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Rodent Ate My Battery

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eternus

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Thanks for all the feedback guys. Glad several of you mentioned insurance, I was setting myself up to start buying parts.

Based on the behavior and tracks in the snow (and reading about others experience) this had to either have been a squirrel or more likely a rabbit. There were rabbit tracks right up to the side of the truck, the chewing all around was I think just boredom, as they only barely touched the wires and seemed to spent most of their effort on the battery itself and the hood liner. Fuckin rabbits.

Anyway, I'm leaving it alone until I get feedback from the insurance company and ordering some peppermint spray in the meantime.
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KevinM60

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I have a LED strobe light and ultrasonic sound device mounted in the engine compartment and I spray peppermint oil..... I do get nervous with the peppermint oil. Can I liberally just spray the s*** out of the engine with it with all the wiring harnesses and connectors?
the instructions I got with my peppermint spray said to spray enough to leave a light film but not so much as to be dripping or puddling. I’m thinking you can probably spray everywhere except directly on the electronics of concern and the smell will be strong enough to keep them away.


My earlier thread on the same subject

Oh Rats
 
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rr11

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I had chipmunks eat the engine cover on my wife's 13 Wrangler, never touched the wiring. I through the engine cover away and they lost interest. We have a Jack Russel now and she keeps the small animals under control. Never thought about chewing on a battery.
 

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Once you get a rat infection, you need to perform a super clean. Purple Power has shown the best results to cut the smell. As far as electronic deterrent device, battery life / current draw are one of the biggest factors. Look into the Rid a Rat, https://www.ridarat.com/. Designed with super low current draw circuitry. 6 months on 2 AA batteries, or attach to the vehicles battery. Work off of super bright LED flashes not sound. The flashing LED hurts their sight to keep them away.
 

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Went out to my truck to pick up my birthday dinner, pushed start and nothing happened. I tried a couple of times and while i got lights, It wouldn't fire up. I jumped in my wife's car instead, figuring i'd deal with it later. Its later.

I went out there, popped the hood to see if i needed to jump it and this is what i saw. I'm floored. Flummoxed. Really not sure what to do. I mean obviously I get to replace the battery, but there are a couple of wires in there that I can't easily replace, there is the hood liner thats all chewed up as well, and there is the fact that whatever did this... is still somewhere in the area.

Anyone encountered this or have suggestions? I hate to pay Jeep to fix this but I'm not sure what to do about the wiring.
Yeah my garage is littered with mice traps. and i let my truck idle in the garage with all the doors shut every morning. 1 to warm up as i get ready, 2 to give the fuckers CO poisoning. i have a zero tolerance policy for rodents. got terriers and cats in the house. saw multiple mice when i moved in. haven't seen anything but dead ones since solutions implemented.
 

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HOOD LOCKS!!!! :CWL:

Sorry…couldn’t resist. That’s crazy. I’ve never seen them hit a battery like that either.
I read somewhere that this may be happening more because there is more soy being used in the manufacture of plastics and wiring insulation.

Get your insurance company working on the repair; Comprehensive should cover this.
Yes, road/dent insurance should cover.
 
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Comprehensive deductible is $500 so its probably cheaper to just buy my own battery and tape the stuff up myself. I would have to buy a battery to take it to a shop anyway.
 

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Insurance will cover it. Just file a claim. You have to get an estimate from a shop (or stealership) first so the insurance company can contact them to confirm the cost of repairs.

I had a fuzzy woodland critter chew on mine too, nearer the trailer hookup (which caught fire, briefly) and my entire wiring harness needed to be replaced. Total bill was around $4,400. Less deductible, my insurance company (AAA) sent me a check for $3,900. $500 was much easier to handle than the whole schmegeggie.
 

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Happy Birthday!

We just spent over $700 on rodent-wire eating repairs on our Cherokee. Their advice was:
(1) to spray a solution of peppermint or capsaicin hot pepper sauce mixed with water and a few drops of Dawn detergent so it spreads. Generously spray everywhere there is plastic or rubber. Have pump - Will spray!
(2) I have two different electric “anti-rodent” sound devices in our basement and we still get mice.
(3) Get a cat
(4) Garage (if you can) and traps.
Good luck!
Yeah, those electric devices have been proven by independent studies to only work for a very short time.
I've use the peppermint oil thing on my WJ when I had it - it worked fine.

Jeep Gladiator Rodent Ate My Battery d5d03c1ad932a7dd4160ea577294af3a


Acorn season is passing but the squirrels are everywhere. Thought it was curious that I found shells in the battery box so I vacuumed them out. Week later I found shells on top of the battery and I don't need a gold shield or investigation to know why. Bought one of those electronic thingies that seems to be working but I like the idea of the peppermint spray. Why not make it smell good too? :) Just ordered on Amazon.

