Rodents in Ventilation - Are all cars this poorly designed?

Back in the days of Yugo, a joke was making rounds:

How do the Japanese test a car if its cabin seals are good enough? In the evening they lock a cat in the cabin and, if it's not breathing in the morning, the seals are OK. How do the folks at Crvena Zastava (the company that made Yugos) test the seals? In the evening They lock a cat in the cabin and, if it's still there in the morning, the seals are OK.

I suppose the Japanese may have learnt something from Crvena Zastava :)

Cheers

Where else should a squirrel deposit acorns but in the squirrel cage? Be thankful the squirrels (or whatever) didn't crawl into your ventillation system, get trapped and die.

No, and Toyotas especially don't, because they're almost as flawless and perfect as Hondas. The problem must be on your end.

DS

Probably rats. It seems like if there is a 1/2" hole, they will get in.

Perhaps the culprit needed exercise and originally found the squirrel cage to be cheaper than joining a gym! :-) Then it got fat and lazy and brought in some food while it tuned it into a lounge chair.

Honestly, I hadn't heard of this issue before.

I recently bought a 1988 Toyota 1/2 ton 4x4 pickup w/ the 3L V6 & 5sp that runs like a swiss watch for only $50. Great running truck, sounds like a brand new vehicle, starts in the dead of winter before you can feel pressure on the key.

The catch? It smelled bad when I bought it. Not just bad - REAL BAD! You could smell it from 10 feet away on a windy day. Guesses about what it smelled like ranged from chicken, pig or horse crap to dead fish. It smelled so bad that when I transfered it to my property via the freeway, I had all the windows open at 75 mph and it still made my brother & me sick to our stomachs for the 30 minute ride. We couldn't drive fast enough to get rid of the stench.

When I tore it down for a project, I found the entire intake in the engine was stuffed full of rats nest and dead rodents. It's a wonder it ran at all, much less as well as it does. Runs even better now - go figure.

Then I cut the cab off down to the fire wall - the entire fresh air intake in the cowl was FULL to the top with more nests and dead animals. So were all the body cavities along the inner wheel wells and firewall.

I then took off the entire heater plenum and assembly from the front fender to the heater ducts under the dash. Guess what I found in the entire system. Yup - packed solid.

Doesn't smell bad at all now. Now that I've cut the entire truck down to the frame & driveline. I filled 3-55 gallon garbage cans full & tight with dead mice and nests. I couldn't believe it. It's well worth getting the truck for $50. The seller tried for almost a year to sell it in ever decreasing amounts until he was practically begging people to just take it away! I was going to pay him $100 and right before I spoke he said "How about $50? I just want it gone". Um, .... OK. I was just there when he'd had enough.

I'd hate to think how far you might have to tear down a newer car to get the rats out, but once they're in, they could be littereally anywhere. Even up in your "A" posts. I'm not kidding.

Good luck, - Jeff G

Mile Sullivan wrote:

Not a poor design, there has to be a place for fresh air to get in and if it's big enough to provide air flow through the ducts it's big enough for critters to get in.

I've fished a couple of dead mice and chipmunks out of blower fans and HVAC ducts in my time. It always seems to occur more around Spring for some bizarre reason. I think it's be- cause the customer has just plain gotten fed up with the problem over the winter.

My favorite to this day was the spate of Ford Taurus/Sables that came in over a two week period at a shop I was working in. In total we counted 12 in a 14 day period, they all had mouse nests on top of the intake between the rear valve cover and the throttle-body. One came in with a smell of smoke, the stuff had been smoldering! One came in with a horrible miss, the wires to a fuel injector were eaten. Still another came in with an odor problem, hot roasted mousey turds! The rest we just happened to find as a result of unrelated work. I've seen about five in the ten years since.

But rodents and cars are a thing that happens, I seem to re- call that even click and clack's newspaper column had some- thing about this a few years ago.

Hope this helps!

-andy

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Well, they haven't made it into my heater system yet, but I've been here in chipmunk/Squirrel central for 20 yrs and never had a problem until 2-3 yrs ago. I bought a new Impala in 2001 & within months there was a nest under the plastic cover that covers the intake manifold. Minor damage to wiring harness that was repaired & will probably plague me as soon as I forget that it has been compromised. [this car is/was driven daily so this one might have come from the dealer as that was the last time the car had sat for more than 48 hours.]

Then last year I found another nest on top of the air filter in my old reliable 95 Taurus.

Maybe there is just a breed of 'car rodents'.

Jim

You must've taken pictures? I would've..

-Sam

Imagine finding a snake skin around your floor shifter. I am almost sure the old Monte project car is now rodent free. What a relief.