Car-spotting thread

Carson said:
While finishing up a road ride today, I saw a squirrel with a mouthful of grass go under my Maverick and not come out the other side.

I popped the hood to find a few handfuls of grass and this:

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Surpringly, only the horn and parking light don't work. The turn signal does. No other issues or warning lights.

It goes in Thursday morning for estimate. Any guesses?

I'm annoyed at myself because there are only a few squirrels on my street and last year my neighbor's car was totaled out by a rodent chewing through the ECU harness on a car with 130K miles on it. Likely this same fucker.

Trap and peppermint oil ordered. Irish Spring and dryer sheets for now and the hood is up. He's destroyed his last vehicle.
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I've already initiated the 2025 tree rat elimination campaign. I've fed the neighborhood fox with 4 of them so far.
 
Patrick said:
I'll splice it. I have the tools to depin the connector. Solder it up then wrap it.
My father is a tv repair man. He has the ultimate set of tools.
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Thank you for the offer.

I dropped it off this afternoon for my convenience and they looked at it before end of day.

As predicted, it's 3 small sections and they will order pigtails and solder them in. They are apparently doing it all the time now with the soy-based wiring and have gotten pretty proficient at it (hopefully).

Diagnosis, parts, and labor $881. He said I definitely caught it early as it's the least amount of damage they've seen.

Full engine harness would be over $3000 and they'd have to remove a ton of stuff, so I'm going with the pigtails and hoping for the best. Parts should be in on Friday.
 
Years ago I worked in autobody and at that time HID headlight theft was high. The worst (or easiest to steal) was the 5th gen Maxima. Can't tell you how many harnesses we replaced on those cars, and it was always the entire harness due to the airbag sensors that would get cut when they pulled the lights out. Good easy money back in the day.
 
TommyF said:
Years ago I worked in autobody and at that time HID headlight theft was high. The worst (or easiest to steal) was the 5th gen Maxima. Can't tell you how many harnesses we replaced on those cars, and it was always the entire harness due to the airbag sensors that would get cut when they pulled the lights out. Good easy money back in the day.
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A car that's going to 99% be likely to be sitting in a crime ridden area shouldn't have expensive parts to easily steal.

I forgot in general how big the HID light theft was for awhile.
 
Santapez said:
A car that's going to 99% be likely to be sitting in a crime ridden area shouldn't have expensive parts to easily steal.

I forgot in general how big the HID light theft was for awhile.
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First Gen Acura TL was big for this too. Bridgewater Mall parking garage got crushed with these thefts. 99 to 02ish.
 
Carson said:
Got the male quickly. One down. But the females usually make the nests, so the battle continues.

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I waged a war with 6 of them in my garage a few years ago. Fuckers chewed every cardboard box, rag and string of Christmas lights. Made nests in the soffits and some of the boxes they didn't chew with items found around the garage. When I entered the garage, all but 1 would scatter and growl at me. All garage entry points have been closed and they moved to the neighbor's odd roof line at the peak. They proceeded to trap all of them and make them disappear.

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Carson said:
Got the male quickly. One down. But the females usually make the nests, so the battle continues.

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This just reminded me. My wife grew up across the street from a NYC cop. Looks out the window one morning and sees him standing on his roof, gun in hand trying to kill some kind of animal destroying his roof. Luckily the neighbors house was about 20 feet away. 🙄
 
mntal said:
a shotgun is also surprisingly effective.
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3 total kills as of this morning. 1 male and 2 females. The females apparently are the nest builders. Surprisingly, drowning is very quick. 30 seconds and it's over. They panic and take on water almost immediately. I can't shoot them in my townhouse development.

Truck is half-fixed. Waiting on one more harness to be delivered on Monday, but it took it back for this weekend. Lights and horn are all functional again. I didn't realize how much I used the horn until it wasn't available lol. The last harness is a diagnostic plug or some option my truck doesn't have, so the parts department had more trouble tracking one down.
 
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