- InterMarque - http://intermarque.org -

A Squirrelly Situation

-By John Engstrom

A week or so ago, I went out to my Volvo to go to the InterMarque Breakfast at Elsie’s.

I started up the car and got a message that said “turn signal light out“. Then I got another message that said “multiple” lights out. I thought Hmmm, thats really odd.

Then I got a message that said my airbag needed service. Way odd.

When I got home I went to check the bulbs and pulled the headlight assembly out. Easy on a Volvo, you pull out one holding pin and the whole thing comes out. So I pulled it out and found out that the whole harness had been severed. Looked at the harness and further at the main harness, and parts of that were chewed through.

Eaten through… that’s when I did some research and found out that the wire insulation on newer cars was not exactly plastic but made instead of a soy-based material. 

So what happened is that the Squirrels in the neighborhood got under there and thought “wire or tasty treat”.

I had a friend solder all of it back together and the repair was done. 

Except…. I thought It needed some help under there. 

What I got was some Honda Tape. It’s infused with Capsation, the thing that makes peppers hot.

It even has little pictures of Rats on it….

Hopefully that will do the deed. We shall see.