Major nasty smell in the RX8
11-03-2007, 04:14 PM
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Major nasty smell in the RX8
I have been unlucky enough to have a rodent (rat, not a mouse, a rat) take up residence somewhere in my RX8. Although I believe the animal is gone now, a very nasty smell remains and is strongest when the ac is on (haven't dared to turn on the heater).
Could someone enlighten me on what I should start taking apart first to find the source of the nasty smell (rodent poop). I believe it gained access to whatever location it made it's home through the front end in the engine compartment (chewed insulation padding and visible poop found there). It never got into the passenger compartment that I can tell. Anyway, the engine area is clean now, found some stinky and evidence of nawing in the air filter box, also clean now. I don't know what other access points might exist or where to start looking. I'm wondering if there are ducts that go directly to the AC/heater etc. I don't really just want to start taking everything apart without some kind of direction. It was a pretty good sized rat, so the access I would believe would have had to be at least 1 1/2 inches or more in size for him to pass through. Any suggestions???????? Please!!!!!!!!!!
Could someone enlighten me on what I should start taking apart first to find the source of the nasty smell (rodent poop). I believe it gained access to whatever location it made it's home through the front end in the engine compartment (chewed insulation padding and visible poop found there). It never got into the passenger compartment that I can tell. Anyway, the engine area is clean now, found some stinky and evidence of nawing in the air filter box, also clean now. I don't know what other access points might exist or where to start looking. I'm wondering if there are ducts that go directly to the AC/heater etc. I don't really just want to start taking everything apart without some kind of direction. It was a pretty good sized rat, so the access I would believe would have had to be at least 1 1/2 inches or more in size for him to pass through. Any suggestions???????? Please!!!!!!!!!!
11-03-2007, 04:46 PM
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Try your cabin air filter by dislodging the glovebox and removing it... then go for the white trays (2) you see and clean them good.... You can also look arond in there while in there.
11-03-2007, 06:01 PM
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You aren't the first person to have this problem!
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ht=abbid+mouse
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ht=abbid+mouse
11-03-2007, 11:02 PM
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While I was waiting for a response to my pleas, I ran across a different thread about the cabin air filter and investigated. (Thanks for that suggestion PSUGreyStreet...you nailed it). I found the bed on one of the filters. There was the chewed insulation from the pads in the engine compartment in a nice neat pile. The other filter (the one over the fan on the left) was all chewed up and there was crap all down in the fan. My visitor had also managed to get into the engine air filter box and chew up part of the air filter, but didn't chew all the way through. I didn't see any chewed wiring anywhere...thank God!!!
I put it all back together (minus the cabin air filters until I can get replacements) and ...ah, yes!! Nothing now but the smell of "car heat" and leather!!!! I did learn one very important thing though. I highly recommend keeping the mode selector on "outside air" not on recirculate. I think the only reason he didn't get into the passenger compartment of the car was that the mode was set to outside air which means the little door in the unit was closed to the inside of the car. If you keep your a/c mode on recirculate, that door is open to the cabin anything that can crawl up into the system has open access to the interior of the car.
There's a long story about this rat that involves a snake and some very irratic driving. If anyone is interested, I could probably be prodded into telling it, but be forewarned, it'll could be a bit long.
Anyway, with any luck my problem is over. Now I just have to figure out how many things I have to take apart to replace the insulation pads in the engine compartment and all signs of this little adventure will be erased (fingers crossed because I didn't actually catch or kill the rat). Thanks for the help and thanks RX8 Club.com for providing a place to seek answers and find them.
I put it all back together (minus the cabin air filters until I can get replacements) and ...ah, yes!! Nothing now but the smell of "car heat" and leather!!!! I did learn one very important thing though. I highly recommend keeping the mode selector on "outside air" not on recirculate. I think the only reason he didn't get into the passenger compartment of the car was that the mode was set to outside air which means the little door in the unit was closed to the inside of the car. If you keep your a/c mode on recirculate, that door is open to the cabin anything that can crawl up into the system has open access to the interior of the car.
There's a long story about this rat that involves a snake and some very irratic driving. If anyone is interested, I could probably be prodded into telling it, but be forewarned, it'll could be a bit long.
Anyway, with any luck my problem is over. Now I just have to figure out how many things I have to take apart to replace the insulation pads in the engine compartment and all signs of this little adventure will be erased (fingers crossed because I didn't actually catch or kill the rat). Thanks for the help and thanks RX8 Club.com for providing a place to seek answers and find them.
Last edited by Kb7709; 11-03-2007 at 11:07 PM.
