How to protect your car from rodents

 

By Eric Evarts

 

Rats! You can buy the most reliable car on Earth and still find convoluted electrical gremlins, fluid leaks, and even outright failure when rodents take up residence and begin chewing on wiring, hoses, plastic, and other critical car parts. But we’ve found a deterrent for these four-legged terrorists.

Rodent-inflicted damage is an age-old problem that some observers say is increasing as automakers use more plant-based biodegradable materials to reduce waste. It turns out that rodents sharpening their teeth and feasting on cars is more prevalent than you might think. We uncovered various technical service bulletins from Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, and Subaru instructing their technicians how to remedy chewed wiring harnesses. So many people have been looking for solutions that the topic was trending on Reddit recently.

Readers posted several solutions, from covering the wires with a metal mesh to painting them with hot sauce. Some Consumer Reports staffers also have stories of small furry creatures chewing through power steering lines, filling engine intakes with acorns, and plugging up air-conditioning ducts with their nests.

What you can do

We found a clever solution in a TSB from Honda: rodent-deterrent tape, essentially an electrical tape treated with super-spicy capsaicin, which Honda describes as “the stuff that puts the fire in a bowl of five-alarm chili.” The tape (part number 4019-2317) is available through dealers for about $36 for a 20-meter roll, about 22 yards. You'll also find it online.

We bought a roll of rodent-deterrent tape to check out. Beyond the cute rodent graphics and gray color, it deceptively seems like regular electrical tape to us humans. There is no tear-inducing odor, but it does carry a label that warns against prolonged exposure to skin. Despite dares and double dares, we did not taste it and will trust that it is potent enough to deter even the most ravenous varmint.

Other suggestions for dealing with rodents under your hood include installing a metal mesh around wiring harnesses and rubber hoses and across any openings where rodents could crawl into your ventilation or intake systems. Or you could put mouse poison mixed with peanut butter around your garage for a more severe solution.

Even if these measures don’t work, you can take heart: “A mouse ate my wiring harness” excuse at least sounds more creative than “The dog ate my homework.”

—Eric Evarts

 

Read More:  https://autos.yahoo.com/news/protect-car-rodents-150000981.html 

 

 

This is for all you guys who think my rodent battles are works of fiction!

Ummm... I don't think I've got the guts to lick that tape either.

 

We found a clever solution in a TSB from Honda: rodent-deterrent tape, essentially an electrical tape treated with super-spicy capsaicin, which Honda describes as “the stuff that puts the fire in a bowl of five-alarm chili.” The tape (part number 4019-2317) is available through dealers for about $36 for a 20-meter roll, about 22 yards. You'll also find it online.

We bought a roll of rodent-deterrent tape to check out. Beyond the cute rodent graphics and gray color, it deceptively seems like regular electrical tape to us humans. There is no tear-inducing odor, but it does carry a label that warns against prolonged exposure to skin. Despite dares and double dares, we did not taste it and will trust that it is potent enough to deter even the most ravenous varmint.

 

I read on TDR that a few mothballs under the hood does the trick. Something about the chemical they can't tolerate.

How about spiders!

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/highway1/la-fi-hy-autos-spiders-mazda-recall-20140407,0,2661441.story

I read on TDR that a few mothballs under the hood does the trick. Something about the chemical they can't tolerate.

 

Mothballs work better in enclosed spaces that are fairly air tight.

I have used mothballs in closed up campers & boats where they work well.  Put them in a paper cup so you can retrieve them in the Spring.  The mothballs dissolve over time & my wife couldn't stand the smell of the remaining fragments which hid in the old camper.   I found them ineffective under the hood in my truck, open to the air.  Smelly dryer sheets help too.

 

Mice destroyed the under-hood insulation in my car & truck.  I kept them out of the truck cab by stuffing behind the hood hinges with SS pot scrubber (steel wool) where the cowel  drains are.  I use expanded metal...  my favorite is aluminum gutter guard, which is easily worked to screen air inlets.  I have not found anything to keep them out from under the hood though I'd sure like to.

 

I have done the screening thing on numerous vehicles...  the worst was a neighbor's wife with a then new GM car with a stuck heater that burned up.  GM would not warrantee the heater motor against rodent damage.  At the same time I found his engine filter box full of acorns.   I had the air hose on my C30 stuffed with shredded paper towels from the horse trailer as we were packing to go camping...