Wire chewing tree rats......

At least, I think it was a squirrel. Haven't seen any rats around here, but have our share of field mice. We've lived here for 27 years and have never had an issue with wire chewing before.

Anyway, wife starts her 2018 RAV4 yesterday morning at 0500 to go to work, it shakes and misses, but runs. She shuts it off and takes our third car, a 99 Avalon, which sits unused for weeks at a time under the same carport as the RAV4 and my '11 Taco. She leaves me a note to see if I can figure out what's wrong. I go out later that morning and start it up, sure enough, shakes and misses. I open the hood and look around, see nothing. I take the plastic cover off the top of the engine, and see a half-dozen fresh turds, same shape but much larger than what a field mouse leaves behind. In addition, the exhaust VVT sensor and #1 coil have the wires chewed off at the connectors, too short to try and reconnect them. I go to the local Toyota dealer to see if there are pigtails available for such a repair. Guess what? Nope.

Luckily, the guy at the parts counter is a longtime Toyota tech, and says there are parts available to rebuild the connectors. He went online and found what I needed, and ordered them. I picked them up today. For $240, I got 8 one-foot long pieces of wire the correct gauge, with the little metal pins crimped to them, plus a small sealer plug on the wire behind the pin. I have to disassemble the connectors, pull the old pins out and replace the pins and wires. He stressed I need to cut them to the same length as the originals, so the system resistance doesn't change enough to throw a code. (I've seen that happen when replacing one coil, the resistance is different enough from the other three that the ECU reads the others as bad). Anyway, the other option is to replace the entire wiring harness, which is about $2700 on that model RAV4, not including the cost of installation.

What have you guys/gals done to prevent the wildlife from feasting on your wiring harnesses? I'm open to any suggestions short of blowing up the car. I'm not the least bit concerned with the well-being of the critters though.

 

Our neighborhood is full of black and white cats. No problem here, so far

 

Honda rodent proof tape...

 

Seriously?? Looks like a trip to the Honda dealer is in order. How does it work, poison (I hope), bad taste, chew-proof?

 

Rodent tape is a deterrent for critters that like to chew vehicle wiring. Wrap any trouble spots to prevent any future wire harness issues. The tape is treated with capsaicin (active component in chili peppers). When wrapping the harness it is recommended to use the half-wrapping method. Each time you wrap the tape around the harness overlap the previous layer by half the width of the tape. One roll = ~65 feet of tape.

 

Peppermint oil, rodents are sensitive to the odor even when humans cannot smell it

 

And the shit costs more than a dollar a foot. I went by the local Honda dealer this morning and they had one roll, cost was $72. He gave me 20% off, so I got it for around $50 and change. I wrapped everywhere a single wire wasn't covered by one of those black flexible sleeves, we'll see if it works. It's as stretchy as standard black electrical tape, so one roll should go a long way. Just wasn't expecting a roll of tape to be that much.

 

Like hot peppers ...probably need to call or order it somewhere..we dont even keep it in stock

 

Just get a spray bottle and fill it with tabasco sauce