Hi All,
I have mice invading my roadster. It's been sitting for nearly 8 months with a no crank, no start issue with I'm working slowly through (only on some weekends since it's parked at my mother in laws). But two weeks ago, I opened the truck and spotted a mouse running around. I put a trap in the truck and caught a mouse. The next weekend I saw a partially built nest and put another trap in the truck. Caught another mouse. Being worried about mice getting into the car, I removed the cowl under the windshield, cleaned out the drains, and put a 1/4" mesh screen over the air vent into the cabin. This weekend, I ended up trapping 7 more mice using one trap in the truck and one inside the cabin on the drivers side floor. The windows are rolled all the way up and there aren't any holes in the ragtop. Looking around the truck with the coverings removed and looking around the firewall, there don't seem to be any obvious openings for the mice. I know they are small and can squeeze through most holes, but I'm not seeing any obvious places where light is coming through. Any suggestions or idea how they might be getting into the cabin? (I'm hoping this is the last of the litter from the first mice before the screen was in place, but that's worrying since that probably means they have eaten my wiring harness to hell .)
Thanks in advance, sincerely
Jerry

​​​​​​​

 

In the trunk, below the carpet level and behind each wheel is a flap type valve that allows air to escape when yon slam the door shut. Maybe the get in that way.

 

Thanks 180,
I'll take a look and see if the flaps are jammed open or chewed apart.
-Jerry

 

First, it is sad to me that with all we know about our cars, that yours was not fixed in the first two weeks. A no crank, no start is no longer hard to diagsnose. If the engine fan runs fast with key "ON", it's the RCM. Replace it or fix it or have DJ fix it.

If the fan does NOT come on fast with key ON, it can be challenging, but it almost always boils down to:

Battery with a bad cell (battery voltages of less than about 10.5 will result in no starter engagement).
Bad Clutch interlock switch (manuals only).
Bad relay on the pulse module (REAL easy to diagnose).
Starter solenoid failure (VERY rare, in 14 years on here, I've seen it one time with the Crossfire); easy to diagnose as well.
Bad SLA (autos only, pretty common).

Pressing the relay on the pulse module will tell you a lot, the starter will engage if you do that, if it does not, check for 12 volts on the arm of the relay, if it is there, it's the solenoid/starter. If there is no voltage OR if the starter engages, you have one of the above issues. One last thing: If you, or the 'mechanic' is trying to find this without the wiring diagram in the service manual, you are wasting your time. "I can't read wiring diagrams" means you better get someone who can.

Second, consider seeing if insurance will "total" the car. If they have been chewing the wiring, you may end up tearing that car limb from limb to replace the harness - which is no longer available anwway.

How did they get in? They got in because they can, you can't stop them, you can seal the car up and they will climb the tires and FIND away, that is what they do - they are designed for this. I am interested in where the car was stored, Iv'e never heard of this happening in a garage, only uHaul places and livestock barns. And most Uhaul places (mine was stored in one for three years) are so clean and have enough poison and traps present that you need not worry.

You cant keep them out, ya gotta keep the car away from them, period.

 

I live in Escondido California. This year we've had a lot of rain which has led to an explosion of rodents. I have two 2005 crossfire roadsters, one manual, one automatic. Both are/were driven only on weekends, sometimes not for a couple of weeks. Both are parked in the driveway under car covers. The auto has the no crank, no start issue, but the other had a third party alarm issue which I thought would be a fast fix, but it took a lot longer to fix than I thought it would. Only the auto has had the mouse invasion even though both have been sitting for the last 3 months. My house is surrounded by acres of open fields, so no place is free from rodents except the house. The garage door isn't air tight like the house doors, so mice still get into the garage. I learned the hard way after I put my restored 64 mustang in there for the winter, and I found 12 mice nests inside it when I opened it up for summer. Yes, I had the dry sheets in it, 6 ultrasonic emitters around it, etc. I had to tear out the new interior down to bare metal and power wash it. I found leaving the cars in the driveway minimizes the rodent threat since they don't like bright places, the owls and hawks get them when they move around, and the snakes crawl in to finish the job. My border collies use to take care of everything (e.g., eat everything), but they died a few years back. I had to take everything off the mustang, weld fine mesh over all the holes (rubber grommets rot) before I was able to stop the mice from getting in. With the crossfires, I figured they were tighter since over the last 10 years, this is the first year I've had mice inside. Sure, they get inside the engine compartment, and I've found them inside the fan housing (reason for the grid over the vent opening), but never inside the cabin. I figure some rubber grommet/flap has failed/been eaten. I didn't know about the flaps in the truck, but the encouraging thing about that is that the truck area is tight enough to need an air escape.
I plan on starting another thread for the no crank, no start issue. I've tried most of the obvious things - Battery is 5 months old, drain current is 0.025amps off, 6 amps with key On. I've tried 3 different RCMs - all worked in the manual, but no joy for the auto. Tested starter solenoid and starter - they work fine. Using the DRB III emulator, I can talk to the SLA and TMU - both read the position of the shift lever correctly. I have a black square where the gear indicator should be in the instrument cluster. The persistent error code is P0600, and before I cleared them all, I read P0720 and P0600..

