There have been several threads about the soy based wires used in our FITs.
Here is some more info:
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...401413106.html

https://jalopnik.com/5662917/car-eat...denver-airport

https://hackaday.com/2018/01/15/they...our-wires-man/

It happened to us on the '15, the dealer ONLY charged $115. Second time I fixed it.

Good luck.

 

i absolutely LOVED reading the comments-sections on some of those, particularly the last one... some highlights include: "air-soluble wiring", "denver-airport rabbits", and "coyote-urine as a rat-deterrent becoming a coyote-attractant"... also, apparently, the brown-rats around la/socal that i have often heard referred to as "norway rats" have a long-line of fellow norway-pests that are still there wreaking havoc under car-hoods... LOL...

now i have to go to my local honda-dealer and see if they have some of that special "hot-pepper-tape" in stock to go wrap around my wiring harness... :-)

 

My neighbor has an older Honda Accord and he showed me all the damage the mice did in his engine compartment. He maintains a bunch of traps in his garage. I had a bunch of mice that moved into my yard, and my garage, but then my cats noticed them and a month later they were all gone. Not that it matters since I've never owned a car with soy based wiring.

I suppose that for people who have soy based wiring this could be a benefit if say there's something like a major disaster, a zombie apocalypse or whatever and you run low on food it will be reassuring to know that you can always cook your wiring and eat it if necessary.

 

That's finding the soy based Silver Lining!
Can't wait to Barbecue my wiring harness, while I listen for the approaching Zombies.

 

A mechanic told my brother the "chili pepper" tape will work, but it's a lot easier to just smear some hot sauce on rubber gloves and rub the gloves over the wires.

 

cannot wait to use that idea with roommie's hot-sauce collection... LOL... tyvm, h.

 

My fix, after the Dealer repair failed was to wrap the wires with muffler bandage. That metal slows down the little critters.

Had a mouse die in the heat/ac system once,not on the FIT. Ewwwwww.

 

We had a car that was smelling so I went out and took a look. When I went behind the glovebox to check the cabin filter all I saw was the white wire for the light. Then I realized the glovebox didn't have a light and the wire I was seeing was the tail of a tiny dead vole right next to the cabin filter. So gross.

 

 

Best way to prevent rodent damage in your car is to put more attractive things around the garage. Put traps everywhere. Peanut butter baited things along every wall, way more than you think you need. Make the car the less interesting option.

 

I thought that I posted this here before but it may have been another car forum that I belong to. If you have 120 Vac available where you park get a few of these and plug them in. I have them in my garage, airplane hangar, my basement, and my motor home. I haven't seen a trace of a mouse in any of them in years.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Victor-M754...YAAOSwbwJaLjU9

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Victor-Pest...72.m2749.l2649

 

PA Mice are Deaf!



Apparently, the Victor electronic repellent device didn't deter this guy (second one I got right there).

 

About 15 years ago, I was the executor of my mom's estate after she died. One of the items left behind was a 1990 Corolla with less than 30K mi. It had been sitting in a garage undriven, although it was started about once a month - it was my dad's car and mom didn't have a drivers license.

The car was not in the same town where I lived, so I made a trip just to start the car and make sure it ran well enough to take it to a local shop for servicing before sale. Car started up fine. I remember backing out of the driveway and thinking, I'd probably better run the fan on hi just to make sure it still worked. Soon as I did that, white stuff started pouring out of the dash vents. Looked like a ticker tape parade, and I had trouble going any further without letting the white stuff settle first. Immediately wished I hadn't done that while underway and instead tested it first before setting off.

Turns out, mice had gotten into some kleenex and used it for bedding in the air vents, so of course it was all chewed up, hence the ticker tape parade. I remember it cost somewhere between $100-150 to dismantle and clean out the vents.

 

Wow. I use those Victor things all over the place and they do a good job on our field mice. The local chipmunk family outside moved on and the squirrels do do not come near the house any more. We will have to keep your experience in mind and remember that these do not work in Pa. and maybe other places.

 

Newer style Victor trap is easier to reset, less messy, no slippage of trigger. Mice ate into my left passenger seatbelt.

 

there should be a sling shot mode to shoot it out of the garage into neighbor you dont like's yard.

 

I was “lucky”. I noticed that the left headlight of my 2004 Impreza had stopped working just a few months after I had replaced the headlight bulb. The wire had been chewed through. Easy enough to fix, with a bit of wire and a soldering iron. And wrapped with pepper tape, obtained from a Honda dealer who was oddly reluctant to sell it to me.


After that, I always left the hood open, and hung a clip on LED light shining down into the engine compartment. Electrocuted a few of the critters with a 4 D cell powered trap, then drowned a few with bucket traps. I swear that they have a culture, and teach each other how to survive traps, so a given trap type only works a few times.


Sometimes I hung a few fabric softener sheets to confuse their noses. Never tried the coyote urine thing, or mothballs. I did consider eating lots of meat and then peeing on the engine block. But when I suggested that, my GF gave me the look which I have come to interpret as “No”.

 

So sad that so many great scientific ideas are suppressed by the skeptics around us. One wonders how the Wright Brothers ever got off the ground.

 

 

Whenever I see a picture of a mouse killed in a spring loaded trap it makes me sad.
I realize they are health and property damaging risks....so I get it....they need to be eliminated. Hey, rats and mice spread the bubonic plague.

But I grew up with 'The Mouse and The Motorcycle" book....
Mickey Mouse, Chip and Dale, Alvin and The Chipmunks...
The Movie...Willard...OK not such a good example....

But it seems like such a horrible trick.
A starving rodent...lured by delicious food....WHAM! Heading towards the light.....

What if Aliens came to earth and killed humans similarly?
Oh look...there's a delicious box of French Fries.....WHAM......

Grandma is that you? But you're dead? What happened? Why is everything glowing brightly?