11-03-2007, 11:12 PM
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While I was waiting for a response to my pleas, I ran across a different thread about the cabin air filter and investigated. (Thanks for that suggestion PSUGreyStreet...you nailed it). I found the bed on one of the filters. There was the chewed insulation from the pads in the engine compartment in a nice neat pile. The other filter (the one over the fan on the left) was all chewed up and there was crap all down in the fan. My visitor had also managed to get into the engine air filter box and chew up part of the air filter, but didn't chew all the way through. I didn't see any chewed wiring anywhere...thank God!!!
I put it all back together (minus the cabin air filters until I can get replacements) and ...ah, yes!! Nothing now but the smell of "car heat" and leather!!!! I did learn one very important thing though. I highly recommend keeping the mode selector on "outside air" not on recirculate. I think the only reason he didn't get into the passenger compartment of the car was that the mode was set to outside air which means the little door in the unit was closed to the inside of the car. If you keep your a/c mode on recirculate, that door is open to the cabin anything that can crawl up into the system has open access to the interior of the car.
There's a long story about this rat that involves a snake and some very irratic driving. If anyone is interested, I could probably be prodded into telling it, but be forewarned, it'll could be a bit long.
Anyway, with any luck my problem is over. Now I just have to figure out how many things I have to take apart to replace the insulation pads in the engine compartment and all signs of this little adventure will be erased (fingers crossed because I didn't actually catch or kill the rat). Thanks for the help and thanks RX8 Club.com for providing a place to seek answers and find them.
I put it all back together (minus the cabin air filters until I can get replacements) and ...ah, yes!! Nothing now but the smell of "car heat" and leather!!!! I did learn one very important thing though. I highly recommend keeping the mode selector on "outside air" not on recirculate. I think the only reason he didn't get into the passenger compartment of the car was that the mode was set to outside air which means the little door in the unit was closed to the inside of the car. If you keep your a/c mode on recirculate, that door is open to the cabin anything that can crawl up into the system has open access to the interior of the car.
There's a long story about this rat that involves a snake and some very irratic driving. If anyone is interested, I could probably be prodded into telling it, but be forewarned, it'll could be a bit long.
Anyway, with any luck my problem is over. Now I just have to figure out how many things I have to take apart to replace the insulation pads in the engine compartment and all signs of this little adventure will be erased (fingers crossed because I didn't actually catch or kill the rat). Thanks for the help and thanks RX8 Club.com for providing a place to seek answers and find them.
11-03-2007, 11:20 PM
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While I was waiting for a response to my pleas, I ran across a different thread about the cabin air filter and investigated. (Thanks for that suggestion PSUGreyStreet...you nailed it). I found the bed on one of the filters. There was the chewed insulation from the pads in the engine compartment in a nice neat pile. The other filter (the one over the fan on the left) was all chewed up and there was crap all down in the fan. My visitor had also managed to get into the engine air filter box and chew up part of the air filter, but didn't chew all the way through. I didn't see any chewed wiring anywhere...thank God!!!
I put it all back together (minus the cabin air filters until I can get replacements) and ...ah, yes!! Nothing now but the smell of "car heat" and leather!!!! I did learn one very important thing though. I highly recommend keeping the mode selector on "outside air" not on recirculate. I think the only reason he didn't get into the passenger compartment of the car was that the mode was set to outside air which means the little door in the unit was closed to the inside of the car. If you keep your a/c mode on recirculate, that door is open to the cabin anything that can crawl up into the system has open access to the interior of the car.
There's a long story about this rat that involves a snake and some very irratic driving. If anyone is interested, I could probably be prodded into telling it, but be forewarned, it'll could be a bit long.
Anyway, with any luck my problem is over. Now I just have to figure out how many things I have to take apart to replace the insulation pads in the engine compartment and all signs of this little adventure will be erased (fingers crossed because I didn't actually catch or kill the rat). Thanks for the help and thanks RX8 Club.com for providing a place to seek answers and find them.
I put it all back together (minus the cabin air filters until I can get replacements) and ...ah, yes!! Nothing now but the smell of "car heat" and leather!!!! I did learn one very important thing though. I highly recommend keeping the mode selector on "outside air" not on recirculate. I think the only reason he didn't get into the passenger compartment of the car was that the mode was set to outside air which means the little door in the unit was closed to the inside of the car. If you keep your a/c mode on recirculate, that door is open to the cabin anything that can crawl up into the system has open access to the interior of the car.
There's a long story about this rat that involves a snake and some very irratic driving. If anyone is interested, I could probably be prodded into telling it, but be forewarned, it'll could be a bit long.
Anyway, with any luck my problem is over. Now I just have to figure out how many things I have to take apart to replace the insulation pads in the engine compartment and all signs of this little adventure will be erased (fingers crossed because I didn't actually catch or kill the rat). Thanks for the help and thanks RX8 Club.com for providing a place to seek answers and find them.
Story huh?.............What the hell did you do.....drive around with a snake in the car hoping it would get this mouse/rat for you?????
