We owned the first-gen Innova for 17 years and never faced any rat-bite incidents.
BHPian gladiatort1000 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Before HyCross we owned Gen1 Innova from 2006 to 2023. The car does not fit in the parking area present inside our home. Hence it is parked outside the home. Old Innova never suffered a rat bite incident in 17 years of ownership.
Somehow within 1 month of purchasing the Hycross on 1st Feb 2023, we started noticing rat droppings inside the car. Sometimes pieces of sealing wool type of material were found inside the car. I purchased 3M Rat spray and sprayed it inside the engine bay and areas where there can be a chance of RAT entry inside the dashboard. Continued doing this every month. Looks like this did not give the expected results.
After a few weeks, there was a smell of the AC and a loud noise from the AC. Rats had damaged the AC filter and chewed through more than half of it. Since it cost only 2K. I got it replaced by paying out of pocket and did not go for insurance.
A couple of months down the line, there was sewage cleanup done in my road and locality by the BBMP. This seemed to have drawn out even more Rats to the surface. During a long weekend in May, I had not touched the car for 3 days and when we opened the car on the 4th day, I noticed a smell inside the car and a loud noise from the AC. Upon inspection, there were multiple damages. Below is the list and the photos are attached:
A small part of the plastic between the front windshield and bonnet was damaged.
A large hole was found in the 3rd row left passenger bottle holder/ charging plugs.
Multiple parts of the AC were damaged inside the dash.
Got the repair done under insurance. I paid 2K and insurance paid 40K.
A mesh was installed in the dash area for around 1 to 1.5k. Below is the photo of the mesh installation.
After this repair and mesh installation. I have continued to use the 3M RAT Spray every month and have not seen any traces of rats coming inside my car.
So getting mesh installed seems to be a good idea. I suggest others to try this.
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