Prius Prime Electrical Harness took $3500+ to replace

It doesn't have to be soy based for rodents. I've had my lawn mower chewed on occasion, they chewed off the spark plug wire insulation from the spark plug all the way to the magneto. I think that it is the texture that gets them, soft and squishy. I now toss a handful of moth balls every fall below the mower.

Once at a national park in southern Florida, I watched as crows descended on parked cars, and pull out chunks of rubber widow insulation on the parked cars, and fly away with them. It appears crows like texture as well.

 

Rodents will chew anything, as they need to wear the constantly growing teeth.

 

Rodent damage on vehicle wiring harness has happened to me NUMEROUS times on my BobCat tractor, Craftsman garden tractor, Mercedes Benz, Toyota Celica, Dodge Van, Jetski, etc when I was living at a multi acre ranch property for some 15 years. Not even once, I was not able to fix. It was all simple fix, cut out the damaged section and soldering back extra pieces of wires to make up the missing section. It costed me less than $5/repair for the materials. The most difficult part was finding the damage. I found out that setting rat traps at each wheel and glue traps inside the engine compartment to be somewhat effective but never completely stopped them. They just kept coming and coming. It was their territory...

 

i agree the repair would have been easy. i can splice solder shrink wrap a bunch of different ways...
but i'm not going to risk it on my 1 year old car (still under warranty, but doesnt apply to rodent damage ugh)
as i didnt know what it was until i was already at the dealer.
now i know. lol

 

jerry unfortunately i could not figure out where the nest was from looking at the panel either. i am going to have to put teh car up on ramps and double check this week, and add mothballs, poison, and spray on repellent to the wiring and insulated panel.
i can tell you the wire is way up front, looking down from above on the drivers side inside the engine compartment, its towards the bottom, but definitely front drivers side was where he chewed that wire.

 

This is what I use.

 

Do you know if it really works? I have never had rodent damages on my vehicles and have never taken any preventative measures yet. But we have had rodent problem in the house (mainly attic and basement) and the barn. I tried many different repellents, but none seems to be very effective or maybe effective for short while but never lasted long.

EDIT: The active ingredients are listed as .055% Peppermint Oil, .0225% Rosemary Oil, .0225% Garlic Oil, .50% White Pepper. And 99.40% Water and Vinegar. Humm, I may be able to cook a turkey with this stuff. lol It is rather expensive if that's all there is too it. Buying each ingredients and mixing them DIY might be cheaper. Except the white pepper, other three ingredients at the concentration indicated would only cost ~$0.50 to make 1 gal of solution. However, depending on the form of the "White Pepper" used, home made repellent may get more expensive. If White Pepper is actually just ground white pepper, it would not dissolve, but is very cheap ~$1.40/gal at the concentration indicated which is rather high. If white pepper oil (essential oil) is used, the cost would be ~$10/gal just for this ingredient alone. In any case, a home made one would cost way less than $42.49/gal pre-made one sold at Amazon.

 

1/4" mesh over the cabin egresses, and maybe the engine air intake as well, is cheap insurance. Doesn't prevent all the issues, there's lots they can damage outside the cabin, but helps.

 

If you park in a garage you have an option. Get an ozone generator and run it for an hour or two a week. It will kill everything in the garage. It will even kill the Carona virus. Make sure to open the garage door after as there will be a gas build up. It can also kill you and your pets. Read the warnings.

Side effect. Your car will smell new.

Can also be used in your attic and basements.

 

After applying the rodent repellant in the engine compartment, the chassis and the internal fender wells, I coated the same areas with this kind of petroleum rustproofing.
Blaster 11 oz. Heavy-Duty Corrosion Stop Protectant (Case of 6)-16-CSP - The Home Depot

The petroleum based product itself itself deters rodents with a bad taste and effectively imbeds the components of the rodent deterrent permanently.

The rustproofing acts as a dielectric, does not harm wiring and effectively prevents corrosion and water intrusion of the wiring connectors.

 

I wonder if the boiled linseed oil I've been slathering all over the suspension and bolts attracts or deters rodents? I haven't seen any of late, ever since we got our Shiba Inu, and he's maybe skewing the results, lol.

I'm really at odds with the $3500 yoink out and replace the whole thing method. Some more surgical DIY wouldn't go amiss. This is a local fuse box issue, but it's this mindset I like. Of course dealerships often don't want to work like this:

(kinda long...)

 

Repair of wiring harnesses are made more difficult these days, because many of the wiring is 25-26 gauge and very sensitive carrying milliamps and 5 volts in the CAN or Computer Area Network. Any change in the electrical resistivity of the wire might throw an OBDII code.

Due to labor costs of troubleshooting and the possible "iffy" repair, the dealer replaces the entire affected harness for their own protection from legal liability.

 

That's kind of the nuclear option, don'tcha think?

 

That's kind of the nuclear option, don'tcha think?

 

If I do something I go Nuclear. One shot. One Kill. I use the ozone gereator at my cottage to kill the rodents in the crawl space. No prisoners.

Lmao

 

I heard something recently, about killing bed bugs in a house: the exterminators take out all the plants, anything perishable, then raise and hold the interior temp at something like 150F for an hour or so.

 

anyone know how many fasteners and what type hold the panel on underneath ?

 

update . the nest was drivers side front of the car.
if you open the hood and look straight down there , you can see the splash guard actually.
its one of the spots that has enough room to build a nest.
i liberally applied ammonia to the inside of the splash guard.
it has an insulating padding, that absorbs whatever you spray onto it.
so i did ammonia
then i did rodent repellent .kinda smells minty.
then i sprittzed up form the underside anywhere i could reach with ammonia
and again with the rodent repellent
then i did the same from the top side, ammonia, and then repellent.
goal was to get as many wires and plastic parts at least a little bit of ammonia and repellent on them.
i also sprayed in from the grill area so those splash guards i didnt remove got some treatment.
used some zip ties to attach 3 bags of moth balls to the insulated side of the splash guard.
also stuffed another baggie worth of moth balls under the insulation, from multiple angles all over the panel
now when i walk up to the car in a parking garage i can smell it!!
but as long as i dont turn on the fans when i'm sitting still, no odors enter the car.
i will repeat the treatment next week with a sprayer mix made of extremely hot hot sauce and water.
to coat all the wiring etc with capsacin.
then i will disassemble wifes car and repeatthe whole process.
probably will follow up in the fall with another round of treatment...

 

Wow!! Sounds like ya nuked the little varmints.

 

I could repair that two-wire connector for free myself in half hour. I don't know why they replaced the entire harness.