###!!! Mice!

I was thinking the same. Look more like the offerings of our local pack rats than a mouse.

 

The occasional cat prints vs. $4000 worth of chewed wiring and hantavirus? I'll take a shop cat that likes to snuggle over the alternative any day but to each their own.

For the record, just replaced the chewed-through knock sensor wires on my buddy's 2006 DCLB. Eff that. After 6 hours of dry humping the top of his motor playing Operation! with a new wiring harness, I'm pretty sure he's getting a cat from me for xmas.

 

If anything those attract mice. I fluid flimed some chassis parts on my tractor, and mower deck. Mice build a nest inside the engine shroud right above one of the places i fluid flimed.

 

i wonder how long it will take for the harness to start breaking down? will it last 20 years?

 

The climate can effect how long insulation holds up on wiring. If if its mostly, hot and dry all the time, the insulation will break down sooner. I doubt 20 years would be enough.

 

Do you know for a fact they stopped using soy based wiring? I know for a fact Toyota, along with multiple other manufacturers did use soy based wiring. I think a lot of them still do. I left the Automotive industry just over 4 years ago and know alot of them still were using it. Atleast to the knowledge I had. They don’t really publicly announce that stuff. I know Toyota won a class action lawsuit against them on the subject because the lawsuit basically put the blame with the rodents and not an actual defect against the manufacturing of the harnesses. So it was tossed by a judge. So I’d imagine Toyota preceded with using the same insulation. I worked throughout multiple dealerships and seen first hand a lot of the damage. Even made a few repairs. At Honda we had a special tape laced with capsaicin or something. If someone had a rodent issue or we did a repair/replacement of rodent damage we would wrap some of the harnesses with that.

Also another fun fact when I was at Ford I remember one of the other techs talking to me about rodents and he said that some of the new seating material was in fact soy based instead of petroleum based. I’m sure there’s a lot of little things like that, that the general public don’t know about. I know 95% of the other techs, parts guys and sales people wouldn’t of known that.

You’re right about rodents, that they will eat just the standard insulation on old wiring too. They are rodents and that’s just what they do. They will try their hand (teeth) at just about anything.

 

Bummer! Thanks for the insight!

 

if i recall some 90's mercedes used bio degradable wiring that started degrading prematurely so it can happen

 

Taco owners with a mouse or rat problem are eating Cheetos in their Taco.
Stop eating Cheetos in your Taco......I mean in your Tacoma.

Cheetos can be delicious crunchiness in your taco.

 

Do you work for Toyota, a supplier, or a 3rd party company? I’m sure Toyota is using some different suppliers now vs back in the day. I think they used Delphi, Yazaki, Sumitomo, and Furukawa. May have been some other not fully sure and to what extent each of those manufacturers supplied for Toyota exactly. So I’m curious if you have anything you can post as proof to the type of material composition being used in current model year harnesses being supplied to Toyota. Or some type of other information that would be valuable to this topic.

There’s more than just “hear say” working in dealerships. Some parts managers really know their shit and the manufacturers also list a bunch of different info. I just never worked in the parts departments nor really cared much about any of that kind of stuff. However that doesn’t make them or I an idiot. I work in manufacturing now and we are also a supplier to Toyota. Even half of the engineers in our design, developmental, testing, OSPQS, departments probably haven't a clue about the differences between our OEM products supplied for Toyota vs our other OEM, vs our normal branded products.

 

Umm, that's Bill of Materials...

 

Build not bill were I work

 

Well thats not very bright on mercedes part. I never heard of others using a soy based insulation for their wiring, nor did i see wire insulation crumble in 20 years or less. We have a 4 season climate in new england that takes a lot longer for insulation on wires to deteriorate. I worked most of my entire career in the electrical field, not automotive though.

 

Just recently watched a video on how to make water traps!

 

Right now i'm dealing with a nest of gray squirrels that somehow chewed their way into my garage from the outside wall. They are held up in the walls that are sheetrock over. I drilled a small hole, and tried to gas them out...no deal, i can hear them getting pissed off.

 

This is my line of defense

 

Yikes

 

I have cats dogs and poison. Dogs don’t do anything for the mice but the poison and cats do. I put blocks of tomcat around the inside of my shop and garage. This spring I was in the shop getting more blocks for the garage and when I picked up the bag it was empty. The darn things had chewed a hole in the bag and ate all the poison and all that was left was a bag of turds. I don’t see any mice but I know they are there since the bait is being eaten.

 

attack pussies! roll the window down and they jump out like a can of snakes. but might need some power armor for patrolling the taco in the woods

 

They do need to be refreshed, more so when its drier; what a funny thing to overhear the neighbors be in the middle of though!

Honey? What are you doing? I'm tea bagging the truck baby i'll be done in a minute!