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Car Manufacturers Sued Over Rodents Eating Soy-Insulated Wires (hackaday.com)
An anonymous reader writes about "a little-known problem plaguing many newer vehicles from the likes of Honda, Toyota, and Kia."
The car makers used soy-insulated wiring to cut costs and "Go Green", but owners in rural areas are finding the local wildlife finds the wiring irresistible; thousands of dollars in damage has been done by rats and other critters eating wiring harnesses. Hackaday is asking their community to brainstorm solutions to this unique problem, as owners of affected vehicles have had to resort to sprinkling their driveway with coyote urine and putting rat traps on the wheels.
Hackaday reports that "It isn't just one or two cases either, it's enough of a problem that some car manufacturers are getting hit with class-action lawsuits." Back in 2010 Slashdot reported that rabbits had already discovered the joys of eating soy-insulated wires, and were turning the parking lot at the Denver International Airport into their own personal buffet.
There's even a web site called HowToPreventRatsFromEatingCarWires.com, which reports that Honda has already manufactured a special wire-wrapping tape that's infused with the active ingredient from chili peppers.
Hackaday reports that "It isn't just one or two cases either, it's enough of a problem that some car manufacturers are getting hit with class-action lawsuits." Back in 2010 Slashdot reported that rabbits had already discovered the joys of eating soy-insulated wires, and were turning the parking lot at the Denver International Airport into their own personal buffet.
There's even a web site called HowToPreventRatsFromEatingCarWires.com, which reports that Honda has already manufactured a special wire-wrapping tape that's infused with the active ingredient from chili peppers.
Honda has already manufactured a special wire-wrapping tape
This is simple: Poison
Just like pressure treated lumber, add arsenic to the insulation in relatively small quantities. Just enough to kill anything that eats this as a primary diet, but not enough to prevent biodegrading. Quickly enough critters will develop a strong distaste for the stuff.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Hehhehe.
Its not just cars. I bought a battery charger/jump starter from Harbor Freight, which has much of its products made in China. After only one month, I went out to my tool shed to find it and, lo and behold, all the insulation on the wiring was stripped clean. I live in SE AZ, in the desert so we have lots of wild life, but it was done so fast, I figured it might be a whole family, but I set a trap using a coil of insulated wiring from Harbor Freight, and caught the lil fckr. He was fat a sassy, and over the next two days I found several power tools all stripped of insulation.
However, I have had a '86 Honda civic sitting in the car port that the wiring was untouched. So its obvious a recent thing
I live in surburbia, and this happened to me. Rodents ate the wiring in my Honda Odyssey a few of years ago.
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"Honda has already manufactured a special wire-wrapping tape that's infused with the active ingredient from chili peppers."
Mexican rats love that stuff.
Ethylene glycol poisoning used to be quite common until they used an additive to make it taste bad. Should be just as simple.
What could go wrong?
Obvious answer is poison but thats not great for mechanics, and also not addressing the root cause. The real answer is to not use soy insulation in the first place.
As someone who likes classic cars (i.e. that need to be around for a LONG time) I really don't like the whole thought that insulation should biodegrade after a few years anyway.
Why on earth would anybody want wires with biodegradable insulation? That makes zero sense.
Even without providing rodent buffets, cars will be shorting out in a few years due to the wire insulation BIODEGRADING. If these executives and engineers think it's such a great idea, let's see them use this wiring in their homes.
Personally, I think wiring should have insulation that can last through a century or more, if possible.
Since the 1970s and before, it happened rats love to chew things but it was simply something to chew. Now they are something to eat, thus making the problem a significantly worse
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This isn't the first time they made delicious wire insulation. The solution the last time was to add something that tastes disgusting to rodents.
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Hello! Thank you so much for featuring my website howtopreventratsfromeatingcarwires.com here! I am happy to help answer any questions anyone may have regarding this issue, especially if you are in the midst of a rodent attack! Thanks!
There is no warning "Beware of the Leopard" on the glove box, showing the good faith of Honda and Toyota.
The EULA very clearly states that, " ... it is the responsibility of the user to prevent rodents from eating the wiring harness. Honda/Toyota recommend the use anti-rodent devices and the user must install and keep all such anti-malorganism devices up to date.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Wire harnesses are a critical component to vehicle safety. Wires that can degrade during the normal service life of a vehicle can be deadly. Think about a wire harness with insulation that's been eaten that controls the ABS, fuel injection or an airflow sensor, and you hit a bump in the road and it shorts. Now you lose power or braking. Are we willing to have someone's vehicle fail and the people seriously hurt or dead because of a fundamental design flaw?
I've worked on my own cars for years and seen some really stupid compromises and designs that make regular service difficult or results in failures just outside the warranty period. This, however, takes the cake, and we need to stand up to this by declaring the insulation issue a fundamental safety issue. I'm now thinking about mitigation strategies beyond my standard maintenance that neither I nor anyone else shouldn't have to think about, like underhood blinking lights, sprays, capsaicin tapes, etc..
I would encourage anyone with one of these vehicles to file a NHTSA complaint stating that soy wire harnesses should be banned and recalls instituted to remedy the problem by either (a) replacing the harnesses with standard synthetic non-edible polymers as appropriate to the specific application, or (b) providing coatings that provably prevent rodents from consuming the insulation over the lifespan of the vehicle. We should also inform our congresscritters about this issue.
NHTSA complaint form: https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/... Congresscritters: https://www.house.gov/represen... and https://www.senate.gov/senator...
How about we stop making them out of food?
