In ,
W. eWatson typed:
This is a two part-er. The first part is about repairing a
defective lock mechanism. The second is how to keep rodents
out of the engine area.

Did they visuall check the wiring all the way from the under-hood to the
door lock switches? If not, they likely missed more damage from the rodents.
Allowing them to just kill the power to that section has satisfied the
insurance part of things, so by accepting that instead of insisting on a
fix, you've now almost surely lost any future claim for damage and you're
stuck with the problem yourslef. A mistake IMO. Let them find the poison
BEFORE they get to the under hood! But be careful: PETS like the stuff too
and will ingest it. They'll die as quickly as the rodents will. Dogs and
cats must not be able to get to the poison!

Garage it. In a real garage. Lay lots of poison around the perimeter of the
vehicle so they discover that before going up into the vehicle.
They also make "tents" that tie down and around the vehicle tightly but
they're still prone to rips and tears from wind and rodents.

As for repairing the lock mechanism, I'd say to start by rewiring it from
the door switches to the under-hood connection points and back up thru the
firewall. It's a miserable, rotten job but you're probably stuck with it
now.

HTH,

Twayne`



About 3 weeks ago after returning from a 4 week trip, I
discovered rodents had gotten into the engine compartment
and caused electrical wiring damage to the van. One problem
was that the door lock switches would randomly activate
whether or not the engine was on or not.
1. Most of the damage was covered by insurance, but the
repair shop could not find any evidence the rodents caused
the above problem. Rather than fix the problem entirely, I
asked them to just turn off the mechanism in the body
module that controls the switches. They have done that.

However, I befuddled by the fact that this problem appeared
at the same time as the rodent difficulty. Are there some
areas of the engine and its electrical components that
could have been disturbed by the rodents other than the
wires?
2. The only way I can keep the van from being ravaged
again, aside from putting it in a garage, is to build
something like a fence around it two feet+ high. Woodrats
are about 12' in length. The fence would be reasonably
solid or possibly something like burpap. No holes. One side
would allow me to drive the van into it. The area would be
about 20x10'. Possibly PVC could be used in the case of
fabric or plastic sheets (6mil thickness). Probably I'd
have to build it, but maybe something like this exists.
Comments?