Hungry squirrel ate my harness

Parked the 4runner after a weekend trip and the next day all the dash lights went off. 4R wouldn’t shift out of 1st and it had a bunch of other issues. Limped it home, popped the hood and immediately saw this. Reached out to insurance and had it towed to Toyota the same day. Toyota reached out today and said the harness itself will be around 4.5k plus labor. It sounds like I’ll only have to pay the deductible and insurance will cover the rest. Mainly posting on here in case anyone is unfortunate enough to experience this on their 4runner too.

I live in a small community so these squirrels aren’t going away anytime soon and I didn’t leave it parked too long. Any recommendations on how to deter them from being so curious under the hood?

 

$4,500? Unless there's other damage elsewhere not shown which really requires replacing the entire wiring harness, that seems.. excessive.

Squirrel just chewed off a few wires at one connector & damaged a bit of insulation on another. A moderately-competent technician would be able to open up & repair just that little end of the harness near the connector by splicing in some new wires in an hour or two at most. But if insurance covers it.. well.. whatever, I guess it's all gravy.

I don't know what it is myself but I'm sure the TW hive-mind will produce the names of several foul-smelling/tasting spray-on animal repellent compounds in short order.

Actually, probably just a thin coating of used gear oil would do it. (Not used motor oil -- the gasoline dissolved in it might harm the insulation.)

 

Sorry to hear.

Is the damage only to the 2 connections shown?

What year model is your T4R?

 

I would get some wire ,pin terminals ,solder and shrink that…

 

^

 

Yep. Unless you really trust the dealer or mechanic doing the work, I wouldn't want to risk them tearing out the entire wiring harness and replacing it. If the tech isn't careful & competent they might end up causing other damage in the process, eg. bent pins in connectors, pinched wires, etc.

 

If OP can give use a year model. We might be able to tell him the connector and part#

 

It’s a 2021 OR. From what I saw, yes it’s just the two connections. I’m not sure if any of those wires require specific resistance and I also don’t have the time to try to fix it and run the risk of chasing down other issues. Since insurance will cover it, it’s easier for me to just have them take care of it and not have to worry about it at the moment.

 

Had a similar issue with wife's car with mice. Eating stuff and created a condo in the spare tire well. I bought the mouse blocker. Connects directly to the battery. No more issues

 

It should be the engine bay harness… that’s 3x the price of a Honda

 

We keep Irish Spring soap in the engine compartment (2) and drip balsam oil on paper in the blower vents, in the cab.

 

All fixed...for the most part. Got the 4runner back and all lights are gone. They ended up just repairing the wires and the plug.

Not sure if I just noticed this but the Blue Sea ML-ACR that i'm running is constantly switching on and off. I looked through the pdf and it shows this info. I timed it and it switches on/off every 10 and 30 seconds which lines up with this. I tested both batteries and they are both fully charged and well within the minimum CCA's. None of the wiring looked chewed when i inspected it but I haven't tested voltage with the vehicle running yet. I'm running Fullriver FT750-35 batteries if that makes any difference. Batteries are only a year old. Should the ACR be cycling on and off this frequently?

 

Best picture I could take at the moment. Turned the 4runner on and immediately got a “low engine power” message and a CEL. Took the engine cover off and started pulling on wires and I found this. Hoping insurance doesn’t charge me the deductible for a second claim but I might have to pay. I don’t think I am unlucky enough to have the same thing happen back to back but there’s no way to tell when it happened or if driving it around exposed the damage that was already there.

 

Squirrels and the weatherman...can't trust either one.