Was checking over the 110 this afternoon - making sure everything looked good for my wife's little road trip up to Montreal. I didn't see it but she asked me "what is that fuzzy stuff?" Turns out a rodent or two had made a nest on top of the engine right below the air intake horn. Wife had to use her smaller hands to reach in there and get it all out.

Question: Do our trucks use electrical wire insulation that is "tasty" to these nasty little f'ers? Anyone have any tips for keeping them out? I've used cayenne pepper in baby oil before but that just makes everything so nasty.

 

I haven't had this in my Defender yet, but I've had it in other modern vehicles. I don't know about the wiring harnesses in the modern Defender, but I'd guess it was the soy-based stuff. I have a buddy who swears by the ultrasonic beeper thingamajigs for keeping mice out of his RV while it's in storage.

Good luck!

 

Unsure but I’ve found mice “issues” twice now under my engine cover and no wiring has been eaten, so I suspect not. Well, hoping so.

 

Fingers crossed, I'm OK. I've got a mouse blocker.
https://mouseblocker.com/product/mouseblocker-1000x/

 

Well that sucks big time. One of my big fears. I know for my girlfriend's Toyota Camry there is something about the wiring insulation in Toyotas that attract mice. I use and cut pieces of ivory spring soap bars around the garage door and inside any area where mice can get into my garage. Could be an "old wives tale" but after two years so far so good.

 

Ivory soap, or Irish Spring?

 

Irish Spring.

 

I use "sticky" on the front tires. Glue traps. I just set them on top of the tires.
So far I only got a small rat snake. If your car is parked inside and you do have this problem, get some boxes with rat / mice poison. Pet safe.
They also make some for outdoors.
Some automakers do use bio degradable compounds in the wire coating, so they are more "eco-friendly". I know for a fact that Mercedes used plant derived compound into the wire coating composition.

 

Defender is garaged at night but daily driven. The only time its sat for more than 12 hours is when we were away over Valentines day weekend. The mouse nest was made up of dog hair from brushing my goldens outside, which I had done just a few days prior to our departure. Everything - even the carcass,- looked pretty "fresh" so I know it hadn't been in there long.

We have a professional exterminator and the garage has 3 poison boxes in it that get "recharged" every 3 months. There's literally a poison box about 4 feet from the front of the Defender where its parked. Perhaps I'll give the exterminator a piece of my mind.

I'll try the Irish Spring. My wife will like that. She's Irish. I use dryer sheets in my roof top tent over the winter to keep them out of there.

 

We were away for 1 week and had a mouse chew through the windshield washer tubing that feeds the front windshield wipers. Turns out it's one big tubing harness so they had to pull off the front bumper to connect the new one to the headlight washers then drop the headliner to connect to the rear window washer. Total parts and labor added up to $3000 so I had my auto insurance pay for most of it. Mice chew to keep their teeth length in check as their teeth grow throughout their life. I now have multiple mouse traps baited with peanut butter killing them off as they arrive in the garage.