My check engine light turned on and it felt like my transmission was slipping on my 2006 Honda CRV. So, I took the car to the dealership to learn, to my dismay, that rodents had eaten through the wires around my primary oxygen sensor! Even though my car is new and under warrantly the dealership won’t cover it because it’s not considered “faulty”. I park my car each night outside, off an alleyway, in the city of Chicago-which is rat invested. How can I prevent rats from eating my wires again?
Give them something else to chew on, like Decon Rat Poison. A Farm (feed) Store is the place to buy it. Put the trays under your car when you park and in the trunk when you leave…
Make it taste or smell bad. Rats are predated by many things. Why not go to the garden center and get one of the musk based products that would naturally ward them off? These products are designed to keep many garden pests out of your garden by making it smell like predators such as bobcats or coyotes consider the garden part of their hunting territory and thus many peasts leave because they do want to be on thrmenu.
A big mean cat.
Talk to Oprah, her show comes from Chicago.
They don’t much care for Tabasco sauce. You could always urinate on the wires yourself, but city rats may not be all that deterred by human urine. You urinate in a spray bottle and use it to spray under the hood, but if you spray a hot spot, such as an exhaust pipe, it will make your car really stink.
You could also wrap aluminum foil around your wires, they generally won’t bite through that either.
Oh yeah, we also have some big ole Chicken Snakes (AKA Rat snakes) down here in Tenn, got a couple living under my house and one in the attic, they pretty much deter any rodents from moving in. They keep the birds out of the attic too.
" … got a couple living under my house and one in the attic…"
… and that’s preferable to the rats?
Me, I’d move to somewhere where there were neither.
I had the same problem with chipmunks chewing through a gas line on my vehicle (and I live out in the country.) I got this solution from a wild animal removal specialist. Get two boxes of mothballs - pour one each in a pantyhose leg and drape the whole contraption over the engine block. Remember to remove it before you start the car! Also, if you can change the parking location, even slightly, every few days, that might help.