Hey guys,

Has anyone ever had to deal with rodents?

This is the second time I've had to deal with this, but apparently 2 days ago another rodent crawled into my engine bay, and this time chewed through the ABS wire, the VSA, some wire for VTEC, and possibly the speed sensor wire too. The first time around, the mouse chewed through the knock sensor wire, which luckily I could replace myself, but this time around it's costing me about $430 for a mechanic to try and splice back the connections, sinec the main engine harness is just one huge long harness.

I'll be starting to park my car inside now, but I was reading that some people sprayed some kind of rustproofing material inside the engine bay, as the smell of petroleum keeps rodents away. Anyone have any tips on how to keep the rodents away, besides traps?

 

i've heard of this happeneing quite a bit. On a friends 2014 pathfinder, and on my sisters 2013 RX350. The rats chewed through a bunch of wiring. If i remember correctly, you can buy a spray that is a rat/mouse repellent and spray some around the engine bay. I would try that. But do so at your own risk, lol.

 

Honda does sell what they call rodent proof tape. They say it has capcaisin in it (stuff that makes pepers hot). It has cute little rats pictures with Xs over them on it too. So it was pretty surprising to see it on my brother's Pilot knock sensor wires that the little bastards chewed through. So not sure I'd put much faith in it.

My brother was considering something like this but never got one. I don't know much about these but it seems to be reviewed favorably.

Search amazon for
Packrat and Rodent Deterrent Device, Model RC-2

 

Thanks, this looks interesting. I asked my mechanic about the tape, his dayjob is an Acura mechanic and moonlights as an independent, but he didn't have much faith in the tape either. However, he did just catch the rat bastard, and broke his neck...

 

Justice!

 

TIP: Meow

 

Had rodent problems with my 96 Camry
Wagon which was parked in my garage. Car had no power - was sluggish accelerating and it turned out the air cleaner was full of acorns and various seed pods. I recently found seed pods and acorns on the rear floor of my 2012 RDX and suspect mice are getting into the heater since the pods were next to the rear heater outlet. I live out in the country and I do have mice in my hous and garage and do have a cat, but the mice are smart and run under the refrig and he can't get them. Tried mouse traps, but they steal the peanut butter and don't set off the trap. Go figure!

 

Yeah... but then you need to find the cat before every time you start the car. They like it up in the engine bay too.

 

If you get a cat that doesn't learn when the car is about to turn on and get the hell out of the way... then it's defective and you should start looking for another one.

Wasn't there something about the new wiring in cars being soy based, or something, for environmental reasons? But the unintended consequence of that is that they're more tasty now? I thought I read that.

 

In their cases that's Purrrrfect

 

Last week, I found a cockroach cruising across my Nav screen. No joke!

I have no idea where ii came from.

...
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.

 

I'm a victim of rodent's chewing threw my wiring harness in the engine bay as well. Happened last October during a period of heavy rain that lasted for days. I think the lowland flooding caused them varmints to look for higher n dryer ground. I got stuck with a $700 repair bill.

 

Lawsuit Claims Honda Refuses To Fix Vehicles With Soy-Coated Wiring That?s Irresistible To Hungry Critters ? Consumerist

 

Well Honda coats their wires with Soy
I'm 2012-2015 soy based wire casing
But this is for Honds so guess it applies to ACURA if they used same good tasting soy insulation for wires. Rodents can cost us big money if the chew wiring harn



Has anyone ever had to deal with rodents?

This is the second time I've had to deal with this, but apparently 2 days ago another rodent crawled into my engine bay, and this time chewed through the ABS wire, the VSA, some wire for VTEC, and possibly the speed sensor wire too. The first time around, the mouse chewed through the knock sensor wire, which luckily I could replace myself, but this time around it's costing me about $430 for a mechanic to try and splice back the connections, sinec the main engine harness is just one huge long harness.

I'll be starting to park my car inside now, but I was reading that some people sprayed some kind of rustproofing material inside the engine bay, as the smell of petroleum keeps rodents away. Anyone have any tips on how to keep the rodents away, besides traps?[/QUOTE]

 

Happened to us once. Didn't know there were rodents outside. Fixed the car, got rid of the rodents.

 

i have had to fix this a few time for customers. most recently a dodge truck , fixed and within a week they attacked again chewing thru some of exact same wires i had repaired .

they make a spray , you will need to go to some kind of farm store like maybe Atwoods or a local Coop , i live in ks so its not to hard to find a farm store in a small town . the spray have no idea what its called but it makes it undesirable for the rodents to want to chew thru the wires once they get a taste .

do some research i am sure u can find something , pb blaster which is a rust penetrant was actually originally designed for this purpose , the side effect was it was a good rust penetrant .

my 2 cents.