djm

Took the car in for the 10k checkup, oil change.. there would be no charge for anything.. until the technician called to tell me that rats ate through wires related to the AC, for $450 of non-warranty damage! And texted me this photo...

So that's a thing that can happen.... Supposedly it's not uncommon (the insulation is made of soy??) and I do park on the street. Still it was hard not to be skeptical since the AC never stopped working as far as I can tell (used occasionally for defrosting) and there never were any errors displayed.

What I don't understand about the photo, where are the other ends of the wires?? I asked when I picked the car up and the guy goes, "the rat ate them."

VipinLJ

Depends on whether rats are common where you live at. In India, it is an extremely common occurrence. Cars have even caught fire because rats chew through wires which causes them to short circuit resulting in fires.

ddaniels3509

Where I live, its squirrels. Hate. Them. I've heard that mothballs are a good deterrent but have yet to try them.

kurtatx

I have never had a problem, but I do let my cat and my dogs run around in the garage on once or twice a month.

ddaniels3509

My dog actually made the problem worse, as he would smell the squirrel while it was inside the car. Result was that he scratched the fender area over the wheel down to the metal and ripped off portions of the front grill of my Passat. Luckily it is a TDI that goes back to the dealer today. The A4 lives in the garage now and I've sold our Highlander in advance of buying a Miata so that two cars will fit.

VipinLJ

No idea how it works here but in India, people leave rat poison in the engine bay and in their garages too. It is such a big menace there. I once heard an odd squeaking noise in my brand new bike in India. I though it had something to do with the suspension and thought I'd tweak it. I removed the seat to access the toolset and found five baby rats and the mother rat had ripped my bike's owners manual to shred to make a nest for her kids. Needless to say, I was freaked out and had to use sticks to remove the babies. In the process, the rat had also partly chewed off the wire to the indicator which caused it to flash erratically.

HyperS4

This happened to my dads A6. Chewed through one of the main harnesses. $650 in repairs. Luckily I was working at the dealership at the time and they covered it under a warranty claim. But yes, this is a common occurrence. I guess there just arent that many rats/mice in Germany that like soy.

drewba

This just happened last week to my son's Acura, rats chewed through wires going to the transmission. Of course, I was actually happy to find out that rat damage was the cause of the warning lights and delayed shifting because I thought that the transmission was going which would have been $$$ compared to repairing the wiring harness.

minmet

Mice made home in the engine intake cradle of my brand new Honda Pilot last winter and chewed whole set of direct fuel injection wire harness caused $2,300 damage. Problems are, lots of wire insulation materials are made from soy bean products -- perfect rodent food. I asked Honda dealer wrapped the new wires with rodent tape which is with encapsulated Capsaicin to protect wire being chewed again.

kurtatx

Yeah, I let the cat walk around the empty garage. I haven't really had a problem on either of our vehicles. Dogs are a little nuts.