11-04-2007, 03:42 AM
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i need a funny story to cap off my hilarious night (made a video, its HILARIOUS, plan on posting it on here, just look for my thread in the lounge in a couple days)
11-05-2007, 12:57 PM
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And now for the rest of the story.....
Sorry for the delay. I didn't really expect anyone would want to hear this but here goes. First of all, the RX8 is my wife's car. Since I have a company car and don't need one of my own, the 8 is primarily hers. You should probably also know I live in the country. I travel most of the time during the week with my job, so I get to drive the RX8 on weekends (and take care of it and, oh yeah, pay for it). Anyway, I took it out one Saturday to run an errand and noticed a distinct barnish smell. I asked her where it had been and she said nowhere really, just the store etc. I went back out, popped the hood and found rat crap all over the engine compartment (hence the smell, especially once it got warmed up). The insulation padding on the fender wells and firewall had places nawed out in them, and the stinch....holy Moses! The stinch! The "crapper" had obviously been around a while based on the amount of rat crap everywhere. Since I've never experienced anything like this, I didn't really know what to do. That night I parked the car so that we could see it from a window in our kitchen and just watched (we took shifts). Sure enough, eventually a rat (body probably 6-7 inches long plus the tail) came scurrying out from under the car. It didn't say out long and very quickly returned to the car. I never knew how quick they are. I thought I should try to move the car while the rat was out, but could never get to it quickly enough. Besides, I wanted that rat's dead carcus. I wanted to know exactly where it was and that it would not turn up again later. I went out and could not find it anywhere or figure out where it was going inside the car. I grabbed the keys, told my wife I would be back in a while and took off. For the next 20 minutes or so, I literally "flung" the car all over the road on the two lane, sparsly traveled highway between my house and the nearest town about 10 miles away. I have never driven any car the way I drove the RX8 that night, but I have to say, (as we all know already) the RX8 handles VERY well. It was glued to the road and my sudden stops, very sharp cuts back and forth across the highway and momentarily "dancing" the car (rocking it back and forth) at relatively moderate speeds (50-60 mph) rarely, but occasionally, broke the tires loose. My mission was to "throw" him out of the car if there was any way to do that or at least make him want to get out and never come back if he survived. I took the car to a hand carwash, cleaned out the engine compartment and sprayed high pressure spray in every nook and cranny I could find. I then drove in the same fashion back to my house. As it turned out, we both had the ride of our lives (me and the rat), but I was unable to dislodge him from wherever he was living. I knew because I saw further evidence of his presence (more poop in the engine compatment) the following week.
I bought a cage type large rodent live trap and the next weekend and baited it with his favorite food...the dog food that had probably attracted him to the area in the first place. He never tripped the cage although I know he came out at night and knew he was still there somewhere in the car. I tried a snap trap and he (or something) stole the peanut butter bait twice before the morning I caught the bird in the trap. A little tiny, baby bird. Not very "durable" and clearly no match for a rat trap. That's when my wife, (the animal lover...well, except for mice, rats and spiders), outlawed the snap trap. I continued to bait the cage trap which by now had become a permanant fixture in front of the car...and we watched and waited. I never saw him at night again and was not seeing major signs that he was still there. I was hoping he had decided to move on.
Then one day our son was standing in the kitchen and said, "hey, I just saw something go into the front of the car". My wife and I both looked at each other as if to say, "oh no, not again!" I went out and looked but saw no signs of what it was or where it went. A little later, of course while we weren't paying attention, I happened to see something poking out of the front of the car but couldn't tell what it was, looked at my wife, looked back and it was gone. Again, no trace on close inspection. I set up a long mirror on the ground and strategically angled it so that we could see the entire front and underneath the car from the kitchen and we watched (again). Nothing happened. I had given up and left the room for a while when I heard my wife screaming bloody murder from the other end of the house. I ran to the kitchen door to see the first two feet of a snake exiting from around the fog light area of the RX8. My first thought was "get the camera"...a thought which was very quickly replaced with "get a hoe!". I ran to my shop and grabbed the first think I could find and ran to the back of the house. The snake had fully exited by that time and streatched out in front of the car. He was easily 5 ft long, maybe longer. Without details of what happened next, the snake became two snakes in very short order...the only thing I know to do with one. I hate snakes, kill them on sight and feel guilty afterward. After disposing of the pieces I went on the internet to see what kind of snake it was. You guessed it...a "rat snake".
I don't know if the snake got him earlier (he didn't get him the time I saw the snake) or if he decided he was just getting too much attention living in that car, but at least he left and did not die inside like the guy in the post above. That would have been a worse nightmare.
So there ya go. Just hope it doesn't happen to you and keep those ac's off recirculate.
