This morning our Mazda MPV was running HORRIBLE. I had the rough idle, blinking CEL, and it was shuddering like were about to break through the sound barrier. After doing a 2 minute search on a MPV site without even opening the hood, I just knew it was because of a split in the PCV hose. I proudly boasted to the wife and a guest what the problem was and how easily I could fix it. She questioned my rash diagnosis a little bit but I responded to each question with such a thick dose of over-confidence and smugness that she quickly said "whatever".

I was all ready to run to the parts store when at the last minute I thought maybe I should pop the hood just to have a visual of which part I am replacing to compare with whatever they give me at the store. So I opened it up and starting searching for the "split hose". Then my eyes ran across a piece of dog food on top of the motor......then I realized there were several pieces of my dog's food in different nooks and crannies and several *droppings* up there as well

Then I noticed one of the spark plug wires that runs across the front. I guess a little rodent decided that the top of our engine was a great place to party at night (actually I'm afraid that they are *BIG* rodents coming from out of my great grandpa's old barn out back). And I guess it eventually got tired of chewing on the dog food and decided to eat my plug wires instead. He gnawed completely through 2 of them and chewed off 1/2 of the head of one of the boots!



Needless to say my *confident* initial diagnosis was completely off base but my wife never said a word (she's the best). And the next time my dog starts barking at "nothing" in the middle of the night, I don't think I'll get so upset with her (the dog, not my wife ).

chknbone

 

haha, great post.

 

Peanut butter on an extension cord, plug it in.......... problem solved!!

 

We've had squirrels go through the wires to the ECU on our old grand marquis twice in about a two week span...had to be towed in twice, same problem. 2nd time we even had a nest inside the engine compartment.

 

That's messed up. (BTW, I mean by telling your wife the truth and not just fixing it! )



When I was to deployed to Jordan years ago, we received a call from the flightline that one of the big aircraft towing trucks was leaking anti-freeze. I grabbed a mechanic and went to investigate. I discovered a cat's head in the engine compartment, severed from the rest of the body. Had to poke it through with a stick to get it out, Crawled up there because it was warm I guess...figured Burt would appreciate that

 

At least it wasn't one of these:




This photo was posted over on meguiarsonline.com in a thread about Meguiar's Ferrari Detail Day and is said to be a 'Camel Spider'. They say they can run 30 mph and jump 6+ feet into the air.

I'd much rather have a rat. LOL!

RP

 

I thought about a squirrel because we have plenty of them and they love the dog’s food too. Most of the day you can see one standing guard on top of the dog house and eating a piece of doggie chow. When they finish it, they hop down, get another piece and hop right back up there. The van is always parked near there, but I’ve never seen one head for the van. Plus this happened some time between sundown and sunup and the poop looks like BIG rat poop. It reminds me of when the county tore down an old school through the woods past our backyard. We had some big ‘ol wharf rats come and move into the old barns that my great grandfather built and dig tunnels all over the place. Saturday while cutting the grass I noticed three or four tunnel entrances going under the house but I thought I could just wait until Monday to call pest control.

I REALLY like the thought of witnessing the "peanut butter on an extension cord" though

chknbone

 

http://www.rodenator.com



(edit: check out the videos )

 

and we thought having cats under the hood was a pain... apparently they are not such a bad idea after all.

 

I had rodent fill up my air filter in my old ranger with dog food. I couldn't understand why I was getting poor mileage until I changed fluids and filter.

Pesky little critters.......