Varmints chewing vehicle wiring

[robby denning]

At one of the ranches I work on, the landowner parks on a tarp. If he wasn’t such a smart guy I’d call BS but he says it works. The mouse don’t get up in his truck when parked on the tarp. No explanation.


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[Red Letters]

Peppermint oil seems to work, a friend even used it to get a mouse out of his RV

 

[Beendare]

Delete

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[Nickofthewoods]

Growing up, Cottontail rabbits used to get into the engine bays of our vehicles and chew the wires pretty bad. My dad had an old 1987 f150 that mostly just sat around on the property and one day he decided to run some errands in it. I had told him several days prior that I opened the hood and a rabbit was sitting up on top of the motor. He made it about 4 miles from the house before it caught on fire. I bet you could see the black smoke from Cheyenne to Pikes Peak. Haha.

A few years ago my current f250 super duty started overheating but only while towing up mountain passes, which it had never done before. Upon closer inspection some rodent had built a large nest between the radiator and inter-cooler. All the little tiny grasses and seeds were packed so tightly into the fins of each that it completely ruined both.

If you don't have any, get several cats. Helps a lot.

Yep. I haven't had any problems with rodents in the several years since we got a cat.

 

[gelton]

At one of the ranches I work on, the landowner parks on a tarp. If he wasn’t such a smart guy I’d call BS but he says it works. The mouse don’t get up in his truck when parked on the tarp. No explanation.


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We saw someone doing this last year in CO, they had parked on top of the tarp and draped the tarp upwards around the front and rear bumpers, doors and everything...we had no idea why they were doing that.

We figured it might be to keep the snow from building up around the vehicle but now that you say that it may have been for mice...one of the craziest things we had ever seen.

 

[Wvroach]

I can't speak for all brands but for Subaru at least on a '15 legacy they use soy based wiring coating. It is a attractant a d once they find it it'll be a constant issue. My brother had 3 wiring harnesses put in his before he sold it. Thankfully it was covered under comprehensive insurance for him at least.

 

[Red Letters]

Leaving the hood open with a light is great but what about when you are parked in the woods for long periods?

so you smear peppermint oil on the wiring harness? This almost seems like the folks that spray pepper spray around their campsite and it actually attracts the bears.

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The peppermint oil on the harness doesn’t seem practical, RV guys do entry points. I wonder if they jump straight to the frame or do the climb the tires.

 

[Bighunt531]

I've seen woodchucks aka rock chucks aka whisltepigs chew up electrical on vehicles too , try fresh cab

 

[NEWAoutdoors]

+1 on the barn cats. They kill all sorts of little critters all day long

 

[Cowbell]

Cotton-tail rabbits are just as bad S rats. I have $3k in repairs to prove it.

 

[Yarak]

I've had chipmunks to chew the wiring of a vehicle and the easiest fix was Mothballs but that smell would remind me of my grandmothers closet back in the 70's

 

[JJJ]

I know up in the sequoias if you’re away from your vehicle for an overnight hike, that they recommend driving onto a large tarp, and then wrapping your car like a present with the extra length up and over secured with bungey cords.

 

[SwampBone]

Wow! I thought I had it bad in MN. I’m surrounded by woods and it’s a constant battle with mice. I keep bucket traps out from spring till a month into winter. Before I did that everytime id open a hood on one of my vehicles their’d be acorns bouncing around like a pinball game. Also had them build nests on top of my cars cabin filter. Get to work sneezing and coughing, eyes watering. Thank god nothing worse. Those bucket traps work! Back when I had chickens the mice would come in the coop at night and eat the feed. Didn’t realize the problem till it was too late. I was catching up to 20 mice a night. Stopped counting after 150. Disgusting

 

[qwerksc]

the dog found the culprit…

 

[Crowmangler]

They got the main wiring harness on my Bobcat T590 ... cost me over $4k to fix it...GRRRRR!
I'll try all these ideas as well as wrapping as much as possible with some kind of cable protection

 

[JJJ]

They got the main wiring harness on my Bobcat T590 ... cost me over $4k to fix it...GRRRRR!
I'll try all these ideas as well as wrapping as much as possible with some kind of cable protection

My dad, who lives in Michigan, had a 2020 f150 and squirrels chewed his wiring up. The dealer mechanic said the wiring is now wrapped with some sort of veg/soy instead of petroleum based rubbers, and the squirrels supplement their diet on it. Don’t know if that’s true but it cost him a few thousand dollars. He’s been live trapping them since he lives in a residential neighborhood and can’t shoot. But he’s caught several dozen of them since and the problem went away

 

[Marmots]

I had marmots chew about $800 of wiring out of an old ford ranger. I tried everything to get rid of them, including spraying the area with predator piss and tarping the truck up like a diaper. They ignored the lion and fox piss and chewed through the tarp. In the end, snaring and shooting them is all that helped. I live trapped one of the marmots and kept it as a pet for a while so I could serve it different meals and figure out what would be best to bait future traps with.

 

[DEGdog]

I had mice or red squirrels eat the wiring harness on my F150. I now hang a cabfresh packet under the hood and spray the harness with a rodent repel spray. Dealer said this was fairly common

I went deer hunting with a buddy one time and he drove his brand new F250. Parked it in a horse pasture and went and sat in our stands for several hours. When we came back the horses had eaten every piece of plastic off the outside of the truck.

 

[dtrkyman]

Peppermint oil would be placed around the perimeter not necessarily on the wires, straight peppermint oil is really strong and irritates critters with a sensitive nose.

I had to store some gear at a friends, he said you may have an issue with mice or pack rats chewing it up, they got his wife's car. I put a cotton ball with peppermint oil on it inside and smeared it around the outside of a tote, nothing touched that thing, the next spring all my fly fishing gear inside smelled like it for most of the next season.

 

[mproberts]

A neighbor had squirrels wreck his 4 runner twice. The first time he tried a bunch of different deterrents, the second time he went on a full blown squirrel jihad with an air rifle. It took him a few months, but eventually the problem was fixed. It seems like once individual rodents figure it out it's impossible to break the habit. I will say his squirrel jihad got a bit ridiculous, there were constantly dead or crippled squirrels all over the neighborhood for those few months. I'm sure most of the neighbors were like wtf is going on around here?!