I bought a cage type large rodent live trap and the next weekend and baited it with his favorite food...the dog food that had probably attracted him to the area in the first place. He never tripped the cage although I know he came out at night and knew he was still there somewhere in the car. I tried a snap trap and he (or something) stole the peanut butter bait twice before the morning I caught the bird in the trap. A little tiny, baby bird. Not very "durable" and clearly no match for a rat trap. That's when my wife, (the animal lover...well, except for mice, rats and spiders), outlawed the snap trap. I continued to bait the cage trap which by now had become a permanant fixture in front of the car...and we watched and waited. I never saw him at night again and was not seeing major signs that he was still there. I was hoping he had decided to move on.
Then one day our son was standing in the kitchen and said, "hey, I just saw something go into the front of the car". My wife and I both looked at each other as if to say, "oh no, not again!" I went out and looked but saw no signs of what it was or where it went. A little later, of course while we weren't paying attention, I happened to see something poking out of the front of the car but couldn't tell what it was, looked at my wife, looked back and it was gone. Again, no trace on close inspection. I set up a long mirror on the ground and strategically angled it so that we could see the entire front and underneath the car from the kitchen and we watched (again). Nothing happened. I had given up and left the room for a while when I heard my wife screaming bloody murder from the other end of the house. I ran to the kitchen door to see the first two feet of a snake exiting from around the fog light area of the RX8. My first thought was "get the camera"...a thought which was very quickly replaced with "get a hoe!". I ran to my shop and grabbed the first think I could find and ran to the back of the house. The snake had fully exited by that time and streatched out in front of the car. He was easily 5 ft long, maybe longer. Without details of what happened next, the snake became two snakes in very short order...the only thing I know to do with one. I hate snakes, kill them on sight and feel guilty afterward. After disposing of the pieces I went on the internet to see what kind of snake it was. You guessed it...a "rat snake".
I don't know if the snake got him earlier (he didn't get him the time I saw the snake) or if he decided he was just getting too much attention living in that car, but at least he left and did not die inside like the guy in the post above. That would have been a worse nightmare.
So there ya go. Just hope it doesn't happen to you and keep those ac's off recirculate.
Last edited by Kb7709; 11-05-2007 at 01:07 PM.
11-05-2007, 02:06 PM
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Great story! 
I HATE snakes too! along with spiders, or any other kind of bug!
I had a mouse get a hold of the firewall insulation........PISSED me off..had the car 3 weeks? UH! There never was any smell, but when they changed my cabin air filter they found the nest. Thanks for the tip about the recirculation thing. I'll definitely change that. I don't need a mouse inside my car, or a snake thats after him!
I HATE snakes too! along with spiders, or any other kind of bug! I had a mouse get a hold of the firewall insulation........PISSED me off..had the car 3 weeks? UH! There never was any smell, but when they changed my cabin air filter they found the nest. Thanks for the tip about the recirculation thing. I'll definitely change that. I don't need a mouse inside my car, or a snake thats after him!
11-05-2007, 03:51 PM
#17
...Without details of what happened next, the snake became two snakes in very short order...the only thing I know to do with one. I hate snakes, kill them on sight and feel guilty afterward. After disposing of the pieces I went on the internet to see what kind of snake it was. You guessed it...a "rat snake".
11-05-2007, 03:56 PM
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Good story, however I would've left the snake alone as a guard! He'd do far less damage than that damn rat.
I would've built the snake something real plush to curl up in and even feed him so he stayed right around the car!
I would've built the snake something real plush to curl up in and even feed him so he stayed right around the car!
11-05-2007, 05:06 PM
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11-05-2007, 10:52 PM
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Yea, we discussed the possibility that the snake might have been a bit of "devine intervention" sent in to cure the problem. My reaction to the snake might have been a little over the top, but I just can't deal with snakes and the possibility that the next time I see him might be when I'm in the crawl space (more of a "belly crawl" space) under my house while I'm fixing a water pipe or air duct or something or worse yet in the middle of a curve at 60mph in the car. I know they generally aren't going to hurt you and all that...still just don't want to run into him again later. Some of you would probably just pick him up and carry him off but that'll never be me.
I think I'd rather give a big cat with an attitude a nice home near the car. In fact we have several cats (all inside), but also have a big dog that hates cats and I have a few vet bills to prove it. The outside of the house is the dog's domain. Apparently rats and field mice are just too quick for her. Might need to let the cats and the dog trade places once in a while
I think I'd rather give a big cat with an attitude a nice home near the car. In fact we have several cats (all inside), but also have a big dog that hates cats and I have a few vet bills to prove it. The outside of the house is the dog's domain. Apparently rats and field mice are just too quick for her. Might need to let the cats and the dog trade places once in a while
11-06-2007, 12:01 PM
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Awesome story :)
Awesome story. How funny would it have been if you would have seen a big fat rat shaped blob in the middle of the snake crawling away from the car though.
11-06-2007, 11:56 PM
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