Mouse nest found in brand new car - long term issues?

If the AC system was making noise because of the mouse nest that means the mouse got into the blower chamber. This means it probably chewed its way through the cabin filter, so that should be checked and most likely replaced.

I also worry about any detritus left in the blower assembly, and further worry that it got chopped up by the fan and blown into the next chamber over, which happens to be the air conditioner evaporator.

That’s a problem because in the summer when the AC is on, that chamber gets very damp, and when you mix powdered organic material with moisture and then you turn the AC off when you get where you’re going and the chamber heats up, you have a recipe for microbial growth and also a great breeding/feeding ground for insect larvae.

I can tell you from personal experience that this is a very unpleasant thing to have happen. The smell is terrible, and will remain terrible for a long time even after you clean everything up, so I’d want them to stick an inspection camera into the evap chamber and verify that there isn’t ground up food in there.

What great information - I cannot thank you enough! This will really be helpful when talking to an independent mechanic and also with Infiniti corporate. It seems like they really should just swap out with another car…

If you are interested in exchanging this vehicle for another you should speak with the sales manager about this as soon as possible. Don’t return to the service department, they can’t help you.

How many day has it been since taking delivery of the vehicle?

I am wondering if OP needs any help the department of public health could be able to pitch in. Selling a brand new mice infested car should somehow get their attention.

A premium-priced car should come with premium-level customer service, so I will be very interested to hear how this turned out for the OP.

She did speak with the sales manager and the general manager, and I spoke with sales manager yesterday. They won’t take it as a return. She had it a week before she took it back and nest was discovered - she had to leave town for surgery + recover from surgery, and that’s why there was a delay.

Well that is a very good point! I bet the dept of public health would find that interesting!

At this point I’d be on the horn to Infiniti corporate. These jokers are competing with Acura, Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, and other premium brands. Their cars already fail utterly to live up to the standards set by those other brands, and now they want their customers to pay a premium for rodent-infested cars?

That’s not a message I’d be wanting to put out if I were in charge of the car company.

I suggest you try to get more facts that may be helpful. For example, was the car garaged after your mom took delivery? If so, did she have a previous car that was garaged the same way with NO mice problem? These can strongly indicate that the nest was there before she took delivery–especially if the nest is pretty big. It takes time to build a nest, and the materials are probably NOT found in a garage.
OTOH, if the garage is mice infested and the nest was built with things from the garage, maybe your case isn’t as good as you think.

As for damage caused, many years ago, there were mice that brought their dinner (snails) into the engine compartment of my car parked outside. That probably reduced their interest in the wiring. After I got rid of them, the car’s was fine and still runs well today.

That’s a good point, and OP’s mom did make a big mistake in not turning the car right around as soon as she caught the problem. That doesn’t mean she should have to eat the problem, but for future reference if you’ve just acquired something that cost you thousands of dollars and there’s any problem with it whatsoever that you discover on the way home, turn around and make them fix it immediately.

Sorry folks but outside of some hand holding and sympathy, the department of health isn’t going to be too concerned about a mouse nest unless there was some human contact. Depending on the area of the country, the virus is mostly in warm climates.

In my view though it is a warranty issue since the car was sold that way and a mouse nest is not going to happen in a week. They really need to pull the dash and the plenum and clean it. If they got the nest though, they would have had to get in there somehow though.

Mice love the tasty wire insulation. It taste like Soy, Corn, or Fish depending on where the wire is made.

That’s a good point that OP’s mom should be sure to mention.

Easy enough to drop the blower motor out the bottom - but I doubt seriously that they did anything with the downstream chambers.

That’s what most people thought until a young man who lived on NY’s Long Island contracted Hantavirus (apparently in the family’s shed), and died, sometime in the late '90s-early '00s. Traditionally, this disease was thought to be mostly confined to the US Southwest, but that young man’s death proved otherwise.

Trust me–Long Island does not have a warm climate except for a few months in the summer. That death was the wake-up call for public health authorities to take this deadly virus seriously–no matter what part of The US one resides in.