This obviously sucks for the OP and the subject has been covered before, I think this is always good useful information!
Cost us a bundle when rodents ate the wiring in our heat pump outside unit and fried some things - including the mousey himself. He was crispy between the top of a capacitor and a 220 line.

I dealt with chipmunks and mice in my WJ, and the chipmunks were stashing food under the hood of my JD lawn tractor while I had it outside under the lean-to by my shop.
Squirrels ate our Christmas lighting a couple of years ago.

I go the peppermint oil from Amazon and that helped but you have to keep up with it because the intense odor does dissipate after a while.


The least the OP could do in the name of humanity is leave some Tums out there, geesh.
 
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Insurance will cover it. Just file a claim. You have to get an estimate from a shop (or stealership) first so the insurance company can contact them to confirm the cost of repairs.

I had a fuzzy woodland critter chew on mine too, nearer the trailer hookup (which caught fire, briefly) and my entire wiring harness needed to be replaced. Total bill was around $4,400. Less deductible, my insurance company (AAA) sent me a check for $3,900. $500 was much easier to handle than the whole schmegeggie.
Well i'm confident that this is just the battery, they didn't really give a shit about my wiring. Something literally just crawled into the space next to the battery, then chewed away the corner of it to get more comfortable. There are a couple of wires that got a minor chew done, but really that was not their focus. Anyway, I'm replacing the battery so I can get it to a shop, then I'll submit a claim if I need to get more stuff done.
 

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Well i'm confident that this is just the battery, they didn't really give a shit about my wiring. Something literally just crawled into the space next to the battery, then chewed away the corner of it to get more comfortable. There are a couple of wires that got a minor chew done, but really that was not their focus. Anyway, I'm replacing the battery so I can get it to a shop, then I'll submit a claim if I need to get more stuff done.
If you wind up needing to submit a claim, make sure to retro your battery into that claim (to help meet the deductible) because insurance may actually allow it, i.e. initially looks like a battery problem only but then you realized it was more when it still had electrical issues.
 

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I recently had a rat camp out on the battery. It looked like it was having a party with all the droppings. I placed some rat poison on the battery and in a day or so saw the dead body next to garage door. Glad I caught it early before it started to go through the wires.
 
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My wife has had a string of Grand Cherokees - garaged, even though mice could squeeze under the doors and through chewed holes in the garage, never a mouse problem IN our vehicles.
......... until she drove up to spend the weekend with a bunch of her quilting friends at a friend's cabin in a wooded area. She parked in the gravel drive under the trees as always.
After she gets home, she complains about a scraping noise in the dash - I listen and it sounds like a piece of paper has gone into the defrost vent or something and is like a card on spokes, it was hitting the fan squirrel cage. I told her it just sounded like paper or something, when the weather warmed a bit I'd see what I could do, it was just an annoying noise............. until she was driving us to town and back for something and she backed into the garage as always and something dropped at her foot on the gas pedal. OMG - she can move when motivated.
It was dead - likely the tail was rubbing the fan in there and it finally got blown out when the heat and fan was on high.
Likely it crawled in there while she was in sewing/quilting (if that's what they really do) and found a nice warm spot to rest.
I'm so glad I didn't have to tear into the ductwork on that GC - not a simple process.
 

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Yeah, those electric devices have been proven by independent studies to only work for a very short time.
I've use the peppermint oil thing on my WJ when I had it - it worked fine.

d5d03c1ad932a7dd4160ea577294af3a.gif



Cost us a bundle when rodents ate the wiring in our heat pump outside unit and fried some things - including the mousey himself. He was crispy between the top of a capacitor and a 220 line.

I dealt with chipmunks and mice in my WJ, and the chipmunks were stashing food under the hood of my JD lawn tractor while I had it outside under the lean-to by my shop.
Squirrels ate our Christmas lighting a couple of years ago.

I go the peppermint oil from Amazon and that helped but you have to keep up with it because the intense odor does dissipate after a while.


The least the OP could do in the name of humanity is leave some Tums out there, geesh.
tums? more like alkaseltzer!! maybe they will POP. Do rodents burp?
 

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Yeah, those electric devices have been proven by independent studies to only work for a very short time.
I've use the peppermint oil thing on my WJ when I had it - it worked fine.
I never really had high hopes for that little device and I completely understood it to be a panic purchase but I had not heard of peppermint oil yet. I thoroughly enjoy the smell! Thanks to all.
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