My older brother had a transmission problem on his late model Toyota Tundra, turned out it was because rodents had ate his soy based wiring. His latest bill was $1,300. He lives in the city, but it attracts rats, mice, squirrels, they all love this stuff. In the winter, they can get warm, as well as have a meal. Some auto manufacturers starting with this wiring since the early 2000’s, but I believe pretty much all of them have been using it for over a decade now, perhaps there are some exceptions, I didn’t check all of them.
They claimed they wanted to go green, and reduce need of petro products. Probably safer to say it had more to building it cheaper though. Can’t believe they can get away with this. Seen where one person filed a class action lawsuit against Toyota, he’s currently just seeking how widespread the problem is.
Yeah, marmots have been going after car radiator hoses and wiring in the Sierra forever. It’s not unusual to see car covers or chicken wire fences around vehicles in the backpacking parking areas in places like Mineral King.
Holy shit, I had no idea. At my parents house they’ve had to bring the cars into get them repaired several times because rodents ate through various wires and lines. I had no idea they were made of soy.
Got my mom’s Subaru in her garage–hit the fuel lines, ain’t that nice? Mine’s too old to have the soy shit, yet another great reason to keep an old car rather than buying a newer one.
OK, I was looking at this as a typical April 1st publication, but apparently it’s true. One more thing we’ll have to compete for against the rodents when The End comes.
Squirrels got to my 2000 Neon several years back. I had it sitting outside most of the time in the same place for 8 years and one year a couple of them went nuts with it.
I didn’t know it was made from Soy, but the neighbors a couple of houses down kept having this happen to their car. I think they ended up getting rid of the car as it happened 3-4 times and was costing $800+ each time.
Not my wiring, I hope, but the squirrels love my motorcycle plastic. The oil cap has been destroyed, and they love eating the handlebars and such. Is there a way to keep them off my bike. At least in a car if something goes wrong you can stop, on a bike it can be trouble.
No problems yet for me. If you have your vehicles in a garage that’s even more reason to leave mousetraps baited and set all the time, and check them every few weeks.
Rodents have always had a propensity of chewing up just about anything. In my 45 years of driving vehicles, I’ve only had a couple of wires ever chewed on which was actually a few years ago. They mainly did damage to my insultation at my firewall, where they left a 18" hole. This was on my 2004 Ford Ranger, which I think was still using petro products for wiring.
Today, there are a few class action lawsuits some are working on, I believe Toyota was able to have theirs dismissed, Honda is up next, I think GM is also mentioned elsewhere, as is Subaru. Doesn’t look like anything has come of it yet. They are also using soy in other car products. Lawyers for the auto makers are arguing just that, that rodents have always chewed up this sort of thing.
What needs to be determined if the soy-based products has caused a feeding frenzy for these rodents. Some think it has, but I haven’t gathered up enough info to know for sure. It doesn’t help that auto makers outsource their wiring, and their suppliers use propreitory information that is difficult to get at.
I’ve never got any damage done though I had evidence that a rodent took up shop in the engine bay. I also heard an acquaintance complain that some critter got in the garage and did damage.
Also, isn’t one of the primary reasons airlines banned rodents as “emotional support animals” is the chance that they could escape and chew the wiring? (That, and the constant weeing…)
Was out shooting with some folks the other weekend and the topic came up. Several of them had been hit with repair bills in the $800-$1000+ range due to this. It was the first I’d ever heard of it.
One of them had a gadget like this wired to his battery that was supposed to go off at random intervals and scare off critters trying to chew through stuff. No idea if it works, but he liked it.
They got my wife’s BMW last winter. Surprisingly, our insurance paid for the repairs and the tow.
It seems the insulation is rat candy. I had never heard of such a thing, until I did.
