A friend of mine just had his C7 in for repair for over 3 weeks. Turns out a squirrel got in and chewed much of his wiring. The dealer told him that the factory coats the wires in peanut oil in order to pull them in easier, and this attracts squirrels. Can this be true????

 

Wow.. That's a first. Not sure about peanut oil but I use a water based gel to pull wires. That said, it dries quickly unlike peanut oil which would give much more time to pull wires. Peanut oil is a first for me but you never know. Either way, it sounds like your friend needs a better place to store his car.

 

It happened to me with my C6 except it was mice. Happily I noticed stuff under my car and took care of the problem by putting out mouse poison. That took care of the problem before they did any significant damage.

Don't know about squirrels, never saw them around my C6 - and there are plenty of squirrels around...

 

Close, actually peanut oil has been used for many years in making the insulation on the copper wire and it does attract rodents. I spent several hours troubleshooting a mouse induced problem with my 2006 GMC Sierra diesel pickup. On occasion the check engine light would be on before the key was inserted and although it would start normally the only way to stop it was to pull the ECM fuse. I found two gnawed wires in the UBEC (underhood bussed electrical center) and thought I had cured the problem but a month later it reappeared. It turned out the actual problem was they had also urinated on top of this fuse center which caused corrosion in the enclosed center section of the "sandwich" creating a conductive path between two wires but ONLY when the humidity was high enough for the corrosion to be sufficiently conductive.

It took several hours with the service manual and making measurements to run the problem down. With high humidity there was sufficient leakage from a constant 12 volt bus to the ignition 1 bus that over a few hours it built to sufficient voltage that the ECM would go active. The only error message that showed up was loss of communications with the TCM (transmission control) which wasn't terribly helpful.

You can see how this part is constructed and a close-up of the damage (green conductive residue) that mice can cause in the attached photos. Suffice to say both garages have multiple lines of anti-rodent defense after that episode.

 

I have an old pickup truck that doesn't get used much .. just sits in the driveway .. and either squirrels or mice got to it in the same way .. ate thru plug wires, hoses .. pretty much everything rubbery under the hood. Cost a few hundred bucks to get the stupid truck running again. Rodents are destructive as hell .. I used to think squirrels were cute .. now they're the enemy ..

 

My Story: With four rescue dogs ... they lived and ate (sometimes) in the garage. Mice love having a plentiful supply of kibble which they promptly stored in my Honda air cleaner. Solution, quit feeding in the garage and I place "sticky traps" at the entrance to the air cleaner. Caught two of those rascals.

 

I work in construction in NYC.
I was working on new building uptown next to a park ..the squirrels were coming into the building and were eating the control wires on air terminals.
So they do eat wires.

 

If your car sits for any length of time, it is vulnerable to rodents. In Tucson, pack rats are the Numero Uno offender. They chew on auto wiring, RV's, A/C units, pool heaters. Equal opportunity. I have a C1 and a Harley undercover that are buffet candidates. I use a 32 oz yogurt/cottage cheese container and gopher mix poison to dissuade them. Depending on the brand, it is either strychnine, cyanide or occasionally arsenic. Formed pellets or sometimes coated grain. The stuff from Home Depot is worthless by the way. Liability issues keep them from selling hard core poisons. So, I cut a half semi circle from the lid inside the snap rim and tape in on the container. Then 1/4 fill it with gopher mix. I keep one in each corner of the garage and one under the engine of the C1. Caution here. Gopher mix is indiscriminate. Dogs, cats, kids all are at risk. We don't have any of those so this solution works for me.

 

I had the check engine light go on in my Porsche and the dealer told me one of the wires (fortunately only one wire for affecting the emission controls) had been chewed up by rats. Cost $600 to fix. On the plus side, same dealer told me that had the rats gotten deeper into the wiring harness, an entire new harness would have to have been ordered from the Fatherland. Since they are all unique by vehicle, it would have cost ~$20k to replace. Ouch. My insurance company would have loved that.

A friend with a Shelby GT500 just got his car back from a month at the dealer because of rat damage. His cost $1500 to repair. My solution - make sure all air vents to the garage are screened, no dog food to tempt the rats and leave a trap out occasionally just to be sure. No problems since.

 

My late sister-in-law had a Grand Caravan adapted for wheelchair use that would sit in her driveway for a week or two at a time. She got the food stored in the air cleaner and random wires chewed here and there. I got very good at using a wire connecter crimping tool and heat-shrink insulation tubing to splice in new lengths of wire.

 

Rat Zapper

 

I HATE freaking tree rats. Sorry about the damage, they’re really good about destroying things. Don

 

I worked for ATT for many years, squirrels cause MILLIONS of dollars in cable, inside wire and terminal damage every year. They did a number on my Jeep Grand Cherokee wiring and fuel injection...17 HMR handles them we'll.

 

Peanut oil ?

man I don't know... I think I'm going to politely call shenanigans on this one.

#1. Peanut oil is not cheap.
#2. Peanut oil smokes like hell when it gets hot.
#3. It would draw all sorts of critters frequently enough that this wouldn't be the first we hear of it.

 

Well how can you blame the little guy??? Peanut oil, he was just hungry. Give the little guy a break.

 

Electric company has had problem with squirrels for years.

 

Seriously, with the risk of a severe allergic reaction just to the residue left over I highly doubt GM uses peanut oil.

The grease that electricians use is not peanut based, in fact I would imagine it's synthetic and would be similar to what GM would be using. It's FAR cheaper than peanut oil too.

Besides unless you're pulling wire in conduit around bends, there is no reason for grease. GM lays the wiring harness in, they don't pull it through multiple bends and boxes.

 

Years ago I had a Cadillac Catera. It was a pretty good car. Well, one time the car started to stink really badly. My mechanic's diagnosis: some mice had made a winter home for themselves in the engine block and gotten fried when I started up the car. Their decomposing bodies stank up the car for about 2 years until they had turned to dust.

 

Sounds like a job for Phil and Si Robertson.
One shot, Squirrel Brains for Dinner. Miss Kay loves Squirrel Brains.

 

During the buyers tour at BG the guide mention that the wheel house liners were made of a material that may attract rodents. Anyone here this or have a problem.