We had a spot on TV news last night Toyota and Honda owners 2012-2015 suing about soy-based wiring and rodent damage problems. Toyota position inferred basically rodents have always been a problem and there is nothing model-specific or new about it. I see if I can find a link. Toyota Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Rodents Chewing Car Wiring | TOYO Headquarters
tens of millions? sounds like hyperbole. honda and toyota are right, but no one knows what will happen in a lawsuit. interesting.
On the TV report, the guy said he has some foxes taking of the problem. We got foxes too. In fact you name it, we got it: deer, mouse, rats, voles, moles, bear, raccoon, snakes, gophers, ground hogs. I pretty much have to give up on yard plantings.
one shiba, one kai-ken & two american akitas in the house: still problems with rodents in three cars....
Rodents ate the insulation off our 20 year old wiring at the radio station where I was in Honduras. Nothing at all organic about that stuff. What a job, re-creating the entire electrical distribution! Rodents and roaches all eat wire insulation.
yep, i've been seeing it in all manner of outdoor wiring applications for the last 40 years. mostly pvc jacketed and the like. if there's any juice in the wires, it's even worse.
And sometimes, when your home air conditioner quits working, it's just ants in the compressor start relay contacts. Another time down in Honduras, there was a problem with a ceiling light. I took the cover off the switch and the electrical box was PACKED with ants.
Makes me wonder, you know those piles of tires etc., what if an army of rats/mice etc. were let loose on those and see if they can turn that rubber into organic manure !
Why the year restriction. Problems are also horrible with the Gen II -- posting from personal experience. In one week I had to replace four cabin filters. Screening does work at least for the interior. The engine compartment, well that is still their playground. Of course, in the past week I have caught 11 mice in snap traps -- caught myself a few times, also. I have gotten so used to the "place the traps at night and pick them up at dawn," that every once in awhile I forget to wash my hands after handling the traps. The risk of any zoonosis is tiny, but, still, I should try to be a bit more careful. Oh, the reason I pick them up each day is the traps are placed around the car. Car is outside. Birds will go for the bait and get caught if I don't get the traps before dawn.
Well the Ioniq has a soy-based interior.... I'm sure rodents in large cities isn't a new thing (and moreso now that composting is the thing to do in large cities. We've noticed an increase in rat activity after the city enacted composting. We're talking seeing a rat once every few years, to having to clean up multiple areas of rat droppings. I'm hoping the colder winter we saw this year reduced the rat population as well as a particular specie of beetle).
Are you getting that weird "stink" beetle in your area, too. Here's a Web site about them. I really hate them. Box elder bugs I can tolerate. Stop Brown Marmorated Stink Bug - StopBMSB.org
Speaking of Zoonosis, Rat-bite fever (RBF) is an infectious disease that can be caused by Streptobacillus moniliformis in North America. The more common ways of acquiring it are via bites or scratches from infected mice or rats and by handling rodents with the disease, even if the rodents do not bite or scratch you (cyberpriusII take notice)! It is easily treated however but untreated can lead to serious complications. I have never had to treat any complication as common antibiotics like penicillin are curative if used early enough.
As posted above, personal experience with rodents chewing insulation (probably PVC) off wires. If you set up data loggers in a forest it will happen to you.