 

I do know this: Car covers seem to attract trouble. I tried using one in 2015, within three months, I gave it away. I had ants and spiders all over and inside the car.

The blank shift square is your clue -the SLA is not right or there is harness damage. Remember, the SLA has to indicate PARK or N for the ECU to engage the starter. If turning the key to ON and waiting 45 seconds does not cause the engine cooling fan to warp to high speed, I'd be looking at the SLA.

If the fan DOES spin up fast, then the ECU is not powering up but the FCM is. This can be isolated with the wiring diagrams, connector pinouts and a voltmeter.

 

Here, it's so dry and hot during the summer, we don't get many spiders or ants except in the flower beds around the house. Mostly scorpions which fortunately don't climb. It can get to 116F in the shade during mid-summer so most of the critters will stay away from the inside of the cars. The strange thing was this weekend was in the low 80's, and two of the mice I found were dead in the truck - like they died of heat stroke. I don't use poison. I'll keep plugging away and see where the hole is...
I've left the key in the On position for nearly an hour while I was interrogating all of the systems using the DRBIII clone, and the fan didn't come on. I thought it could be the SLA, but using the DRBIII clone, I could talk to it and see the position of the shift lever (park or neutral, I didn't try drive), so I put it down further on the possibility list. But, I'll give it a try this weekend since I have a used one from a CLK320 (same connector and shift pattern, slightly different housing configuration). I'll just plug the CLK SLA in without installing it and see if the black square goes away. If it doesn't go away, might be the CLK isn't compatible, is also broken, or it's something else.
Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Hi All,
I thought I would give a brief update. Since I put the grid over the HVAC vent under the cowl, I still caught 16 mice in the car, but the last one was about 2 months ago. Not sure if I just exhausted the rodent population in the local vicinity of the car. Time will tell. I will keep setting the baited traps in the car. Unfortunately, the best repellent I've found is gasoline - I use a small jar with a hole in the lid sitting in the trunk. Don't like using that continuously, but every now and then I use it to remind the mice they are not welcome.

 

I don't know how true this is, but I heard that Irish Spring soap will keep the little bass turds away.

 

Where the hell are you parking the car that it is infested with mice? Or should I ask, "How long was the car left sitting that an infestation occured?"

I had a similar situation with the Graphite Roadster when I parked it outside and put a stupid-assed 'car cover' over it. For some reason, that attracted ANTs. I mean hundreds of ants moved in over the first weekend the car sat there.
GOt rid of them with poison, never put the cover on again, no problems - parked in the SAME SPOT, even.

 

Hi M60A,
Thanks for the suggestion, but yes, I've tried Irish Spring soap, they just ate it . I've tried drier sheets, air fresheners, ultrasonic devices. I've tried plastic sheeting under the tires, putting the car on jack stands all to no avail. I often imagine the mice are laughing at me as I try all these things. Obviously, if I drove the car daily, I wouldn't be having these problems. But, also, some cars are just better buttoned up than others - I have a truck that sits out there in the driveway for weeks at a time before I drive it, and in 12 years I haven't found any evidence that a mouse has found it's way into the cabin.
Mice are looking for food and shelter (just like people). My XF sits in a 60 ft by 30 ft driveway/pad, near the N/E edge. Beyond the pad, on the South side is the house, on the other sides of the pad are open fields, hills and a road. We have hawks, coyotes, snakes, and owls hunting nearby, so the mice are looking for a safe place to nest. Strangely, this year we've had a lot of rodents, but no owls in the owl boxes, so that might be contributing. Unfortunately, my XF has a no crank issue which I'm only able to work on sporadically during the weekends (work and life get in the way), so it's been sitting for about a year. Yeah, I know that doesn't help, but it is what it is. I have fun troubleshooting, and learning about how a more modern car works, and since this is my wife's toy, I'm don't have the pressure to get it on the road right away although that's starting to change.

 

I don't know much about these or how much they cost. I've seen as low as $399.00 to as high as $4000.00.
Outdoor car storage capsule. It completely surrounds the car, but it is made of plastic so those little bastids might chew through it.
Just a thought.

 

Try using those poison bait traps. I tried the regular mouse traps in the house and garage and got around seven mice. There were some more that tripped the trap without getting caught so I put the trap in a brick tunnel with only one way in, that caught a few more. The traps were rebaited and no more mice, but today my cat nosed under the dishwasher and on inspection I found the poison trap had been chewed on. I do not like using poison but it’s a last resort.
with this cooler weather l am going to have to rebait the traps. Peanut butter seems to be good but I am leaving the poison bait where it is, no mercy this time around. They can breed faster than I can kill them.

 

Keep an eye on the cat. You don't want it eating poisoned mice.

 

In my case, I use the life trap traps - the bait I'm talking about is dog kibble. Although I may have to change the kibble since it doesn't seem like the mice like them - one or two chews, and they leave them alone. After I trap them, I let them go a few hundred feet into the grove - waste not, want not, something will catch, and eat them. I won't use poison - had a neighbor who wanted to get rid of ground squirrels and started just tossing poison all over the place. One day I noticed my dog carrying what looked like a blue stick around - it was the poison. I mentioned it to my neighbor (city folk), and since they had dogs as well, they stopped using the poison, instead they just shot the squirrels.