Yeah. What could go wrong if the critters chew through the insulation on some double-0's plugged into a lithium battery.
Make the insulation out of good old-fashioned petrochemicals, the way God intended.
Rats and mice avoid most poisons by never eating something that caused nausea a second time.
Provide bait stations with treated wiring and some rodent excrement at common entry points. Rodents go there first, decide "Nope" and declare "Nope" on the rest of the wiring.
In addition, have a spot that's attractive to rodents and predator accessible away from the parking to 1) lure the rodents away 2) let the local predators dispose of them for you.
Squirrels gnawed the insulation off a neighbor's Prius here in the Boston 'burbs, so he had to have it rewired. He loaded the car with mothballs afterwards to keep them from coming back. Hadn't heard about the soy-based insulation but it makes sense. The little buggers will eat almost anything - except airline pretzels.
Arsenic won't in itself biodegrade, it's a metal. It will spread in the environment. Probably not in dangerous doses just from wire insulation, but still no good idea. I would rather go with non-edible cables in the first place ...
This is all about the length of time a car will last.
The manufacturers don't want them to last, they want you to buy a new one every year.
This way, the every time they get parked outside, they get eaten, a bit at a time. :)
Cuts down on the impurities in the recycled copper, too.
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IIUC, rats, at least, can't taste bitter. Perhaps that would discourage other rodents, though. Or maybe not, I don't know how many species of rodent can't taste bitter.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
My new Jeep Cherokee had to go back just a day after I bought it. Rodents had chewed into the top of the coolant reservoir while it sat on the lot. Coolant stink and fluid all over the engine bay. Service guy said it happened a lot...
Rural areas also have rats, though not nearly as many.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I saw recently that rats had eaten the outer sheathing of some mains wiring in my house, but not the insulation of the inner individual wires. I suspected at the time that there's something extra delicious about the outer covering.
Is the obvious solution here: use the cars as bait inside of giant humane traps for rats, then periodically collect the rats and throw them into a blender and use the subsequent green Soy-fed rats as a high protein feed for the third world.
But not everything should be biodegradable. Some things from which human lives depend (like your car's wiring) should be built to endure and be recycled when they don't work anymore, or when their time of disposal arrives.
Ephemeral trash like plastic bottles and food wrappings should all degrade and fuck off in a few months, though.
Soviet Field Mice Attack German Tanks
From 'Enemy At The Gates' by William Craig:
"Finally the German High Command made a move to cover its (6th Army's) flanks. The 48th Panzer Corps, stationed more than 50 miles southwest of the ominous Russian bridgeheads at Kletskaya and Serafimovich on the Don, received priority orders to move up to the threatened sector.
Led by Lt. Gen. Ferdinand Heim, a close friend and former aide to Paulus, the 48th clanked onto the roads and headed northeast. But only a few miles after starting out, the column ground to a halt when several tanks caught fire. In others, motors kept misfiring and finally refused to run at all. Harried mechanics swarmed over the machines and quickly found the answer. During the weeks of inactivity behind the lines, field mice had nested inside the vehicles and eaten away the insulation covering the electrical systems. Days behind schedule, the 48th Corps finally limped into its new quarters. It was almost totally crippled. Out of one hundred four tanks in the 22nd Panzer Division, only 42 were ready for combat."
I have a 2010 ford pick up with some sort of tube for emissions that was eaten into. $900+ to fix. Thanks snowfl@ke a Holes. Going green is the best!
It's amazing how often the crusade to go green ends up being an epic fail.
March 2017- Rats ate the wiring harness out of my wife's 2015 Mazda CX-5. $1,500 in damage, all but deductible covered by USAA (thank you USAA).
Traps on the wheel are no good- traps get knocked off, rats go around them, etc.. Regular traps are too risky to the person handling them. Log-roll bucket traps are okay, but not great. Best we've found so far is glue traps attached to board with kibble in between the traps. Traps in engine compartment with sign on steering wheel to remind us when we go anywhere. Since March we got 93 rats, 23 squirrels, and 1 bird.
Warning- icky but effective- http://www.johnperkins.com/carrats.jpeg
My family has had this problem with two different Mazda 3's (one was a 2010, other was either 2010 or 2013, same generation at least) at two different suburban residences - chewed oxygen sensor wires. I thought it was the textile lining under the plastic cover above the intake manifold that they were most interested in, since I found mouse droppings and torn fabric there on one of them. But I guess maybe it was the wire coverings that were attractive. Interesting.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I had a 2002 Honda CR-V that had soy based seats. A bear broke in and tried to eat it. My insurer in the mountains of Colorado had seen it before. Scary stuff - the car was totaled, the bear shit in the Honda and couldn't figure out how to exit, the car horn was blaring at 4am, and I wasn't up for dealing with a freaked out bear. It finally left, but damn, it was destructive.
Just the washing instructions on life's rich tapestry
When we lived in the Seattle area and would visit National Parks we would see vultures hanging around the parking lots. Apparently they liked the fish-oild based wiper blades and the soy bungie cords. The NPS tried thier best to keep them away but not much worked.
I also had squirrel eat over 1K of wiring on my solar panels. Apparently the coating was soy based so the squirrels would next under the panels and snack. After replacing all the stripped wiring I now have a squirrel guard around all my panels.
Anything that CAN be a food source for critters WILL be a food source.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
This happened on my 2016 Ford Fusion. I had bumper to bumper warranty, but the dealership said rodent damage wasn't covered under warranty. I had to replace the wiring harness and it wasn't cheap. The mechanic at the dealership said peanut oil was one of the materials used in the wire plastic coating.