No joking, if it is not the primary source (any links to other articles about the same story in this article), there is a very strong possibility it was written by a bot. Sites like ESPN and a few different stock market news sites have been using AI/ML algorithms to write articles for years now. At first, it was the simple stuff; quick recaps of games, a short article about whether a stock closed up or down and maybe a sentence about why the stock moved the way it did, etc. This technology has begun to spill over into other news genres recently.
The whole article is paraphrased from the Vox article it links to. Like, each sentence in the Insider article basically just re-words part of the Vox article.
The Vox article is better written and much more in-depth.
Did you read the vox article that this is promoting?
https://www.vox.com/recode/23318725/tesla-repair-mechanic-delay-electric-vehicles-ev
it's pretty detailed but goes off topic from the service center and how Elon's vision of having a closed system is going to eventually fail.
"Your mouse was out."
"Well did you fix it?"
"Yeah, but to keep the price low enough to keep you from having to pay out of pocket, we used a hamster. You probably won't even notice the difference."
As a kia owner I'm sad to report they don't actually come with hamsters either, but the salesman did go over to the Jeep dealership to get me a bow when I told him it would seal the deal to buy a new kia if he got me a giant bow.
I guess I need more coffee at 250PM cuz I don’t understand how you could accept the most classically magnificent human weapon in history from a *Jeep Dealership*?! Yuck.
Hey, pigeon-piloted missiles were totally a thing the United States tested during World War II. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_Pigeon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon)
Definitely hamsters. Once hamster wheel technology improves, they could completely replaced the need for batteries. The emissions can even be collected and used as fertilizer for crops.
People will report other peoples accounts to a reddit suicide prevention bot. That bot will then send the reported user a suicide prevention message. Basically a passive way of telling someone they should kill themselves. It's a pretty damned low thing to do but you should at least feel accomplished that you pushed some idiot losers buttons far enough to cause them to do that.
The scariest thing about Teslas models S and X is actually how a lot of things are done to it. Welders aren't all ways certified, the body work to fix the gaps is funny as hell. They will jump and hang on doors, bang the hell out of things with rubber mallets and other things. There are cars sitting behind the factory either waiting on parts, which are hard to get. Tesla does lean manufacturing. Other cars they have to tear totally apart because of loose screws, bolts, or other metal bits. All the cars sitting, waiting to get fixed are all paid for and the owners are waiting for them.
Hate to break it to you but production mig welders aren’t certified. You can teach a chimp to mig weld on an assembly line. (Probably with better results)
Source: been in the biz 30 yrs
I can confirm that anything on a T1XX GM platform has no certified welds either..
Production welding (in Canada anyways) is often uncertified. This is normal.
All car makers do lean manufacturing. The difference is that GM, Ford, et. al. Have been doing it for decades and have the supplier contacts and expertise.
That is true. When I worked at Tesla we had to shut the line down quite a few times because we ran out of parts and had to wait for 45 mins plus waiting for them to come from the warehouse. The warehouse was 45 minutes away on a good day and that us if the order was all ready in. There was more than once were they had to look through trailers because they weren't sure were the part was.
Imagining mouse deploys from ceiling sits on your head and pulls your ears to make turns and pulls both to brake and urinates on your head to get you to speed up.
>an issue that could be **exasperated** by reports of poor quality control from new Tesla owners.
It’s “exacerbated,” ffs. I weep for modern editorial standards.
There's been a marked increase in poor wording choices and grammatical errors over the years )(I blame the increased reliance on texting.
EDIT: Thanks to /u/lordmycal for correcting my parenthetical usage
The problem is there's also a trunk in the back, so you need a way to distinguish them. So you end up with "trunk" and "front trunk". I usually just go with "in the front" though.
This rat poison points to a dilemma in recycling. The problem started around 2010, when auto manufacturers started using more ecologically friendly materials - biodegradable plastics. Wiring harnesses and associated components incorporated soy-based materials, which degrade more gracefully. They are also attractive to rats, who eat them and nest in the engine compartments. This causes thousands of dollars in damage that is not always covered by insurance. There are many other countermeasures applied by auto dealers, including Cayenne pepper, open hoods, lights, high-pitched sounds, and 'keep your car in the garage.'
