Once they’ve laid down a urine trail they keep coming back. Seriously clean under the hood. Mice create scent/urine trails every where they go. Nasty animals.

The best method to keep them out is to keep your hood up and keep lights on the car at night.

Find the hottest pepper sauce you can, and apply it to the wiring. It’s basically what electric utilities did to keep rodents from chewing on insulation in substations and transformers.

Could be squirrels too. They chewed the wires on my truck's MAP sensor. I was lucky to determine where the wires went by color and soldiered them back on.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
that happened to my neighbors Mercedes he leaves outside, it's an older ML but they chewed a huge hole in the harness and bit through some rubber hydraulic hoses...

I found out some of the 'plastic' wiring harness for the headlights on my work car is actually organic material the mice apparently like.

I recently had a pickup truck (four-cylinder Chevy S-10, so not a lot of power to begin with) that wouldn't go over ~50 mph. Its air cleaner box was packed so full of mouse house that there was only about a two-inch square for it to breathe through.

Six months after I bought my perfect used XLE Camry with 12,000 miles on it I backed out of the garage and the dash lit up like a Christmas tree. All the light. Brakes, the works. $5,000 damage from a rat esting the main wiring harness and other goodies.

quote:

I got me one of those electric execution traps and it kills them by the gross.

I smoked a dozen chipmunks this past weekend with it.

Mars, can I get more info on this please?

Last Fall I went camping and brought home a couple of mice in the engine compartment. $3,800 damage to the wiring, insulation and the heater fan. I placed poison around the place where I park the truck and filled two socks with moth balls and placed them in the engine compartment.

I haven't had a problem since then.

quote:

Originally posted by JohnCourage:

quote:

I got me one of those electric execution traps and it kills them by the gross.

I smoked a dozen chipmunks this past weekend with it.

Mars, can I get more info on this please?

I think that Mars might be using a "Rat Zapper". I used a couple for a while, and they do work as described. The Az. sun sort of melted them!!

I have used dryer sheets. They don't like the smell. I had some in my truck and tractor.
Lucky no damage. Not conclusive but works so far.


Cat urine puts pheromones in the air and they leave. I have used cougar urine to get rid of raccoons.



Once they’ve laid down a urine trail they keep coming back. Seriously clean under the hood. Mice create scent/urine trails every where they go. Nasty animals.

The best method to keep them out is to keep your hood up and keep lights on the car at night.[/QUOTE]

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.

Oh, Lord,

please don't let there be mice underhood.

quote:

Originally posted by JohnCourage:

quote:

I got me one of those electric execution traps and it kills them by the gross.

I smoked a dozen chipmunks this past weekend with it.

Mars, can I get more info on this please?

I have this one.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vi...-Trap-M241/302259641

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.

Oh, Lord,

please don't let there be mice underhood.

I see it...

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
I smoked a dozen chipmunks this past weekend with it.

Did you catch a good buzz?

I’m assuming it’s a weekend fun car and not a daily driver. Therefore, park it in a car capsule when not in use. Here is a more expensive rectangular framed version.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
I’m assuming it’s a weekend fun car and not a daily driver. Therefore, park it in a car capsule when not in use. Here is a more expensive rectangular framed version.

Yes, sometimes the Bullitt sits 2 or 3 weeks, longer in the winter. I will look into one of the bubbles- thanks for the tip!

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
that happened to my neighbors Mercedes he leaves outside, it's an older ML but they chewed a huge hole in the harness and bit through some rubber hydraulic hoses...

My dad had a 1988 Mercedes 560SEL (the HUGE sedan with a big V-8) that I drove in high school in the 2000s. I loved that car. It sat in my mom's driveway for years seeing very occasional use. In the early 2010s, a bunch of family was coming in from out of town for a funeral, and she was going to let them borrow it while they were in town.

Since it had been sitting so long, I was going to drive it over to a garage to get the fluids changed and everything checked out.

As I was backing out of the driveway, white smoke started billowing out of the hood. I figured it was maybe a radiator problem or something and popped the hood.

Pretty much the whole engine compartment was on fire.

I ran inside and got a fire extinguisher and put the fire out, but the engine compartment was a huge mess and the insurance company (obviously) totaled the car.

Rats or squirrels had chewed enough holes in the fuel lines that when the fuel pump started up it sprayed gas all over the engine compartment (but few enough holes that enough gas still got to the engine to run it).

Little fuckers. I still miss that car.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
I recently had a pickup truck (four-cylinder Chevy S-10, so not a lot of power to begin with) that wouldn't go over ~50 mph. Its air cleaner box was packed so full of mouse house that there was only about a two-inch square for it to breathe through.

The little bastards like to store food and other crap inside motorcycle mufflers and air boxes, too.

The most fun I've had with mice in cars was the one that got inside the HVAC blower housing and got its face shredded off by the fan blades.

quote:

The little bastards like to store food and other crap inside motorcycle mufflers and air boxes, too.

In the case of this truck, it was sunflower seeds and that pink fuzzy stuff used for insulation. (No telling where they got that.) I filled the bottom 8-10 inches of a 33-gallon trash can with that crap. The truck must have sat parked for long periods of time, because that doesn't happen overnight.

If your car has a decorative/sound-deadening cover over the engine, remove it every so often and clean out anything you find there.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:

quote:

Originally posted by JohnCourage:

quote:

I got me one of those electric execution traps and it kills them by the gross.

I smoked a dozen chipmunks this past weekend with it.

Mars, can I get more info on this please?

I have this one.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vi...-Trap-M241/302259641

I just decided that I am going to try them again. I just ordered one of these.