acorns in the air filter housing - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

solidg · 03-12-2006, 12:02 AM

2000 toyota camry le v6 with 93k miles

I changed my air filter today and I saw acorns in the bottom of the housing.
How did those acorns get in there?

Of course I shop vacummed them out before I replace the air filter.

darkwish · 03-12-2006, 12:44 AM

A squirrel found it to be a good hiding place.

touringcamry · 03-12-2006, 12:49 AM

They can also get blown or sucked in. I hit a tumble weed one and there were bits of it inside the box afterwards.

***Tercel GTS*** · 03-12-2006, 12:53 AM

Rodents love to chew your wires also!

drunken_panda · 03-12-2006, 01:02 AM

My dad had a rat chew through the air ducting in his Previa. The rat got through the resonator and deposited over a cup of dog food in there. He also chewed through the tub after the MAF and caused the engine not to start. Evil rodents.

solidg · 03-12-2006, 01:15 PM

there was some grey hair/fur in there as well.

probably some dumb squirrel.

noodlerooney · 03-13-2006, 01:35 PM

I like to put a black metal screen on the intake tube to keep the mice out. I also like to metal screen the HVAC intake under the cowl to keep the mice out of there too. Nothing like mice urine/feces/acorns, maybe even a dead mouse, spinning around in your HVAC fan. If you check, most cars have this problem. The vermin also have a habit of chewing up all you HVAC foam to make their nest.

AutoBox · 03-13-2006, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tercel GTS

Rodents love to chew your wires also!

agreed. we had a lawnmower in a toolshed that some rodents went in one winter and chewed up the electrical wiring. tiny field mice were scampering out of the exhaust plate when i tried to crank it up in the spring...

back on topic... solidg, i think you should visually inspect all the exposed wiring in your engine bay. if squirrels were in theres a chance that they might have messed with something else. just a suggestion.

solidg · 03-22-2006, 12:29 PM

It seems by cleaning out the air filter housing and putting in a new air filter that I breathed new life in my camry. I accelerate so much better now. My car feels again like it did when it was brand new!

tracyf · 03-22-2006, 01:49 PM

My money is on squirrels!

We have had bad experiences with squirrels getting under the hood and chewing wires, building nests, storing acorns. My wife's Camry still has a fuel injector with spliced wires leading to it (do not know or probably WANT to know how much that wire leading to all three injectors on the valve bank costs). The last attack, they went after that same wire (that was spliced from previous attack) and all three front plug wires. For some reason, pregnant squirrels (moreso) are attracted to and chew on metal wiring. I work with our fire department and we have even went to people's homes where they had a slight electrical smell in their home and it ended up being from an AC unit or something that was strained/whatever from not receiving enough current due to the whole (finger-thick) metal support wire being chewed completely through on their power feed into the house. Rodents have teeth that never stop growing and they have to chew to keep them filed down. From what I have read, the "repellants" do not work and the only way they say you can keep your car from getting this damage (short of moving or staking a dog to your car) is to leave the hood up all the time (squirrels will not nest/chew there if they do not feel hidden) and/or to trap/eradicate your squirrel population. I do not care for squirrels at all now that we have had to lose time and money due to their damage. Good luck on keeping them away.

God Bless