Mouse Damaged Wiring

Beware of soy based wire insulation in vehicles. For a while, Toyota used soy wires and many Toyota owners are suffering for wires that have been chewed through by rodents. There have been a bunch of lawsuits, but as far as I can tell they've all been dismissed in Toyota's favor. Twice, I've had it happen to my Tundra. Unfortunately, this time, they did $12,000 in damage to my truck and the insurance company declared it a total.

p.s. Does anyone know of a pickup truck for sale in New England that can tow at least 7,000 lbs?
 

Randy V

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Toyota is not the only one. My 97 Ford F150 has it as well and the rats & mice ate gobs of the wiring right up to the connectors! I'll post photos when I get to my iPad..
 

Bill Kearley

Supporter
Try living in northern British Columbia. Porcupines will literally eat the wiring and tires right of a vehicle and have plywood for desert in wooded areas. This has been going on for years, Did I here this or is it my imagination. A class action law suit?
 
FYI All,
acquired a “nice vehicle” this year (not a ‘40, :confused: abut…) came with these from
previous owner…

Grandpa Gus’s Mouse Pouches

(**note: no affiliation w/ above product or company!**)

…but I can say that they are effective and do, in fact “fend off mice“!
Lots of those critters here (Michigan) and well worth the try to keep ‘em away…
 

Randy V

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I was able to affect repairs to the wiring and saved the truck…
Notice the vacuum lines were also eaten…

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I have seen eaten wire insulation and hood insulation on a 1991 Ford . Everything was fine until a few years ago so I think they learned from the soy to try out other wire.
 
I was able to affect repairs to the wiring and saved the truck…
Notice the vacuum lines were also eaten…
That was a very determined critter. Congrats on saving your truck.

I'm torn between buying back my truck and getting a new one. With sufficient time and parts, I can attempt to fix it, but I'm worried that the mice will eat the wiring a third time.
 

Randy V

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It’s a long story, but basically I was given the truck by my next door neighbor since it had not been used in a couple years and when it did, it didn’t run well and the transmission sometimes would not shift. It had been in his family since new in 96 (its a 97) and was his daily driver in college. Now with a wife and 2 kids - it just sat. I had nothing to lose. A new front wiring harness could be purchased for almost $900, but I wanted to see how bad it ran, shifted, etc. As it turned out, the shifting problems were caused by being almost 4 quarts low on ATF and with 150k miles on the spark plugs, their gaps were now pretty uniform at .110”. I changed ATF and Filter. No leaks, so it’s sort of a mystery as to where the fluid went. It now runs smooth, shifts nicely. I still have to charge the AC and do some other repairs.. Meanwhile, my repaired wiring harness seems to be working well! I’ll try to find some photos of my repair process.
Splicing wiring is not fun, but it’s not rocket science either. I only had to refer to a wiring and vacuum line diagram a couple times.
 

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