Mice in My Airbox

[A6@georgemac]

I have posted this in the other A6 mice thread, but thought I would start a new thread as I don't want others to have what happened to me!

I decided to fit a Lifetime performance K&N air filter to the audi, as audi service book does not call to replace air filter until 4 yrs or 38000 miles. (I am at 3 yrs old nearly and 18500 miles)

I undid the cover and started to remove it and I am sure I felt peanuts slipping through my fingers. When I got the airbox off, low and behold it was full of peanuts and some parts of foam - had some job getting as much nuts out as I could before removing filter, then cleaned whole airbox. But now I have peanuts in the engine bay I can't get to - to clean them out!
Last winter I had mice in the garage, and there was a bag of peanuts for bird feeding they got into - but I can't understand why the mice would have tried to make a nest in the airbox? And store food there? There were no droppings or anything.

My other concern is where the foam came from - is there a foam pre-filter on the air inlet?

I set traps in the garage, never caught any of the blighters, but they definitely seemed to disapear. However I will be leaving traps set from now on. I normally have this under the floor in the house and in the loft - but have not had one for ages. More traps being ordered and will rebait them all next week.

I think a mod by Audi to have a plastic grill on the air inlet would be nice to stop any rodents crawling up there! I still cannot believe they went in there. There can be no other explanation? 2424824249242502425124252

[JimC64]

Wow....that is NUTS....lol

Sorry buddy, just had to.

Thats crazy and never seen anything like that. It may not be a good idea to keep foodstuffs like that in your garage though as it obviously attracts unwelcome visitors.

I see what you mean about the plastic grille on the air outlet, perhaps a mod you can do?

Hope you don't have a recurrence

[Whippy53]

I think it's just taking the Micky.:-)

[Richie Blackmor]

Wow! Those mice were very busy. I too like to feed the birds despite the fact that they like to poo all over my newly washed/waxed car. I had a similar rodent break-in to the food supply and am still finding little peanut caches in the garage two years later. My garage is too stuffed to fit my A6 inside (luckily it seems) but you could do what I did and get a big plastic storage box with a lid (got one from a well known Swedish store) and keep the birdy food inside and then do that interesting mod. Hopefully they brought the foam in from your garage too and not the car?

[Scott K]

Amazed you didn't notice any drop in performance as the air must have been struggling to get past that lot. They were probably using the airbox as a hoard - lucky they didn't start nibbling the wiring!

[MarkTM]

Assuming your car doesn't have an allergy then? :biglaugh:

So do tell if you see any difference, not only with the nuts gone but also the K&N over stock?

Not a great fan of putting any oiled filter before the MAF TBH after a bad experience on a previous car (K&N let through far more rubbish and damaged MAF).

[A6@georgemac]

Yes, I agree - I emailed these to a few of my mates and one who lives a bit away emailed them to his mate who owns an indy garage - he said they just got in a beetle where they have almost bitten through the whole loom and it was a fire waiting to happen. I'm going to have a closer inspection but I never noted anything else other than some foam insulation damage in the top left corner. I am glad it was peanuts and not bird seeds.

I was not going to mod the airbox - although I think it's something Audi can look at - the only think I think I could use would be chicken wire or something - not sure the holes are small enough to stop a mouse?

I am amazed they never chewed the filter at all? The foam is new foam - and could have came from the garage - but I wondered if there was foam on the air inlet ducting which they had chewed their way through - next time somebody removed their inlet duct to clean it can they have a look - although my saab air box has had small leaves in it so I guess it's not something that's normally fitted.

My performance and MPG seem to have been OK. Although I'm a pretty steady driver.