Big Dave

Our home is about 10 miles north of Milwaukee, but it's pretty rural. We hear coyotes at night, and sometimes cows from the farms nearby. Lots of critters around.

Found a (freshly) dead mouse under the 928 when I drove it last week for the first time since before Thanksgiving. Put traps around the garage with peanut butter. My wife reported seeing one of the buggers running across the garage floor, so I knew they were there somewhere. One of the kids actually caught a baby mouse, so there had to be a nest somewhere. After 3 days with nothing in the traps, it was time to pull everything out of the garage and find the vermin.

The 928 runs fine, with no signs of trouble. Parked it outside while I emptied the garage. After pulling half the crap out of my garage without finding a nest, I remembered reading here on Rennlist about the buggers liking 928 air filters. I didn't expect to find anything since the car's running normally, but sure enough, there was a damn nest right on top of the filter. When I pulled the cover off, the damn mouse was right there. It jumped out and ran down into the engine bay.

I pulled the filter off, and saw they chewed a bit of the filter, but not enough to let any debris onto the MAF. Cleaned the old filter off with a shop-vac and reinstalled it for the next step. Buttoned everything back up after cleaning the intake hoses and fired the car up. After a few moments I guess it got hot in there, so the mouse came right out and was unceremoniously squished.

At least the garage is clean now, and it was time for a new filter anyway.

I understand why the air filter compartment makes a nice home for a mouse. I just don't understand how they find it in so many 928s!

Other than that, I'm shocked that the car ran without problems with so much garbage blocking the filter.

SeanR

They make great storage areas.

PHIL928

Did you drive through a dog food factory or something? hahaha

MainePorsche

Sounds like it was their winter hibernation residence.
One thing I do for my winter sleep is to stuff both air intake ports over the radiator with steel wool. I also do the same for the exhaust. These critters will want to go anywhere safe.

SeanR

Customers car, he's only had it for a little over a week and they had already claimed it as home.

Had another one in that I did a lot of work on, it had been in storage since 2002 and once it started...... let me tell you, it take a long time to burn off a mouse/rat nest from the back end of the exhaust. And it stinks really really bad.

worf928

There is a simple solution: Cats.

And not the kind that add back pressure.

I've cleaned many a nest from many a 928. Never one of my own though.

dr bob

I put a layer of window screen on the back of the nozzles at the radiator sheet/fan consoles. Cut a circle of screen that's about an inch larger in diameter than the end of the nozzle. I used black electrical tape to hold it on, wrapped around the edge of the screen to hold it to the nozzle. The air duct tube slides over that nicely, hiding the tape and the screen. Look in the front of the nozzle and there's the screen at the rear. We don't have a rodent problem here, so for me that's the collecting spot for insects, cigarette butts and and the like that normally end up clogging the air filter. I just vacuum the stuff out when I clean the car.

There have been a few other folks who've added larger welded-wire screen to the front of the same nozzles, specifically to keep rodents out. Effective but maybe not as reversible as what I did. Plus mine is pretty much out of sight, except maybe when giant yellow moth season arrives.

dr bob

Thinking RMB (rear mouse bypass). Shoots 'em out like a cannon...

Big Dave

This was a pretty easy fix. I suppose it could have been worse if they started eating wires. That's still a possibility, but like I said, the car still runs as well as it did before I put it away for the winter.

I like the idea of covering the inlets with mesh.

I'm not a cat kinda guy. Terrible allergy.

Bjbpe

Revenge against the mice!!!

I had to replace a large part of my wiring harness because of the little buggers. Living way out in the mountains of WY they are everywhere.

I now have bait poison all over the garage. PETA may not approve but I didn't ask the little buggers to come in. I used to use the spring traps but I did not find them as effective as the poison bait. Once the trap is spring, mice have nothing to fear until you reset it. The poison is effective until it runs out. Some have said that mice will eat the poison and then find a place to hide and die thus raising a stink. I have not found that to be the case. The dead ones seem to be right out in the open where you can throw them away.

Big Dave, you must be a candidate for the "Neatest Garage in the World" award. I would have a tough time clearing everything out of my garage and, since the whole house is made of logs, I would imagine there would still be places for them to hide.

Bjbpe

Incidentally, I am doing some radio repair work (different thread) and pulled the rear speakers for a wiring check. The damned things had an old nest inside the speaker cavity.

Big Dave

You're probably right. I had found a nest behind some boxes a few months ago that I cleaned out. The mice probably got pissed off that I destroyed their home, so they moved into the 928.

JHowell37

I bought a box of moth *****, cut the wrapper off the top so the smell could drift a little. If I park it inside for more than a few days, I open the hood, and place the box of moth ***** on top of the manifold and let it sit there. Enough of the odor gets out of the box that it drives the mice away.

mdkelly1

After finding the first nest about thirteen years ago, I started literally placing mothballs (wrapped inside old socks) around the engine compartment, inside the air intake ducts, and at the entrance to the intake for the HVAC blower when the car was stored up north each winter. Never had another mouse problem again. No nests, no debris, and no chewed wires.

Of course, I don't know if it was the socks or the mothballs that actually did the trick, but it worked never-the-less

Takes a while to air things out in the spring, but it's a lot less expensive than replacing the wires.

Big Dave

Unless the buggers can fly, I assume they all must climb up the tires. Why not just put mothballs around there? Just curious.