Rodents and Q5
 

Hi all. I live in the wilderness above Santa Fe and have no garage to store our cars.

I just purchased a used, low mileage (18k) 2014 Q5 3.0L Prestige model and wonder if the recirculation intake when switched on stays closed when I turn off the car. We have rodents who love to nest in our other vehicles so I would like to close this entrance to the internal pathways of the vehicle. Whenever I turn the engine back on, the recirculation option is turned off so I'm not sure if it stayed closed when I turned off the car.

Also... does Audi use soy in their wiring? Our neighbors Subaru did and it was almost totaled by rodents eating the wiring.

Apart from that I'm using lights under the car and in the engine to help deter these varmints. We try to minimize nesting areas around the car. Any other deterrence ideas that have proven to work would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Rick

Try making a small oscillator that has a base frequency above the humans hearing level ie > 30 Khz, modulate with a random frequency sweep . Rodents and other small animals find it very annoying. Humans cant hear it. You can use two 555 timers to make one yourself for less than $10 ( there are rumors that this is how they made the turbo lift sound on the original Startrek show)

Rick-
You can also place camphor or mothball ("para") blocks in the parking area. Both are known to repel deer, bugs, rodents of all sorts, and the para (parabenzene?) type are in fact now treated as a pesticide and insecticide. They're not particularly good for humans to breath on a regular basis, so no, you don't want to hang blocks on the firewall, but scattering some on the ground will repel the rodents.
They would have to climb up the engine bay and then chew through the screen over the air intake, at the base of the windshield, to get into the interior ventilation ducts, AFAIK. Adding some extra fine steel wool or screening over those screens should discourage any such chewing.

Audi hood liners are a mouse favorite. They climb up the tires if you are away for a while. Once they are in there I had some success getting them out by putting mouse traps with peanut butter on top of my front tires to lure them to their demise.

Plus +1 on the above, also remove the plastic engine covers, the mice love to make a nest under those covers with the hood insulation. I'd have to research the soy in the wire insulation, but it is in the Subaru's and Toyota's.

Bob

I'm rural and use mouse bait under buckets outside of the garage. They travel along the foundation, find the bait, fill their cheeks and run off to the woods. I use buckets or a coffee can on it's side to keep domestic animals out of the feed.

At least it's not this: https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/31034726.../?cmp=fb#page1 (viewer discretion is advised)

You might try those cloths dryer fabric softener sheets in the engine compartment and in the trunk.I used them in a car stored outside and had no problems even though we had lots of field mice all over the place coming in from the woods as winter approached.

Rick,

You just bought a pretty darn nice vehicle, how hard would it be to construct a simple parking structure? Some 2x4 studs, pressboard, some cladding and you'd be done. It'd provide not only protection from critters, but also elements. All the measures outlined on this thread will help mitigate the issue, but none are fool-proof and once these critters get access to your vehicle, you could be in a world of hurt. Consider it a preventative measure with an enclosed garage vs. the additional cost and maintenance you'll need to outlay once they've wreaked damage on your vehicle(s).

A structure that you describe would most likely not keep out the type of rodent most likely to cause problems, i.e. mice. Unless the building is all metal with tightly sealed openings, I doubt that would stop the mice.