Mice Eat Toyota Tundra Wires – True Story
Tim Esterdahl | Nov 08, 2013 | Comments 20
Here is definitely an odd story. According to mechanics, mice are eating wires that have a soy based coating. Really!
Mice chewing on your truck wires? You bet!
“I said I don’t believe you. The mechanic said ‘Yes, a rodent ate your wire,'” Fowler recalled.
Apparently this happens quite often. Local mechanic Jorge Goyanes told the TV station that he had to show a customer rat droppings inside her engine compartment to convince her a rodent had been in there. He says he sees a few cars a year with this problem.
What’s to blame? The coatings on the wires are made with a soy based substance according to local mechanics. They say that while it is more environmentally friendly, it also has the unintended consequence of attracting mice.
It seems Honda is convinced there is a problem. According to the story, they plan on introducing a “spicy chemical” to its wire to stop the mice from eating it.
Fowler, the man with the rodent problem, was so pissed off that he went home and set traps all around where he parks his truck.
As for Toyota, Fowler complained and they paid up the repair bill. No word on if they change their wire.
Crazy story. Seems reasonable to us, what do you think?
Filed Under: TundraHeadquarters.com
I don’t think the “spicy chemical” will work with Mexican mice 😀
LOL!
-Tim
There have been lots of reports of this happening on all the Toyota forums. It can be a really expensive repair to replace the engine harness on a 5.7 and Toyota doesn’t cover it.
Mendonsy,
They covered it in this guy’s place. You can tell by watching the video, though that he probably bitched up quite the storm to the customer service line. He STILL looks pissed off to me.
-Tim
That’s nothing…
I took a trip to my desert house in my 2000 Tundra back in the day and because I got there after dark the kangaroo rats immediately started building a big nest on top of the block under the intake manifold. The little suckers got hungry and chewed the wires off both knock sensors located on each of the heads. What a crappy ride back home that Sunday..
I called a dealer and they said the only fix was to replace an entire harness. Efffff that! I pulled the entire manifold, carved away enough of the top of the sensors to expose a small amount of wire so I could solder the wires back in place, put it all back together and BAM good as new.
So YES mice LOVE Tundra wires.
Dez,
Wow that is a crazy story. Good job being resourceful and saving some dough!
-Tim
I have pictures of the nest and the repair. I’ll post them on the THQ RSS feed thread over at TG.
Cool. I’ll head over and check them out.
Good for you telling the dealer to get stuffed.
They should have suggested doing a bit of soldering to solve the problem.
Not sure if I have ever mentioned it but, I hate dealer service departments almost as much as the sales people.
In the 19 years of owning a Toyota truck the dealer was worthless at service and for such worthless work they wanted around 140 per hour.
Yes, I too have had little critters and dogs rip wires out of my truck. My neighbors dog disabled my automatic differential just a few weeks ago while trying to get at those litter critters.
Not a surprise. I have worked in the telecom industry for over 20 years and mice/squirrels and all rodents are one of the biggest problems. They chew all the cables and wires in terminals, houses, underground lines, above ground lines, and everywhere they can get to them. Not sure I agree with the soy based material theory, they will chew the wiring no matter what it is made of. They have to chew because of the growth rate of their teeth, so if you have mice in your house or truck, they are probably going to chew on your wiring.
That’s good to know about the need to chew for their teeth. I hadn’t thought of that. Are you of the opinion that the “spicy” cable won’t help?
I doubt it, “spicy” might help, but it also may attract! We have fought with them for years and the best solution we have found is to kill the mouse. Maybe the mouse just had a sweet tooth for a domestic made truck rather than an import 🙂
Is it “mice” or “rats”? I know the video showed little mice.
Wonder what part of the country this is?
Well there are a lot of cats and several Barn Owls that attack the cats around here. Maybe they will keep the rats/mice away?
So, there’s evidence Toyota is aware of this and it is a problem as well as Honda.
Interesting…
I wouldn’t count on “aware” making much difference!
example: Toyota was obviously “aware” of the AIP problems when they extended the warranty in 2010. Now Mike Sweers says he didn’t know that there was a problem.
Wow! It’s the Rat’s Revenge!
Our techs see a lot of this. It is mice and packrats around here. We actually have a pellet gun and have had to use it to go all “Josey Wales” on a few that were still in there when the tech opened up the hood or the airbox.
Happened to me and the Toyota mechanic told me the same thing, soy based wire sheathing.
They gotta eat too!…
Yet another reason to not like mice!