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Thanks to this thread, I am at this moment having my garage rodent proofed!
I did a lot of googling about rodent prevention for cars - found all kinds of advice ranging from dryer sheets to mothballs, and Amazon even sells a battery powered gadget that puts on a light show and makes high frequency noises that are supposed to disturb them (search for ultrasonic rodent repellent).
However, I figure if I'm looking at up to a $30K potential repair, I should talk to a pest control specialist and get his opinion on prevention too. Although it's in his interest to say so, he pretty much told me all those "lights and smells" solutions have marginal benefit (and that might have been him overstating the benefit to be nice). Apparently the resilient little blighters just get used to it.
Recommendation was to identify and close up all the entry points in the garage, set traps and monitor them. I also set up a motion detector on the floor underneath the car. For my garage it's costing me a couple grand, which might seem like a lot but if it prevents little nibblers from getting in to my engine bay, it'll have been worth it!
my daughter owns a feed store here in N. Ca.,,bags of feed, munchies everywhere,,she has 6 cats that have free reign over the whole complex and she has zero rodent problems
A small light at the end of the tunnel. They never did store the car indoors as they said they have no space. Not happy about that, but I am happy that they said the new wiring harness should arrive in a couple of weeks. So I am cautiously optimistic that my car will be back from the dead in time for summer driving. Not getting my hopes up too much though as I am still worried about them being able to do this repair right. They are factory trained techs so they should be able to do it, right? Ugh.
Seems like rennlister diagnosed this on 12/10/21 asking about rodents. This forum is excellent for information gathering. Hope your car repair goes well.
Also I''ve always had pest control for my homes...
Im in Atlanta now... but started quarterly pest control in Oklahoma ... damn giant wolf spiders and tarantulas get in your car and house....
chipmunks just as bad near your home foundation...
Final post! Good news! Got my car back today and it seems good as new. Thumbs up to Porsche Bellevue. Only delay was getting the body wiring harness from Porsche in Stuttgart, but they told us it would be 6-12 months and in reality it ended up being around 4 months. Since then I have hopefully rodent proofed my garage. I got the dog food out of there so no food source. I sealed up where I think the rat got in. There are traps everywhere. Things that rats don't like are the peppermint odor and light. Seems those sonic deterrents are BS. For normal engines in the front under the hood you spray the peppermint spray on the engine. Not really possible for the 911 so I am spraying the peppermint spray on some cardboard and sliding that under the engine. Also I got a very bright LED light to shine on the engine from underneath. Last thing is I continue with my motion detection camera pointed under the engine area. Honestly I think my rat problems are a thing of the past. I don't want to go through that again! BTW I never did catch the rat that did the damage. In fact I have not caught any rats anywhere. Smart little buggers!
im the one that had the rodent problem,,,knock on wood hasnt been back, put led under car,,took tupperware off and sprayed peppermint oil with a yard sprayer, has 3' nozzle and can get way back into engine compartment, have mouse and rat bait out and its untouched so far, also have some traps around, untouched..and i put battery powered motion lites on floor of garage,,Whew!
Final post! Good news! Got my car back today and it seems good as new. Thumbs up to Porsche Bellevue. Only delay was getting the body wiring harness from Porsche in Stuttgart, but they told us it would be 6-12 months and in reality it ended up being around 4 months. Since then I have hopefully rodent proofed my garage. I got the dog food out of there so no food source. I sealed up where I think the rat got in. There are traps everywhere. Things that rats don't like are the peppermint odor and light. Seems those sonic deterrents are BS. For normal engines in the front under the hood you spray the peppermint spray on the engine. Not really possible for the 911 so I am spraying the peppermint spray on some cardboard and sliding that under the engine. Also I got a very bright LED light to shine on the engine from underneath. Last thing is I continue with my motion detection camera pointed under the engine area. Honestly I think my rat problems are a thing of the past. I don't want to go through that again! BTW I never did catch the rat that did the damage. In fact I have not caught any rats anywhere. Smart little buggers!
Wow, what a story. You were lucky you had USAA. They are a good insurance company. You were so patient through the whole process - don’t think I would have been that much of a cool cat. My 991,2 C2S is in a barn garage with traps and moth *****. Going to invest more in securing the garage - including peppermint!
Last edited by PAPorscheGuy; 04-15-2021 at 06:26 AM.
I have put around 500 miles on the car since the repair and it has been great except for one potentially disastrous oopsie I thankfully discovered before anything happened. When the PDK is in "park" it behaves like it is in neutral, so it can just freely roll away. Holy sh*t! So glad I did not put the car in park and just walk away. I envision the car being on a slight slope and just rolling away towards who knows what kind of disaster. I pulled into a parking lot, turned the car off, put it in park, and was checking my phone(looking down at it) when I started feeling this bumping which was strange. Then I realized the car was rolling. Thankfully the parking brake works fine. Yeah I know you should always use the parking brake, but you should not have to use the parking brake or else your car rolls away. Back to the dealer tomorrow. Hoping it will be a quick fix. Dealer should breath a sigh of relief nothing happened as something like that could potentially kill someone. Otherwise the PDK was fine and no warning messages of any kind.
Edit: Found this discussed on another thread. Probably a cable disconnected. Easy fix seems like.
Above I90 looking down on the Columbia River. Either was flat or I put the parking brake on since the car is not rolling away
Wow, what a story. You were lucky you had USAA. They are a good insurance company. You were so patient through the whole process - don’t think I would have been that much of a cool cat. My 991,2 C2S is in a barn garage with traps and moth *****. Going to invest more in securing the garage - including peppermint!
your garage has a gravel floor, not concrete..is there a concrete stem wall under the perimiter walls
Rolling in park problem was in fact a disconnected cable so that was a quick fix. Unfortunately when I was driving it home I started getting a big clunk from the left rear of the car when hitting bumps, so back to the dealer one more time. Dropped it off Monday morning and no word so far. The park problem was fixed same day on Saturday by a different tech than the one who did the big repair so I am thinking they will let the original tech fix the clunk problem.
Maybe also advise him to go over the car one more time to make sure all the bolts are tight.
Turns out the clunk in the back was due to a small rock that got wedged in the suspension so no relation to the repair. Just a bizarre coincidence. My wife suggested some sort of exorcism for the poor car
All good now and this time I expect it to stay that way. I always like to point out that the car itself has been great. All this was due to a rat!
did insurance report this to carfax? My friend had a brand new shelby GT500 spin a rod while he was sitting at a drive thru. Car only had 500 on the odometer. Dealer offered to replace the engine but will report to carfax which he is unhappy about as it will hurt the cars value. Being that your engine was not replaced, maybe your good.
The maintenance records on CARFAX only mention "engine removed to complete repair" but does not specify what the repair was for. The Carfax report is clean. If I was doing a personal sale I would be straight with a potential buyer. I keep all the service records. No plans to sell it though. Hoping it's all good now.
01-28-2021, 05:23 PM
