Phoenix said

Having said that, I've made a 'killing' over the years repairing rodent damage on vehicles....

So it’s you creeping around at night putting mice under my cars! Filters are in fact so good that in certain circumstances, when the ambient air is already polluted, a diesel car will tend to extract more particles from the air than it emits. Emissions Analytics worked with........etc etc

He who dies with the most toys wins...

recordman wrote:

Allegedly, they don't like the smell of peppermint.

I had mice nest in the engine bay of my car, fortunately no damage done. I brushed on a coating of peppermint oil from the baking aisle at Tesco and they haven't been back.

Bill wrote:

Phoenix said

Having said that, I've made a 'killing' over the years repairing rodent damage on vehicles....

So it’s you creeping around at night putting mice under my cars!

I discovered by "chance" during a check-up by my indie that my L322 2012 TDV8 has a rodent repellent "Ultrasonic" device installed at the bottom of the engine. it looks like a running wire looping under the engine and supposedly repell all rodents...
the thing is most likely responsible for draining my battery...
don't know about rodent repelling efficiency. haven't had any problems with them so far though.  "it needs some intelligence to undestand you may not have enough"

I recently discovered early signs of chewing some wires, fortunately they had gone specifically for some accessory wires I’d wrapped in self-amalgamating tape. I got one of these from AE for £4.95 and modded it slightly to fit on the relay box already bolted to the inner wing:






These boxes use a sequence of bright flashing lights and ultrasonic screams to deter rodents, apparently they work better than most other things, time will tell. Current draw is 5mA on standby and up to 17mA when “sounding off”. Humans can only hear a feint clicking of the speaker. The enclosure is IP00 so I drenched the innards in ACF-50 to try to prevent corrosion, but at that price you can chuck a new one in every year anyway. The sequence runs for about 15s, then sleeps for about 5mins, so current draw isn’t significant, my fullfat is always plugged in to the CTEK when at home in any case. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” -where’s the fun in that?

I was very surprised when this first happened to me - after so many years in the same place, with so many different cars - why now? And why twice?

Even more surprising was the answer (if true...) in that apparently a huge amount of insulation and suchlike in our cars is now made from plant-based stuff, not plastic.

Basically, mouse food!

Whoever thought that was a good idea?!

(Again, if it's true...)

I now surround my cars with two deterrents while parked.

Firstly, naphthalene mothballs (if you can find them) - but just outside the car and under the bonnet.

Some crushed and some whole.

Inside and outside, I have the plug-in electronic pest/rodent repellents.

I can't tell you which is best as I started both at the same time, but no trouble since...fingers crossed

At least you haven't got a Fox problem - this happened to a family member who lost brakes which was a very frightening experience
https://foxrepellentexpert.com/stop-foxes-...e%20fluid. 2012 TDV8 Vogue (L322)

"Another idea is that car manufacturers use some sort or soy or animal fat substance in the rubber coating that protects car wiring and this proves too difficult for foxes to resist"

So there's some truth in the plant-based theory...

Modern cars are made from food!

Genius.

Got rid of 5 mice in my attic. Used chocolate as bait. None found for a week now. Sounded like a herd of elephants in the night😃 Previous cars:
S-Max 2007-2013 (only diesel I've had, good car but expensive when diesely bits go wrong, so what's the point?)
Galaxy 2001-2007
Mondeo Estate 1997-2001
Sierra Estate 1993-1997
Uno Turbo 1987 -1993
Fiesta 1984 - 1987
Fiat 127 1982 - 1984