Hey all, Several months ago, I thought there might be some issue with my AC on my 2011,prius when i started to use it; the main vents didn’t seem to blow as hard as I remembered. Just recently after having replaced my cabin air filter and engine air filter I noticed the cabin filter contained small bits of material like they use before laying carpet; never have I seen anything like that trapped in the cabin filter except small bits of leaves. I also noticed prior to replacing the filters, that although i had the recirculation button on, i was still able to smell exhausts coming off of nasty cars; this has never happened whenever i choose to close the vents to recirculation. Why would my cabin air filter contain these small bits of “soft felt” like material between the pleats? Could there be something going on within the engine bay somewhere? Like your two bits.
Usually when you see ground up material in the air laying on the air filter The cabin air filter It's usually mice or rodents that are getting things ready for nesting whether they're going to take this chewed up stuff to their nest or they're chewing it up to make a nest in your car have no idea I know recently one of my girls cars had chewed up paper towels and various and sundry things like that in the vehicle and it wasn't there the night before what have you so it's obviously a rodent got in the car chewed up the paper towels and some napkins and made nice little piles you know just like you're describing of the lint and down in my shop in one of my snap-on toolbox drawers I found the same type of spun-like material and three little mice living in the drawer I didn't even bother them so this seems pretty common.
remove your windshield wiper arms and check the plastic panel underneath. That's usually their entry point. People have screwed or epoxied fine metal grates to prevent mice from entering and exiting there. The other point of entry is the side of your rear bumper. That's your traction battery cooling exhaust vents. Wire mesh that up too. Hope this helps...
I've still gotta do that one. Suspect it's a less likely point of egress though: they'd have to climb up, under the rear "bumper", push open flaps that want to stay closed. To get at the cabin air intake this video is helpful:
Making sure that there's no traces of food spilled beverages in the carpet from a few months ago pizza boxes sitting without something under them on the seat or even on the floor the oil getting on them through the box and on the floor leaving rolls of paper towels and things like that that they can easily scratch and chew up and shred the pieces leaving nice linty rags like nice dry wiping towels that you buy in 12 packs at the parts store Lowe's or home Depot microfiber rags that they can easily whip up into a nice cloud of tiny particulate matter if there's none of that stuff around there's not a lot to get they don't just start working on the carpet. So a little bit of housekeeping seems to go a long way I've never had this problem in central North Carolina but my girlfriend has this problem quite a bit and she drives a generation two like I do but she leaves all the stuff we just talked about in the car all the time food you know this morning's breakfast in a bag on the floor which is McDonald's something another all of that I mean roads are breaking the door down trying to get in there's free food are you kidding me.
The eco material that Toyota used for wiring covering is like a filet mignon to mice. If you let them eat away, you could be looking at thousands of dollars in repair costs. What you are seeing is the start of the bedroom. The kitchen is your wiring harness. Mendel Leisk is our resident Mouse Czar. This thread of his has everything you need to know about mouse proofing. MouseProofing the Prius | Page 10 | PriusChat
