Rodent damage.

wtd said:
Yesterday my fiancé's mom brought her 2021 Subaru Forrester with 41,000 miles on it over because the CEL had come on. There were many codes stored and in many different systems. Because of this and the fact that something had gotten up into their 2017 F350 last year and had chewed on wires sent me under the hood.

The first thing I see is the wiring for the connector for one of the AC pressure switches chewed completely off as well as the cap for the windshield washer fluid bottle and they had chewed all around the top of the bottle where the cap sits. I could not see any other chewed wires, but I knew that there had to be considering all of the codes that were stored.

She took the vehicle to Subaru today and the entire wiring harness from the bulkhead forward has to be replaced to the tune of 5K.

My question is has anyone used a good method that worked to keep rodents out of a vehicle? They have a ton of squirrels at their house and looking at some of the teeth marks on the washer fluid bottle and the lower bumper where they also chewed, I'm thinking it might be a squirrel that did it.

Thanks for any ideas.
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I had a lot of issues with mice and the only thing that helped was installing ultra sonic rodent repellers under the hood .
It's a little box that you zip tie somewhere safe in the engine bay and hook up to the battery, the power drain is very small. Haven't had a cabin air filter destroyed since.
 
wtd said:
Just did some reading on this stuff and it seems like it is some good stuff. I will let them know about it. Thanks.
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Make sure they use them in the compliant lockable boxes. That stuff is very toxic without an anecdote.
 
I have installed a Mouse Blocker Pro in several vehicles when I lived in the country in NY. They connect directly to the battery and go active when the engine is not running. They have a blinking light and ultrasonic noise. The ultrasonic has three levels of intensity: annoying, really annoying and incredibly annoying.

We had wiring damage and WW system damage in the Subaru and this stopped that.

Warning: I am 70 and my high freq hearing is not what it use to be when I listened to Pink Floyd at full volume in college. The ultrasonic sound does not bother me. But our 30 year old daughter can sure hear it. Wife parked her car in parking garage and security called her as the car was making sounds and a light was blinking under the hood.
 
I had rodents chew off my oxygen sensor wiring at the sensor connector. Replacement cost was $100 and I had to build it myself (no premade pigtails for Mini!). I fixed that by buying a used engine harness straight out of the UK.🇬🇧

They were also setting up housekeeping in my tool box. No go there! I set sticky traps and got a few, and I use Irish Spring soap pieces scattered in the tool box (I have three tool chests - I’ll consolidate next year). They have not come back. Looks like one tried to get rid of the soap but failed. Good! 🤣🤣

For underhood, try the peppermint oil on cotton balls. I’ve looked at buyI g capsaicin tape but I don’t do enough rodent chew repairs to justify it. Yet.
 
Kid here at work parks his Ford Raptor pickup outside on the street here in Hell's Kitchen. One night, he parked too close to some garbage and rats ate the harness under his bed. He had to replace the harness for all of the rear lights and backup camera. Wasn't cheap.
 
Well, more drama. This morning he went out to their 2004 Ford Super Duty to try and fix the blinkers that had quit working and discovered that something had gotten under the hood and chewed a bunch of wires on it. The blinker issue was a blown fuse and seems un-related as they now work after replacing the fuse and it has not blown again.

The wire for the under-hood light was chewed through as well as the wires to the switch on the AC accumulator and several other wires that I have no idea where they go to. They also chewed the insulation off of the positive battery cable for the battery on the passenger side. It's a diesel and has two batteries. Most of the chewed wiring is in the corner of the passenger side of the engine compartment.

Not a good situation at all as now they are going to have two vehicles down. The truck still runs but they have it parked at our house right now and have borrowed our 97 Chevy Farm truck that they will park in their shop. Hopefully it doesn't get destroyed because it only has liability on it. I guess insurance is going to cover the Subaru and they just filed a claim for the truck.
 
wtd said:
Well, more drama. This morning he went out to their 2004 Ford Super Duty to try and fix the blinkers that had quit working and discovered that something had gotten under the hood and chewed a bunch of wires on it. The blinker issue was a blown fuse and seems un-related as they now work after replacing the fuse and it has not blown again.

The wire for the under-hood light was chewed through as well as the wires to the switch on the AC accumulator and several other wires that I have no idea where they go to. They also chewed the insulation off of the positive battery cable for the battery on the passenger side. It's a diesel and has two batteries. Most of the chewed wiring is in the corner of the passenger side of the engine compartment.

Not a good situation at all as now they are going to have two vehicles down. The truck still runs but they have it parked at our house right now and have borrowed our 97 Chevy Farm truck that they will park in their shop. Hopefully it doesn't get destroyed because it only has liability on it. I guess insurance is going to cover the Subaru and they just filed a claim for the truck.
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When we were having mouse damage the mouse would chew wiring in the Subaru but never the Ford pickup. At one point there was a wood rat that got in my garage but could not get out. It chewed a lot of WW system in the Subaru. Got a video camera to confirm a rat. Caught in a Havahart trap and relocated it to the next state over.
 
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Donald said:
When we were having mouse damage the mouse would chew wiring in the Subaru but never the Ford pickup. At one point there was a wood rat that got in my garage but could not get out. It chewed a lot of WW system in the Subaru. Got a video camera to confirm a rat. Caught in a Havahart trap and relocated it to the next state over.
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after that mess I'd have relocated it to a water bucket.

Its illegal here to trap and relocate... but not to trap and uh. dispose of.
 
Donald said:
When we were having mouse damage the mouse would chew wiring in the Subaru but never the Ford pickup. At one point there was a wood rat that got in my garage but could not get out. It chewed a lot of WW system in the Subaru. Got a video camera to confirm a rat. Caught in a Havahart trap and relocated it to the next state over.
Click to expand...
Last year some rodent got up inside of the engine compartment of his 2017 F350 and chewed a bunch of wiring to the tune of $1,400. He now keeps that truck at our house because it has a hay bed on it so we use it to feed hay to the cattle.

They never touched the other two vehicles until now. I'm not sure what their plan is to prevent this from happening again.
 
eljefino said:
Can you get like a cat or something?
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They have a cat but it's an inside cat. They are going to get a couple of outside cats very soon.

Update on the Truck: $1,300 to fix the damage. Hopefully insurance pays for most of it. They have already killed about 12 squirrels and 2 mice since this has happened. Who knows if they got the right squirrels though.
 
Pepperjunkie said:
I had a lot of issues with mice and the only thing that helped was installing ultra sonic rodent repellers under the hood .
It's a little box that you zip tie somewhere safe in the engine bay and hook up to the battery, the power drain is very small. Haven't had a cabin air filter destroyed since.
Click to expand...
My parents just had this happen in their forrester. What model/unit did you use?
 
That mint spray ain't bad. I spray it around the outside of the house and it works. If you live in the south, cayenne pepper 🌶️ solution spray around parameters will keep snakes away or buy a king snake 🐍 to keep copperheads away.
 
doitmyself said:
Maybe helpful? My co-worker's "new" (3 yr.) pickup truck somehow had the brake fluid get contaminated and he had to have the whole brake system rebuilt for $3,000 +/-. On a lark, he called his car insurance company about it and they agreed to pay for the repairs!

Maybe an option??

Based on my workplace zero turn getting chewed on the one time I stored it in our pole barn (gas caps, big parts chewed), I agree that it might be squirrels, chipmunks, and maybe even possum or raccoon.
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Unless you have evidence otherwise, I doubt that it's an opossum or coon. Rodents of any kind chew on stuff, but opossums and coons (which aren't a member of the rodent family) don't do that sort of thing.
 
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