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Vicious Rodents

496truck

496truck

1/2 ton status
Joined
Jul 22, 2009
Posts
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Location
Carver MA
The wifes car, 08 Impala with the 3.9, continuosly gets mice living under the intake manifold. Every time I do an oil change I pull off the plastic cover, pull out whatever 'mouse house' I can with the needle nose pliers and blow out everything else with compressed air.

Well this time they've gone too far! Little buggers have been chewing on the injector wires leaving some exposed wires. Now I have to spend $80 bucks on intake gaskets and a wire harness. WTF!

Here's the problem. How do I keep them from coming back and doing this again? I thought about poison bait but that gets me thinking they will return there as a food source, at least temporarily. On that same note I don't want to be the cause of secondary poisoning, local cat/hawk/owl finds dead mouse and says "ooh, free snack for me!" so poison bait seems to be out. This car is driven every day, 55k miles in 1.5 years. Any ideas?
 
First pull the cover and leave it off. Second I would wash under the intake with soap and water as good as you can, it seems mice follow the urine that others leave and keep coming back. I would look at some stuff that is called "mouse out" I believe its some scented packs that should help keep them out (also dryer sheets seem to work). On our farm trucks we open the hoods when we park them because they like to hide and with a open hood they can't (makes a big difference). Next come traps and here we use poison but I understand your reason. Then a cat or maybe a big snake. Believe me here in the midwest we deal with this all the time at the dealership. We have one 09 k1500 that has had the injector wires and wheel speed sensor wires repaired over 8 times.
 
I have NOT had good results with the following:

Dryer sheets, I've put em everywhere, but the mice still get in, and have chewed on them.
Irish Spring soap, sliced a bar in 4 pieces and they have chewed on this too!
D-con, doesn't keep them away or get rid of them fast enough, and they may end up where you don't want them when they die.
Cedar scented moth balls, does not keep them out, but they don't chew on it.
Mouse stick pads....everything sticks to these damn things. Mice avoid em. I've thrown them out after a month of collecting nothing but debris getting blown around the garage.


What does work for me:

Regular moth balls....the stink stays, but the mice stay away from it. Also helps with spiders, and ants in enclosed areas.
Mouse traps....any good working trap...put a dime sized smear on the bait trip, and make sure it doesn't bind at all. Instant kill, and no harm if you want to feed your birds, snakes, whatever.
 
A trick grandma showed me was to tie a bit of string on the trap trigger and cover it in peanut butter. Sometimes they don't trip it otherwise.
 
Oh and to make you feel better, a guy I know said his wife made him move after she opened her panty drawer and found a rat.
 
Yeah, the plastic cover is off and will most likely stay off. Also considering removing the hood insulator pad.

Leaving the hood open is not an option. I'm not sure she knows how to even open it.

Gonna try some moth balls. Also considering buying some wire loom and putting it on all the hidden wires under the intake manifold. Do they make any steel braided wire loom? That would be ideal.
 
You just need to get a tomcat and don't feed him too often.

A mouse wrecked havoc on my dad's '00 Impala. He fixed the wires the little varmint chewed up and then he found where they'd been chewed again! My dad hates cats, so he tried all kinds of traps and stuff, but the mouse was too slick. One morning when he was about to get in the car to go to work, he saw the mouse sitting on the hood right in front of the cowl. He snuck over to the car from around the back and got in and started the car real quiet. When the mouse heard the car crank, he hid behind the windsheild wiper arm. My dad then backed out of the driveway real slow and got out on the highway and hit the gas. He said the mouse held on until he got up to about 50 then he just slid up the windsheild glass and went for a solo flight.:haha: Good riddance.
 
You can pack around the wires with steel wool to help keep them out.
 
How about getting some hot sauce of some kind and adding some finely ground peppers to it and diluting it with water to make it spray from a bottle. Spray all the wires and areas affected and let it dry. See if the rodents come back and taste the hot wires.
 
thatK30guy said:
How about getting some hot sauce of some kind and adding some finely ground peppers to it and diluting it with water to make it spray from a bottle. Spray all the wires and areas affected and let it dry. See if the rodents come back and taste the hot wires.
Click to expand...

May not work if they're a fan of hot food.
 
speedy-gonzales.jpg
 
Well, so far no signs of a new nest under the intake. I have left the decorative cover off the engine. And when I had the intake off to replace the harness, I cleaned everything off with brake cleaner spray before putting it all back together. I did hear acorns rattling in the hood when I opened it so I know they are still climbing up into the car.
 
My friend sees a lot of rodent damage on cars he repairs at his shop..they love nesting in the "valley" between the heads under the intake,and often nibble all the insulation off critical wires going to the altenator & injectors,sensors,etc..always sees a ton of nut shells and other debris they left behind..their urine is extremely corrocive to aluminum,we had several engines destroyed at the junkyard when mice crawled into the cylinders thru the exhaust pipe and between the valves,or went in throu an open intake after the carb or throttle body had been removed..

One car,a caddy with a Northstar engine (a POS in itself !) was so packed with mice nest under the intake,he had to use a shop vac to FIND the starter!--and it was all charred,like it was ready to burst into flames very soon too--several fried mice were clinging to the starter solenoid--after removing the corpses we discovered the "crank" wire on the solenoid was chewed off,so the customer was given the choice to just fix the wire,or go on with the replacement of the starter--he decided to put the new one in anyway,since the labor was the same,and he'd have to pay it again,should that "fix" not last..the starter was all white and fuzzy from corrosion,looked like it was left in the salt ocean on the beach for ten years..

I hate mice,especially when they seem to delight in chewing the most expensive and hardest things to fix up!..I've tried everything to discourage them and few if any of them worked..even cats miss a few!..

I had mice in my '69 GTO's air cleaner housing after storing it over the winter outside under a tarp..when I took it for the first ride in the spring,at a gas station a few miles away,I heard a woman shreik nearby,and screams A MOUSE!!EEEK!...I saw it run over the wiper blades and freeze there with fright..I got in the car and started it up and did like one other poster here said--got it up to about 60mph,then turned the wipers on!..I saw the car behind me swerve,so I'm guessing it either hit the windsheild or landed on its hood or in front of it..after that I opened the hood at my friends house,after hearing a few "brrrrrring" noises from the fan..I saw three dismembered mice lying on the fenerwells,and there were at least 4 more running around in circles in the air filter housing--one was headfirst down the carb,with its head pinched in the choke butterfly,his tail flapping like crazy..they SOB's actually chewed through the wire mesh around the air filter and shredded the paper element for nesting material,and it was a miracle the carb didn't clog with that crap and flood over!..
 
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