With the onset of cold weather, cars parked on the street traditionally become a temporary refuge for the cat family: the engine compartment attracts with four-legged remnants of heat.
To protect your car from unintentional damage to the engine or its systems and not harm cats, make it a rule before starting the starter to first look under the wheel arches, and then open the hood and look at the engine niche.
If you don’t find cats there, this does not mean that you have done a good deed and made sure that you are ready to leave. However, next time before moving from home, a paid parking lot, office or supermarket, this also needs to be repeated — check everything carefully. In search of warmth, these cunning creatures will crawl anywhere: if the head gets through, then a cat skeleton without collarbones will slip into the same crack.
After spending only two or three minutes, you will be sure that you have not taken the lives of animals or damaged your car. Until spring, this should be the rule every time before leaving.
Cats most often, in search of warmth, hide on the top of the wheel, where heat comes from the engine. From here you can drive it, push it, or simply pull it out by the skin and take it to the lawn. But even after that, don’t forget to look under the hood, because cats crawl through any cracks into the engine niche for residual heat.. The exhaust pipe is also a favorite place for cats to warm up, but the best stove for cats is, of course, the engine.
Until spring, drivers will need to wake up the fluffies every time before leaving and escort them out of the engine niche.. Photos from open sources
If you don’t do this and immediately start the engine, then the cat may fall out under the wheel from stress and fright, or get hit by a timing belt or something else, which could cripple or kill him, and add to your troubles.. However, you should not expect compensation for engine washing, damaged timing belts or other damage, since this is not an insured event.
In any case, before starting the engine, do not try to press the horn and honk. This may drive the cat away, but most of the time, out of fear and stress, he will crawl into some crevice of the motor niche and then the consequences will be even worse.
Make it a rule to leave home for your car 5 minutes earlier and carry out the mandatory “pre-flight preparation” procedure during this extra time.. By doing this, you will not only ensure a comfortable trip and save time from unpredictable consequences, but also protect the fluffies from harm.
You can try to keep animals away from your car using recommended liquids and traditional methods, but this practically does not help. The best way is to personally verify that there are no four-legged creatures on the wheel or under the hood. And so every time until spring.