Rodents ate my car (well not quite but they had a go)

[Lovemyev]

I remember watching an electrician posting a video on YouTube recently, when he went to a customers house that had a few spot lights, that suddenly stopped working.
Quickly he discovered that it was not the lamps, but after some testing, he found that the lighting cable between two lamps had been attacked by rodents that had entered his attic space.
He made a few phone calls to his cable suppliers and they told him that when producing the protective covering, contains some vegetable oil to allow flexibility.
The rodents have a fantastic sense of smell and it is this that causes them to chew on the casing / sleeving of the cable !.
How true this is, I don’t know TBH.

 

[Tig170]

Its common on an ICE car - infact I'm pretty sure I've either seen a mouse, or found evidence in most of my cars in 35 years. To be honest suprised to find this in an EV due to the lack of warmth (I've stuck a heat camera on the MG4 after a 5 hr road trip - the hotest was the tyres, which was around +5°C above ambient temp).

 

[Rolfe]

Hah yes. I'm always surprised when I go out to the car after pre-heating it and there's still frost on the top of the bonnet!

 

[tommasov]

This morning I found this. I cleaned everything, but I'm pretty sure they went deeper.
At the moment the AC Fan is not working.
Let's hope it's not serious. I'm very sad.

 

[jamakr4]

This morning I found this. I cleaned everything, but I'm pretty sure they went deeper.
At the moment the AC Fan is not working.
Let's hope it's not serious. I'm very sad.

Maybe check the fuse (I think the blower is not connected to the HV system).

 

[tommasov]

Maybe check the fuse (I think the blower is not connected to the HV system).

I'll check the fuse. This morning when I left early everything was working properly, so I assume the damage wasn't done overnight. Then I turned the car off for a few hours, and the fan stopped working when I turned it back on.

 

[Lovemyev]

Rodents are attracted to the plastic insulation of the cables.
They can smell the oil that is used in the manufacturing process, that make the cabling flexible.
They bite at the outer shielding of the cable and sometimes go straight through the the copper wire, which is extremely thin anyway.
This is the last cause of your problem unfortunately.

 

[T1 Terry]

WD40 sprayed on the wiring will keep the chewing pests away, but not really practical for stopping them building nests in the airbox, unless you want the WD40 perfume through the car ....

Maybe you can find where they got in and make a metal mesh grille to stop them getting in again ..... insect screen wouldn't be resistant enough to their chewing, more that perforated stainless sheet type of stuff ....

T1 Terry

 

[Pete G]

Rodents attacked our zs ev. They chewed on the battery case and ate a hole in the brake booster vacuum hose.
Fortunately no other damage, i replaced the hose at home with some plastic tubing and all is well.
Since then I have sprayed the wiring loom with a spray I made from Cayenne pepper tincture.
Also I have sprayed the loom with a product called Scat ( in Australia) It is a spray you make up with water and the powder , which is Aluminium Ammonium Sulphate.
So far so good.
The rodents where I live a very hungry. So I am crossing my fingers that our car is left alone now.