could be high depending on what you are after.

While it is designed for in-car usage, you can install drive recorder with AC power supply or even use those mobile battery from Anker, etc inside the house or somewhere aiming at where the car is parked.
No need for the high-end model and you can probably live with the previous models.
Some of the old models may only accept MicroSD card upto 32GB but if you format it in a specific way, very likely to be able to use 64GB or even 128GB depending on the model.
With loop recording, you can record the area for many days before overwriting the old files.

At the same time, you can install motion activated battery powered LED light such as the ones from Mr Beams, etc.
If you prefer, you can network all the light units as well.
This will be useful in the night as it could scare off the animals, etc if the damages were caused by them.

It's nowhere near the home security system but if you are parking the car outside but not far away from the house, having cheap alarm/door bell system may be useful.
I have the system from 1ByOne with the remote fob.
Only about GBP16 per set from amazon and can be operated with the battery or AC power.
If you get 2 set, you can place one receiver inside the house and another one near the garage and you can program them to share the same sensor(s).
If something triggers the sensor, both receivers will generate alarm or chime depending on the setup.
While alarm will continue for 1min (loud but not like your home security siren), the chime will only sound 3 times so may be better for the receiver placed outside if neighborhood lives nearby.


By the way, majority of the scratches in the 2nd photo don't look the same as the 1st one.....


Kaz

[thelimpingwhippet]

Thanks Kaz. I will take your advice and hopefully post some photos of the culprit. Some of the scratches on the NSX are similar to those on the Captur but the sinusoidal scratch has not been repeated. I have plenty of depressing photos of the NSX paint blemishes but it would bore everyone if I posted them. Do you have any experience with self healing vinyl wrap?

[NZNick]

Snails sometimes make marks like the ones in your first picture, but they don't typically scratch paint when doing so (unless they have a bit of grit stuck in their foot)..........