Normally, I don’t let the JiffyLube guys change my air filter. It’s something I can do myself or have the lovely bf do for me. However, this time, I had to. It was in a very unusual state… the guy shows it to me and… :eek:
There was fur (I brushed by dog outside a few weeks ago, so I imagine it was hers), grass, and lint in a big, tight ball about the size of a softball. I said to the JiffyLube guy, “Holy crap, that looks like a bird’s nest.” Good sport that he was, he helped me poke around in it, and lo and behold, there were several dried up little baby mice in there, dead. Poor mice did not pick a good place to set up house, but I didn’t want to kill them or anything.
I drive my car damn near every day, so I must have been chauffering this mice around for a while, right? Long enough for them to have their babies in there. The JiffyLube guy said that he has seen live mice, groundhogs, and birds scurry out of people’s cars, so I guess it’s not unheard of.
But still, it was quite a weird little event that I had to share. Wonder what NOT having a mouse nest in my air filter will do for my mileage? Anyone else have wildlife living inside their running car?
Summer of 1988. I was working in a dealership in So Cal. Working in the stall next to me was the nicest guy with the worst luck ever. This was the guy that was test driving a car with the window rolled down, a sliver of metal flew in the window and stuck in his eye. He had to go to the eye doctor to get it removed. That kind of luck.
Anyway I am kneeled down changing a head light, and he pulls a Volvo 240 into his stall. For what ever reason he decides that he needs to check the oil. He pulls the hood release, gets out of the car and stands next to the LF tire. He reaches over and flips the hood open. He reaches in for the oil dipstick. Up to this point I was basically unware of what he was up to other than I could see him out of the corner of my eye.
All of a sudden I hear a SCREAM and look up to see him backstroking (for lack of a better term) over the top of the car I am working on. WTF?
It turns out there was a full grown live possom in the corner of the engine compartment. When he reached in, the possom lunged at him. Possoms look like the world’s lagest rat and are about the most ugly animal ever. Scared the hell out of him.
It took us an hour to get the damn possum out. (took it to a park and released it FYI)
I forgot to add, you need to get your garage inspected and the mice removed from your garge or the air filter will be the least of your worries.
Mice/rats can and will eat damn near eveything. I have seen $1000 wiring harness eaten by them. I have seen A/C duct work in cars filled with doggie kibbles.
Get rid of Mickey and his friends NOW.
Calling it a garage is rather flattering of me… it’s just a shell, no electricity, no doors, more of a covered carport really. I don’t know how I’d keep the rodents out. I’d like to keep them out of the car, though.
I’ve had s–tloads of problems with mice at my place. Nests in the engine compartment, nests in the trunk, nests in the air cleaner, nests inside the car’s heating system, usually in the heater fan (you can tell because when you turn on the fan, it makes a whubbawhubba unbalanced sound and bits of fluff come out of the heater vents), and worst of all, a mouse crawled up on top of my gas tank and chewed through the gas gauge wires–cost me $250 to have fixed.
I’ve gotten pretty quick at removing and cleaning the heater fans on all my cars. You have to be quick about acting, because if you let them set up shop in there for any period of time, they urinate and defecate all over and you can never get the smell out of your car. I was finally able to stop the entries into the car’s heating system by pulling the grille at the base of the windshield and gluing wire screen over the heater air intake. On all five cars.
Yes, and the little farkers cost us a new transmission because the air filter was the last thing we/mechanics checked and many, many trips back to the repair place ( after the transmission just crapped out on us. and had to be rebuilt.)
The stuff that was inside the air filter were X large size dog cookies ( broken up) several gardening gloves - none matching and a buttload of bird seed and insulation.)
Pretty much we have a Kill Them All philosophy about mice about our place.
I hate mice.
Poor mice did not pick a good place to set up house, but I didn’t want to kill them or anything.