Spring is almost here!!!! Look who might be moving in!!!

Spring is ALMOST here!!!

It’s been unseasonably warm this week, and we’re all lovin’ it, right???  There are certain things we start to see in the spring that you might want to watch for.

This starts the season of an unusually stinky cabin and or fuzz (green or pink) coming into your cabin.   One possible culprit is… RODENTS!  EEEK!!  Yes, rodents love your engine compartment.  There are nice warm places in there, and believe it or not, many things that DON’T move when your car is on and in motion.  It’s not uncommon and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.  It’s part of living in the Midwest.  We’ve seen ‘evidence’ of moles/mice and even up to <gulp> squirrels.    What they can do to a car is pretty remarkable, for being so small.

One thing they do is chew up the insulation.  Your car has insulation similar to the insulation in your home.  We’ve talked before about how hot it gets in your engine compartment.  Without insulation it’d be way too hot to drive comfortably.  They chew that up, then make bedding or a nest out of it.

They also bring things in.  We had one customer who had a FULL ACORN whirling around in her AC fan, but more likely we find pine needles, chewed up leaves, and ‘helicopter’ seeds.  These things can just fall into your car if it’s parked under a tree, but we’ve also seen this stuff inside the above mentioned nests.

The above are nuisances, but typically not terribly expensive to fix.  However…. We’ve seen one full sized car completely totaled by rodent damage.  The rodents had all winter in the car (it was the customer’s ‘summer car’) and had eaten completely through the wiring harness.  The computer cables that run through the harness and every electric connection in the car were completely obliterated.  The cost to fix it would have been more than the value of the car.  Imagine telling a customer her car, which looked great from the outside, and the cabin was perfectly maintained, was beyond repair?

About the only thing you can do to mitigate damage to your car from rodents is keep an eye out.  Lift the hood on occasion; see if you see pink or green fluffy bits here or there.  If you see nibbles on hoses, let us check them out ASAP.  If you see evidence of ‘visitors’, clear out their nesting material, and if it looks like a flat space, sprinkle some cayenne or other hot pepper on it.