quattro digest, Vol 1 #4218 - Row-dents and their nasty chewing habits

[Larry C Leung]

Ah Gary, the pleasures of living upstate....

As far as the plug wires, apparently they taste sweet to rodents.
Particularly
the silicone ones.

As for prevention, check the archives. I recall Phil Payne and others
mentioned
some Bosch made guard that went over the wires. Won't help the hoses
though.

I've used fresh sprigs of mint (yup, mint leaves) spread all over the
areas that you
want to protect. I covered the wires, hoses, and fresh air plenum (not
that it noticably
freshened the air later, but that is supposedly a common nesting place)
Did that for the GTi (although it has admittedly spent it's stationary
winters in a garage, although most of the garages it had stayed in were
hardly
rodent proof (ya know, the kind with holes in them large enough for a
small cat!),
and haven't had any rodent damage or evidence so it may well work.

I wouldn't depend on a cat. Period. Cats generally belong under cars
sniffing exhaust
(okay, the joke was about the converter, come on! Cats are fine, if a
little boring)

I've also HEARD (never tried) that mothballs may work, although I always
thought that
they repel moths.

Good Luck,

LL - NY

BTW - I will be up in Pok Thanksgiving weekend. Perhaps a drink?




>    1. Row-dents and their nasty chewing habits
> (steinbru at vnet.ibm.com)
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 16 Nov 02 16:37:03 EST
> From: steinbru at vnet.ibm.com
> To: quattro at audifans.com
> Subject:  Row-dents and their nasty chewing habits
>
> Anybody have a good way to discourage mice and other chewing
> critters
> from invading the underhood area?   Stongly discourage!
>
> Whilst checking antifreeze recently I see that (apparently) the
> sweetness of ethylene glycol became an incentive for some pesky
> field
> mouse to chew into my upper turbo coolant line connecting hose.
> There
> was also extensive use of the hood liner mat to line the
> accompanying
> nest.  I'm not sure why, but plug wires seen to be nibbled on too.
>
> Arrrrgh!  Any BTDT that really works?
> --Gary (more than a few audi)
>