Rats & mice love to eat Toyota rubber and plastic because----

Jonny Zero gets the point.....but you still don't understand that hydrocarbons (like crude oil or whale oil) can be used to produce building blocks for polymers.....but there is NO oil in plastics....no crude oil, no whale oil, no snake oil, no naphtha......no wikipedia oil, no popsci oil.......

 

There is no oil in plastics.....let's get this clear first.
The connectors are made of plastic.....maybe rats like Toyota plastics better then others but that's not because of whale oil in the plastic.....there isn't!

I can't comment on Corvette tranny problems that might be solved with whale oil.
But the Japanese used all kinds of alternatives for mineral oil during WW2.....because they have no mineral oil themselves......and they had to take Java and the oil wells of BPM (Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij.....now known as Royal Dutch Shell)......
Not because whale oil is better or cheaper than mineral oil.

I also don't know in what way Yokohama uses sunflower oil in the production of tires.
But it sounds nice and green....

 

Rodents chew on plastic and any other material to make a nest or to sharpen their incisors. They do not EAT the material in a vehicle. The rodents dont care what the vehicle is made of as long as they can nest without any obstacles that would threaten their existence.

If you think mineral oil is expensive, you should try and buy a quart of whale oil in the USA.

 

Lets hope our cars don't get infected with the superbugs: Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic | MNN - Mother Nature Network

 

If you think superbugs that eat plastic will be a problem for your Prius, you might want to consider my $399 vaccination package. The vaccine provides immediate protection and works as quickly as I can count your cash.

 

Um.. Probably responding to a troll, but what the hey.
1. Hydrogren, as an element, as you probably know, constitutes two-thirds of the elementary composition of water. Anybody with a high-voltage source can break apart the one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen in there, basic middle-school science experiment.
2. Water itself naturally breaks down. One ends up with H+ and OH- ions, and I suppose that a naked proton running around could also be called Hydrogen. And, of course, in normal solutions the product of the concentrations of H+ and OH- is around 1 x 10(e-14) percent of volume. Which is where pH (percentage of hydrogen), expressed as a logarithm, comes from. So, despite smart cracks about deuterium and tritium, there's even elemental hydrogen in a glass of water.

Put enough of an acid into water (H2SO4, anyone), and the partial pressure of the hydrogen ions will get big enough so the acidic water will start expressing some H2 gas.

OK, fine, you're playing with semantics. Troll work. But let's take this slightly farther. Note: I'm not a chemist, I'm an electrical engineer. But we get trained in basic chemistry for good reasons. Components don't make themselves, you know.

Say one had an oil to start with, petroleum based, soy based, whale based, etc. All of those have impurities in the oil that come from the original source. Heat up bacon fat (an oil, what the heck) hot enough to get the water out of it: It still smells like bacon, that smell being from those impurities. Petroleum oil has an odd smell, too, again, from all those impurities built in. So, send the oil of one's choice to a plant where it's converted into the material from which plastics are made. So: You're telling me that all those impurities get removed during the manufacturing process?

I'm willing to believe that. I'm also willing to not believe that, my guess du jour being that it costs more to get rid of the impurities than to run around with nine-nines purity. If mice can smell that in the plastic, I'd see no reason why they wouldn't chomp on it, even if the nutritional value is low. Mice aren't that smart.

KBeck.

 

Yes, I have seen all sorts of hoses and wires chewed up over my 35 years servicing vehicles. I have even opened the hood on an 1996 olds Cutlass Cierra to find a live racoon stuck under there that had chewed through TPS, and MAF sensor wires since he apparently climing in from underneath and got stuck. When I raised the hood he ran out & away.
I have more recently seen alot more toyota cabin filters filled with mouse nests! There seams to be a trend here. Also I even have a customer with a 2001 Lexus RX300 that has had 3 seperate problems with squirls (they have seen the squirels running underneath their vehicle). The first time was a chewed evap hose near the tank that set a code for evap. The second time was a high pressure nylon fuel supply hose causing a major fuel leak/fire hazard. The most recent time just last fall the customer found out while fueling the vehicle that his fuel filler hose had been cheewed through causing fuel to spill out all over the gas station parking lot. Some really wild stuff. I do believe there is something in the plastic and rubber components that the rodent's like. Seems to be more that just the random nest building material. Anyone else also seing this trend with toyota made vehicles?

 

I've always owned GM, Ford or Chrysler products.......... until my first Prius in 2006 and my current 2010 Prius. NEVER, before the Prius, have I had this problem. But EVERY time I have had my Prius serviced, they have shown me the dog food which the mice have stored in the filters and elsewhere. I live in the country. We have an outdoors dog, so his food sits out there. And the mice are storing it... But we've lived here 40 years! Why just now IN THE PRIUS' have they begun doing this?

 

The Prius has this nice floor that is well protected from the outside - under carriage cover. It is warm, and perfect to hang out if you are a mouse/rat. Once they are on that floor, it's just nature for them to explore the nooks and crannies where there might be food.

At least that's my opinion. What other cars have similar covers under the car? I bet people see something similar in those cars.