Rat troubles

[mbruce]

Hi all,

I have a bit of a problem, lately rats have been getting into the A/C system, it seems they may be getting in via the water drains from the windscreen, behind the front wheels. They are bringing palm nuts into they system and eating the nuts and leaving the husks in the system and since we leave the controls set to recycle most of the time its left on the other side on the flap. So if you change it to fresh it all comes down into the fan and causes a lot of noise. (Not mention the smell) We have taken it to Toyota on several occasions, and they have taken the fan out and cleaned it all out. But at $50 a pop it’s a bit of a waste, so we have done it twice our selves.

But we are looking for a solution to stop them getting in. Now I know that the fresh air sucks from below the windscreen but where exactly dose it enter the actual cabin its self ? I am thinking behind the left front wheel.

Rats here a big problem to cars around the sugarcane, we were told by Toyota to put moth balls in the engine bay each night, to stop them eating the rubbers, and ****** and leaving their dropping everywhere. It works well, been doing on our cars for about 18 months works well!

So, any ideas?

Oh, car is an 03 Camry.

[RelishGTP]

I had a similar problem on my old I4 where they would leave palm nuts on my engine block which would lodge into the grooves in the housing and ignite after a while of driving....scary engine fire :P

However for some reason they stopped doing it after continuous weeks of trying to remove the nusts from the housing, Only thing I did was change the location slightly of where I was parking and it seemed to work.

[Rolla Boy]

We get heaps of cars come into work and find wiring, hoses and anything plastic with naw marks and holes...

One car came in complaining of a misfire... Rats had eaten three of the injector wires lol...

[ASG14]

Same her ein the US with Mice.....Then leave the accorns all over the car. Usually they leave it in the air intake box, lol. I've had to clean them out so many times. And same as Rolla Boy, they eat through wires here too. One nawed a piece of a spark plug wire off on my dad's car last year!

[trdwanab]

put rat pellets around your car? lol

or u know that cat and dog spray that stinks so bad it deters them? maybe spray it on the underside of ur engine(avoid the fan so it doesnt get blown onto you in the drivers seat lol).. that way they go to get in and something really stinks so they leave?

i dont have many ideas but hey, might work.

we have huge water rats here.. but thankfully i think theyre too big to get into the car? lol

[mbruce]

put rat pellets around your car? lol

Yeah done that. I think there is an endless amount of the rats though. We used to put out a box a night for a while, but every morning it was all gone, and they still kept coming around. So we gave up as it was costing a fortune with no results. We have stoped them coming into the engine now with the moth balls. I think we will have to do some pulling to bits and put some mesh or something to stop them getting in the A/C.

we have huge water rats here.. but thankfully i think theyre too big to get into the car? lol

The ones here a large cane rats, but they still get in, dont know how though!

[$ANGELO$]

just spend a night outside with the car, a case of beer and a sledge hammer!