So my scion was sputtering this morning and Trac and VSC light and check engine were blinking... I did some research on the forums and thought it might be a bad fuel pump/ bad fuel or the maf sensor... Expecting it all to be covered under warranty i took it down there... I get a call on my cell phone a few hours later.. The service tech said my vehicle showed signs of rodent damage... Specifically they had chewed through the wiring harness for the number 3 injector and the harness for the engine and that my warranty would not cover it and that it would cost about 1500... I WAS WTF and told him i'd call him back.... I called my dad a couple close friends and my attorney all said "that's bull____! he's ____ing with you".. So i called a scion dealership 200 miles away and asked about "rodent damage" and they said they've seen it but they said something that concerned me..... It's impossible to tell the difference between a frayed wire and a wire eaten by a rodent.. So im a natural skeptic so i went there in person to look.. He pulled the plastic cover off of the head and there it was the wiring harness torn/frayed/bitten/cut apart... SO I DUNO ... I took some pictures i'll upload them later..

What about you guys what do you think ? right now my xB is sitting there my insurance company is sending someone to look at it ... For now i get a 2006 jetta rental car..

 

I had a rodent of some sort eat 5 or 6 wires on my Grand Cherokee. You can definately tell it was chewed on. I was missing about 5 inches of each wire but there were small scraps on the ground.

I imagine this would be covered under insurance. I didn't have full coverage on the Jeep.

 

I'm sure this isn't the first time the dealer has encountered a car with rodent damage. When I worked at a Chevy dealership, we saw it all the time... usually we found the damage inside the AC duct work. Found a dead mouse and a live mouse on a few occasions.

I hate to say it, but I think you are screwed. Perhaps you should examine where you park your vehicle and also check other vehicles parked around yours. If you fix it, it'll probably get damaged again... likewise with other vehicles... might already have damage.


GL! Watch out for disease... disinfect the hell out of your car.

 

If you want to save a little bit I happen to know of a Scion xB just got hauled into an Auto Dismanteler's in my area. No body left to speak of, interior is covered in red stuff,intake is gone but harness was there as of 2pm today. They will pull the wires out in a couple of days to recycle the copper.

Hollar if you/insurance/dealer can use it.

And are you sure it wasn't the dealer installed hampster? Or did you add it for the HP (hampster power) hehehe

 

That sucks.

 

Ah rats!

 

does it really cost that much? amazing!!!...not in a good way...

 

Years ago my father-in-law had a Buick up on blocks for several months, and when he went to get it running found that mice had nested in it and eaten basically all the insulation on every wire in the car.

It was, in essence, totalled by mice while standing still.

Didn't smell too good in there either.

RichC

 

hey frog box ...did they have the metal valve covver on the box still ???if so please pm me asap thanx...i need some other parts as well ...or pm they wrecking yard info..

 

I used to manage an oil change shop. It was not all uncommon for mice/rats to make nests in air filter housing and other parts of engines. I do believe it is possible that a mouse/rat could have caused the damage to your xB. I would say about 1 out of every 10-15 cars we worked on had a rodent nest in it somwhere. SORRY MAN THAT SUX! I would still investigate this just to make sure the dealer is not using this common problem as an excuse though!

 

so how does the rat remove the plastic valve cover to get to the wiring it supposedly chewed up?

 

rodents get into small places sometimes...

 

yeah tat is right ..when i worked at jiffy lube i remmeber a bird anda a nest in a air filter box funny ish ...we had to tell the lady when hella funny..

 

Hey there,so sorry to hear about your rodent mishap. It happened to my 04 Civic about 3 years ago, cost about $1000. A mouse was in our garage and he ate the main harness as well, took out the ABS on my car and I drove it around for 2 days not knowing until, like you it started to run like crap. Anyway, insurance paid for the whole thing, covered under my comprehensive less my $100 deductible.

When you get it back it will be brand new, no problems. One suggestion... get rid of the damn rat, it will happen again.

One good thing to do is place buckets of water in front of all 4 tires, get into the car by climbing up the tires, when they come out they fall into the bucket and drown... a friend of mine told me that trick after a rat ate her bimmer. Best of luck!!!

 

About a year ago, our Saab wagon had rodent damage to the wires, probably from being parked at work since the other car it was garaged with had no damage and the traps we set caught nothing. Rats or mice can be found anywhere. You might be interested to know that Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft has a couple of hundred custom designed (they look like rocks) rat traps placed around his home on Lake Washington. I learned this from a local exterminator.

The damage to the Saab was covered under the comprehensive coverage on our insurance.

One thing I learned from researching this was that rodent damage to car wiring is far more common than you might think.

I also learned about a few preventive measures that you may find helpful. You can put several porous cloth bags with a filler (porous bark) charged with peppermint oil under the hood in areas that obviously are not near enough to the engine to burn the bags. Evidently, rodents don't like the smell of peppermint. Also, you can put a tray of mothballs under the car when it's parked. Mothballs are pretty toxic however. I prefer the peppermint solution since the protection is with you all the time. You need to re-charge the peppermint every 3 months or so. Hope this helps.

 

wtf!

What was rodent doing in your car?

I've never had a rodent in my car (any of them), just bugs that flew in and some smelly humans, and a cat.

 

eww..gross..

 

I had something like this happen to my old truck rats got under the hood chewed all the wireing, i had to replace most of it they tore up that foam stuff under the top of the hood.

then to make things worse they chewed through the shift boot and made nests inside the cab chewed up my speakers and left crap everywhere.

as for telling the difference between normal fraying and rodent damage you can tell rats leave poop everwhere and you can smell their nests

the best thing to do about it is to not even try traps or those sonic things just go out and get yourself some rat poisen and toss that places where rats can get to but make sure that pets and stuff can't get to it oh and keep an eye out for dead rats cause you will find them in some strange places

 

The warmth will often draw them in. Cats are notorious for getting under hoods and getting into trouble when the belts and fans suddenly start moving.

When I worked at a Jeep dealer, a customer had their Grand Cherokee Limited stolen. It was just some kids that joy-rided it and dumped it in an alley, but while it was parked there, some cats climbed in and clawed the hell out of the leather seats. IIRC, it was like $700 just for the rear seatback.

Definitely worth a call to your insurance to see if it might be covered.