FarmerDave
Member
Get an outdoor cat. My yard was overrun by chipmunks and squirrels. Socks the hunter cat took care of the chipmunks in short order, and the squirrels saw what happened and decided to stay away.
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First significant problem with LR AWD after 2 years and 28k miles
- Thread starter GregD60
- Start date
Rickford
Member
Shoot...
I just sprayed with capsicum small openings at the base of my garage door where little critters could get in. Seemed like a good idea from a previous post where he used capsucum on his wires or someplace. I should have known that a slight breeze usually blown into my garage when I open the door. Well guess what, now I can't go into my garage let alone the critters!!! Had no idea how powerful that stuff is. I'm sure it works but if you use it BE CAREFUL!
I just sprayed with capsicum small openings at the base of my garage door where little critters could get in. Seemed like a good idea from a previous post where he used capsucum on his wires or someplace. I should have known that a slight breeze usually blown into my garage when I open the door. Well guess what, now I can't go into my garage let alone the critters!!! Had no idea how powerful that stuff is. I'm sure it works but if you use it BE CAREFUL!
The saga continues. A couple of days after getting the car back, I noticed that the right front parking light wasn't coming on. I only noticed this when I saw my wife pull into the garage one night. After checking all the lights, I determined that the right front fog light wasn't working either. Back to the service center this morning. At least this time I was able to drive it there and they gave me a Model X loaner.
I just heard from them, and it's more rodent damage to a different wiring harness. Again, it's the purple wire that was chewed through. I guess purple wires are particularly yummy. This time they're going to replace the harness rather than fix it for $313 plus tax. Rodents/squirrels are expensive!
Here's the pic.
I just heard from them, and it's more rodent damage to a different wiring harness. Again, it's the purple wire that was chewed through. I guess purple wires are particularly yummy. This time they're going to replace the harness rather than fix it for $313 plus tax. Rodents/squirrels are expensive!
Here's the pic.
I thought of that, but there are some obstacles. Since I don't have a service or wiring manual, it becomes somewhat a matter of luck to figure out where to look for the problem, and I have to hope that the damage is obvious. It looks like for both of these incidents it was fairly obvious if you knew where to look. For the parking and fog light, my guess is that the wiring is somewhere near the light, but for the system failure caused by the first wiring issue, I would have had no idea where to start looking. There's a fair amount of hassle getting to the wiring: jacking the car up, removing the wheels, removing fender liners and/or underbody covers, etc. If you don't know where to look that could be very time consuming. And that's assuming that it isn't part of the wiring harness that you have to access from the inside of the car where bits of the interior have to be removed.
Are service manuals and wiring diagrams even available from Tesla? If so, where can one get them and how much do they cost?
I did a bit of searching, and it seems that you can't actually purchase service manuals, but you can pay for a subscription to access the service information on line by the hour, day, month, or year.
Subscription Level * 1 Hour - $31.88 24 Hours - $106.25 One Month - $371.88 One Year - $3,187.50
If I'm trying to repair wiring I doubt that one hour would be enough, so I'm looking at $106.25 before I even start.
Subscription Level * 1 Hour - $31.88 24 Hours - $106.25 One Month - $371.88 One Year - $3,187.50
If I'm trying to repair wiring I doubt that one hour would be enough, so I'm looking at $106.25 before I even start.
Rodents ate right through that appetizer then finished with the wiring to my Acura knock sensor.
Dolemite
is my name
iwannam3
Active Member
Mice teeth are constantly growing and they are driven to chew on things. They will even chew old lead sheath covered cables.
How about ultrasonic repellents if you park outside? Can't imagine it would be much of a drain on the battery. Amazon.com : mouse blocker
Or do the whole garage.
https://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Blocker-Ultrasonic-Deterrent-Strobing/dp/B074TJ1GLH
How about ultrasonic repellents if you park outside? Can't imagine it would be much of a drain on the battery. Amazon.com : mouse blocker
Or do the whole garage.
https://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Blocker-Ultrasonic-Deterrent-Strobing/dp/B074TJ1GLH
I'm a wildlife biologist and that does not look like rodent chewing. The perfect edge at either end of the "incision" was not done by a rodent. The center portion of the cut that has more irregular edges may be, but I would need more photos. If a rodent chews something, there will be tooth marks on the opposing sides of the object. Were there? They also do not create a perfectly straight cut like you would see with a scalpel, such as in your photo.It turned out to be what Tesla called rodent damage. We actually think it may have been a squirrel based on where the car stopped running. I've never had rodent damage to any car over the last 40+ years of car ownership. Do Teslas have particularly tasty wiring?They repaired the wiring harness near the front drive unit. It cost $232.50. They initially thought they were going to have to replace the harness, but then decided to repair it.
Here's a picture.
View attachment 607855
Apone
Member
interesting. I’ve been reading and saying that in all my years lurking car forums, this seems to be a decent number of rodent damage reports. Would actually be a relief to find out it’s something else. The nest in the glovebox is rodents though, still creeps me out.
I agree that the straight edge doesn't look like it was chewed. I didn't see it in person; the photos were taken by the Tesla service center folks. I can think of a number of possible reasons for the straight edges however. A couple of those possibilities are that the wiring loom may be a split loom similar to the picture below, or maybe they had to cut the wiring loom open to provide enough access to properly check the wires.
Question to OP. When your wife went to drive the car, was there an OTA that was installed? In my situation, I parked the car after returning from work on Friday, went back to drive it on Sunday evening and the screen showed exact same set of warnings/alerts. I noticed that just an hour prior to it, an OTA was installed. Car is in service center (had to be towed) for 2 weeks and the quote is $2000+ (they are replacing rear drive unit and 12v battery). Mine is a 2012 Model S p85, out of warranty.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Same story with my car. No doubt about the diagnosis, given the amount of droppings
Sadly, this stuff happens. I ran over to my mother-in-law's house because her Hyundai was "posessed" during a snowstorm last winter. Turns out it was rodent damage, but as the snow fell, I guess one of the gnawed wires got wet and caused some kind of a short - the lights were flashing, horn was honking, relays were clicking - all sorts of intermittent issues. The only thing I could do in the storm was disconnect her battery and suggest calling AAA when the storm was over.
Thankfully her mechanic is fantastically honest and repaired the wiring, rather than the harness. $100 later he had it all patched up. But it's definitely a "thing".
Thankfully her mechanic is fantastically honest and repaired the wiring, rather than the harness. $100 later he had it all patched up. But it's definitely a "thing".
roblab
Active Member
No. They paid for a tech who knew where to look and knew how to repair it. I don't suppose they left the wiring exposed.
For some reason, rats and squirrels seem to like Tesla's wire coating. My daughter also had her Tesla wiring harness chewed.
To be honest, I'm puzzled and very disappointed that I have to shelve out $2k + for a car that just sat at parking over the weekend and was just running fine until the day before. I can't accept or comprehend that it's a 'hardware' failure that 'magically' happened without any warnings. I see several owners reporting exact alerts/warnings showing up on the screen since April this year, so this problem is not unique to one specific car or few cars. Lots of Teslas seem to have exact failures in the last 6 months and it can't be a coincidence. I feel that Tesla is not being honest and transparent on this. I feel that they're avoiding a recall situation and fixing their problems at the expense of customers. In my case the parts (rear drive unit and 12v battery) is ~$300 and the labor for 9 hours is $1800. It's a rip off in my opinion. Please tell me if I'm wrong in my observations. I'm not alone on this.
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