2017 Prius Engine Destroyed By Rodents One Week after Buying

Years ago, rats got into the A/C wiring on my 2000 Honda Insight, but nothing like this.

 

I wish i can help....
Just give you a tip of Iceberg
BMW and Toyota are working together with future R&D for beneficial of all
Let me say BMW hybrid and electric car's have a lot of Peugeot engineering that wear Badge BMW
Mercedes Benz are not any different
I will not disclose about them anything..because my job is related to them
My personal experience and reading about car Company's and i take big decision on quality versus look or how they measure in today world against what a lot of people speak.....speed ..power and etc
So make it short if you buying New Car in USA and is Japanese brand go after car that is manufactured there and not here
Same applies to German or any other cars
Companies that move to this land with factories to build here ....always loose on quality inspection and quality of parts they resource for Factories in USA
So your best spent is always on car that is manufactured in country where it started
And my suggestion is to try to find some recognized shop that will definitely do this for much less than service you are on.....
Toyota will probably reimburse you for deductible for your insurance....
I have seen that before ....
So don't hesitate to contact and explain your problem and feelings....

 

My condolences. Hope things work out.

Thanks for the heads up,

I live next to a patch of woods and had many assaults on my lawnmower (commercial version $5000 machine) .
In my case it was field mice.
They love to eat anything with the texture of chewy.
They ate the insulation on the spark plug wires all the way to the magnetos, the whole assembly had to be replace.
The fly wheel assembly was clogged with a nest.
$1,600 damage.
Only thing that stopped them for me was a 1/2 box of moth balls strewn over the ground under the machine each fall.

I don't think that I should spread moth balls in my garage to protect my prius prime, since it is attached.
I'll be watching closely

Again, thanks for the heads up.

jp

 

I couldn't spot - did you contact TOYOTA corporate, or just the dealer? From what I've heard here, dealers are very reticent to consult corporate - if you haven't personally, it could be good to do so.

 

Just so you know where I am coming from, I think a whole lot of dealership mechanics are idiots, and I am such a such a skeptic about things that I am not entirely convinced that bacon is really bad for you.

That said, I have little doubt that mice can do damage to wiring. Even so, the chances of it happening to any one individual's car must be rather small over the entire life of the car.

But what is rarer still is for any one individual to have his car ravaged by a local mouse within the first week of ownership.

Possible? Absolutely. Just very, very uncommon.

But the tech told you it was mice (with the dastardly deed done "overnight") right?

While he might be correct, I am not so sure. There are a million ways wires could get abraided during a car's manufacture that would only become problematic when-- when you have driven it for about a week.

But apart from my personality type, why would I doubt the tech?

First off, he seems to have told you categorically that your insurance company would cover the $4000 repair. That's confidence! I worry about people with that kind of confidence.

But with $4000 at stake he documented the rodent damage with photos and saved the chewed wiring and bits of hair and mouse poop in case you needed it for your claim, right? He insisted you call your insurance company befor making $4000 in repairs, correct?

Or did the service manager charge your credit card in full, and simply assure you their diagnosis on the work order was all you neeeded?

Hopefully I am off base and you have everything covered and can consider my comments those of just another old fart who admittedly does not have all the facts.

At least I didn't get into Bayes Theorem.

 

shame on the insurance company if they didn't come out for a look see. around here, the insurance adjusters show up the same day for a couple hundred bucks worth of damage.

 

Of course, you are right. I did not even think of that. Shame on the car dealership if they didn't see to it.

 

A few years ago small rodents chewed up a wiring harness in the engine bay of my wife's Ford Fusion. I forget what I was quoted, but it was many hundreds of dollars to replace. I suggested they trim the damaged wires and hard solder them together. Fortunately there was enough slack and they complied (said they had never considered such an option before). The car has been fine ever since and the cost was much less. Might be a long-shot.

 

I imagine the wiring harness on a PRIUS is a bit more integrated than that. I had a 1980 VOLVO and when about 18yo the engine wiring harness "rotted" - poor rubber/plastic insulation. Over a few weekends, I replaced the wires one by one and finally wrapped them all together like a harness. But I wouldn't think of trying that with a PRIUS.

Most mechanics won't even consider doing anything other than unscrew/unclip a part and screw/clip a new one in.

 

First, we have to be clear: rodents did not destroy your car's engine, they damaged the engine's wiring harness. There's a difference.

The fact that rodents have not damaged the wiring in your other cars is irrelevant; you don't know the mind and wanderings of all the rodents in your neighborhood, and the chance that they would chew on wires in your Range Rover or 2014 Prius or Mercedes (all of which use soy-based wire coatings) is the same. It just happened to be the new Prius this time. I had a rodent chew the fuel injector wires on a 2005 Civic, had it repaired, then it happened again the day after I got it back. It's life; you can get angry or move on.

If you're dead set on pursuing this, you can join one of the two class-action suits making their way through the court system right now. A similar suit against Honda last year was settled out of court.

 

OP, if you haven't submitted the customer satisfaction survey you may want to disclose that fact to the dealer's GM (at least).

Are soy based parts cheaper than petroleum based parts or was the change made to promote the Green Image?

If it happened to me I'd be beyond annoyed. Good luck with the resolution.

 

Even with the harness soy based I can't see how it's the dealerships responsibilty that rodents damaged your car. This has happened to many cars all makes and models. It's terrible luck but you want to blame Toyota? It's very common to have squirrels and rodents living in engine bays. I'm sorry this happened but not sure anyone will take responsibility since it happened at your residence.

 

Wow. That's shocking! Maybe soy is environmentally friendly. It's time to stop using it Toyota!

 

Tofu wiring, great.

 

This has been a problem for Duramax pickups in my area starting around 05 or 06 models first two weeks is sure bad luck though.

 

Right back at ya about that bad attitude that you have.
I am TELLING you that it is a problem common to most ALL vehicles, going back probably to the model-T.
I am also telling you that your attitude is unrealistic.
Continuing to fret over this will do nothing but make you sick.

P.S. There are a LOT of things in this world that you don't know about. Many of them are not good.
Going into a rage every time you find a "new" thing that you don't like will do nothing but make you look like a fool.

 

Totally agree.

 

I just turned in my VW Golf TDi as part of the buyback program. I hadn't been driving it so as not to go over a certain mileage number, so it sat for a month. The battery was dead when I tried to start it up, so I popped the hood. Rats had been gnawing at the fabric battery box and the main power cable insulation. They had been making a nest right in front of the battery with the shredded fiber and some pine needles. I was quite concerned but the battery charged up and now the car is somebody else's problem. Thank you, Volkswagen.

Thus the Prius. I will be parking in my garage mostly, but I hope this doesn't turn into a serious problem. We live in the mountains and witness a variety of fauna, but I didn't realize there were rats till this happened. My place to park vehicles that aren't daily drivers is close to a 100' tall cedar tree, and I imagine it may be home to more than the birds and the bees.

My 2002 Ford F250 diesel also had some evidence of rodents at work, but less than the TDi. I have to park it outside, so I put some moth cakes in the area where gnawing was evident. Truck smells like a (clean) lavatory, but I hope the rats will go somewhere else.