Another sacrifice to the eco gods: soy-based car wire insulation

Rodent Rage

Your cat can keep mice out of the house, but you probably didn’t post her on sentry duty around your car.

It might not help anyway. Mice—along with rats, foxes, and squirrels—can attack your car, or, more precisely, your car’s wiring, from wherever you park. Rural areas are more affected but urban areas are hardly being spared. Recent fox attacks have been noted across the globe.

Eddie Mitchell, in suburban England, described a neighborhood of cars under attack by foxes:

Everyone around us has been affected. There’s been at least 20 attacks by foxes on the brakes system under cars. One neighbor ended up spending £1,500 on his Jaguar after it was attacked.

Sometimes the bulk of the damage is covered by insurance, though the owner will still have to pay a substantial deductible himself.

But why is all this happening?

Edible wiring?

For some 20 years, car manufacturers have been switching from petroleum-based plastic insulation on wiring to soy- or peanut-based insulation. It’s cheaper, though the “climate-conscious” will stress its eco credentials, which haven’t been proven, just as the debate over plastic versus reusable drinking straws still has plenty of adherents on both sides of the argument. Cheaper settles the debate for the manufacturers, however, even if the customer ends up paying the “price.”

And it can be a steep price indeed. Rodents attack wiring on speed sensors and anywhere else they can find it, and will also chew through piping, sometimes attracted by the sweet propylene glycol (which will kill them, if they drink enough).

Looking for a car without these drawbacks? You’ll be hard-pressed to find one, unless you opt for a model dating back to the twentieth century.

There are, of course, various solutions, such as wrapping your car in tarpaulin when it’s not in use; always parking in a rodent-free garage; setting traps; using rodent repellent; and leaving the bonnet open when the car is parked, so that the engine area doesn’t become a cozy nest for furry friends. And it should go without saying that you should never leave food lying around in your car, or wrappers, or spilled sweet drinks.

Warning lights flashing

Dave Albin, who had two cars with thousands of dollars of damage caused by rodents (mostly covered by insurance), set up a website dedicated to this problem; How to Prevent Rats from Eating your Car Wires. His story started on one otherwise uneventful day, when:

… I fired up the engine and literally every single warning light is going off: Check Brakes, Check Engine, Check Power Steering…

When he took his car to the mechanic and was told that the damage was caused by rats attracted by the soy-based insulation on the car’s wiring, he was shocked and started to investigate.

I started emailing and contacting mechanics across the country. The common consensus was that rodent damage in cars has increased exponentially over the last 10 years ... I certainly believe that soy-based wiring has exacerbated this problem.

When his second car was attacked, again by rodents, he described how,

… the mechanics literally had to take the entire car apart and piece it back together.

Hot Chili Honda

Leo Horowitz had a more complete surprise—when he took his almost new Honda Accord for repairs, the mechanic popped open the hood to find the source of the problem right there.

The hood was opened, and there, at the bottom, was a squirrel looking up at me in [its] nest. Apparently the squirrel chewed through the wires as well as the Vehicle Stability Assist wire programming.

The repairs cost him $3,600 but, luckily, Honda paid almost the entire sum. Honda has since released a special “wiring tape” covered with oil from hot chili peppers to deter rodents.

Nothing new here, move along…

But is that all Honda (and other manufacturers) can, and should, do?

Last month, a class-action lawsuit against Honda was dismissed, after the judge assessed that the plaintiffs’ had failed to prove that the soy-based insulation made their vehicles defective. Honda (like other manufacturers) never warned purchasers that they had made the switch to soy-based insulation, but proving that the switch exacerbated a known problem of rodents chewing through wires has proven impossible, so far. All class-action suits (and there have been several) have been dismissed; in this case, the judge ruled that the plaintiff’s claim was,

… based on nothing more than the age-old problem of rodents gnawing on and damaging various types of materials.

Ultimately, plaintiffs failed to uncover any evidence that 'epoxidized soybean oil,' or indeed any 'bio-based' material, was used in the parts of their vehicles that suffered rodent damage.

If everyone is doing it, then no one is culpable

A previous class-action suit against Toyota, filed by Chimicles and Tikellis LLP, had a similar ending. Attorney Benjamin Johns told media that rodents had caused “substantial damage” to his clients' vehicles, 

… very costly repairs costing upwards of a thousand dollars. Our position in the lawsuit is that these are materials that Toyota intentionally put in its vehicles and that they should take responsibility.

Toyota's response to media at the time was that,

While we cannot comment on this litigation, we can say that rodent damage to vehicle wiring occurs across the industry, and the issue is not brand- or model-specific.

No hope?

Dave Alvin, summing up the attempts to hold manufacturers to account, presented a gloomy picture:

Back in February 2017, there were 6 class action lawsuits that had been filed against multiple different car manufacturers. These lawsuits claimed that the usage of soy based wiring (i.e. wiring that has a soy-based plastic coating covering the wires) is attracting rodents to chew on these wires and therefore, the car manufacturers should cover any damage to these wires by rodents under warranty.

Let’s take a look at where each of these lawsuits are now.

• Albert Heber vs. Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. – Dismissed
• Janice Toler vs. Toyota Motor Corporation & Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. –Dismissed
• Daniel Dobbs et al. v. American Honda Motor Co. Inc., – Voluntary Dismissal
• Tsvetelin Tsonev v. Kia Motors America Inc. – Dismissed
• Darla Campbell, Tristin Hibler, and Michael Leppert, et. al., v. Kia Motors America, Inc. – Dismissed
• Michelle Martinez v. Hyundai Motor America, Inc. – Voluntary Dismissal

Well, to be honest.. I’m not that surprised. Rodents getting into cars and chewing on wires has been a problem going back decades (i.e. many years prior to soy based wiring entering the scene). So, I could see how it could be difficult in the courts to prove that soy based wiring has increased the problem.

Whatever the case may be, all this means for us unlucky folk who have been attacked by the rodents is that the car manufacturers aren’t going to do jack for us and WE need to take matters into our own hands. 

By “taking matters into our own hands” Alvin means preventative measures, which he then proceeds to outline—one can find instructions on his website.

Are there other options?