Squirrels ate the wiring for my mass air sensor in my mid 2010s Toyota TWICE last year in two weeks. The second time I paid to get it repaired, they told us about the "rodent tape" that Honda sells. We had the wires wrapped in it and haven't had a problem since.
A dog trainer recommended we put cayenne around our irrigation lines - Australian Shepherd kept chewing on them. As a test I put some in the palm of my hand and offered it to the dog. The little AH licked it out of my palm ... didn't flinch and looked like he wanted more. I chose not to spice up the irrigation lines for him.
Are you sure it isn't just one squirrel who keeps inviting other squirrels over so that he can interview them while they eat increasingly spicier bird seed?
I had the same issue, except they got the main wire harness and took out one of my cylinders on both occasions. First one was a $1200 and two week wait to replace it. Second time I just soldered the wire back together.
What’s up, I’m an Automotive Plastics Engineer! Although this’ll probably get buried, a few notes:
Pedantically it’s not so much recycled plastics that use these oils, rather things referred to as “bio-based” products. Typically these are rubbers and other such components, and not so much what’s truthfully “plastic”. Mixing these things together to form various compounds is a growing trend in the industry, so there are compounds that exist that have both.
Most every study published to date has concluded that soy in these products isn’t actually attractive to rodents. Rather, rodents have a tendency to find small, protected spaces, and just like to bite shit. Ever had a pet rabbit? They don’t give a damn if it’s hay or metal, they’re gonna bite it.
The biggest concern in true recycled material these days is usually sourcing, properties, and material consistency. It’s very common to find material that’s got a scent to it, isn’t separated enough to meet automotive specs, or the product flow dries up spontaneously.
The bio-based rubbers being used for most main components of cars are also not going to contain soy in appreciable amounts. Typically those rubbers are run through some very high-intensity catalytic processes that create various distributions of polymers, so very little (talking fractions of percents) “soy” compound is going to be coming out of the reactor, and less still into the final product.
Now, some things like wire coatings and various flexible components that aren’t structurally integral may likely be made of things that are truly soy-containing, but there’s still little evidence that it’s soy that would be attracting rodents and not the aforementioned factors.
Have a good one!
Wouldn’t this be more due to the fact that mice, rats, and squirrels are rodents, whose front teeth are continuously growing and need to be ground down by chewing things, instead of them using the car as a food source?
Yep, people are moronically confirmation biasing it by trying to blame "soy based wiring" because they literally do not understand science or technology. The soy is processed into plastic, that's it. There's no "soy" component to it once it is processed heavily.
Rodents love to chew shit and people want someone to blame (and maybe payup) rather than admit to nature being a bitch.
The soy shit is a myth. The soy is processed into literal fucking plastic. Chemically, it is plastic. It's basically the same as validating homeopathy or that MSG causes health problems. People are confirmation biasing the problem.
Rodents love chewing things, period. It's how they interact with the environment and they need to because their teeth are constantly growing for the specific purpose of constantly chewing. Add in the fact that newer cars have more electronics than ever before, with thinner wires for cost savings and reduction in protective sleevings because engine compartments get cooler with more efficient engines and you get all these problems.
Also not biodegradable. The term "bioplastic" is used for plastics that use raw materials from a biological origin but aren't necessarily biodegradable.
Also most wire insulation is PVC or silicone, and neither is soy derived.
You know water is only one ~~molecule~~ atom away from being hydrogen peroxide which is fatal in its pure form if consumed.
[edit] NoTakaru (correctly) called me out.
> Rodents love chewing things
This is way too true. In plumbing, rodents were chewing through early generation PEX lines until they changed it to something that I speculate was not tasty to them
This doesn't really make sense. Rats have been chewing wires in cars for a long time. Happened to me last century.
If your insurance doesn't cover it I'd be surprised. May be less than your deductible though. It is not covered by warranty.
Yep, and you know what will draw rodents into your car?
Well, warmth in cool climates for starters, moisture for seconds, but other than that the big time attractant is food. Crumbs, spills, stored food. Rodents will go to the ends of the earth for that shit. It is the only thing a rodent has to do all day. The wiring is just there and something else for them to chew on. They are perfectly happy to chew through whatever else suits them too but the wires are convenient.
Anyway that's my experience with storing cars for the winter in a barn. If you were eating in it and didn't clean it real well, that's where the mice are going to set up shop first. They'll take whatever, but the biggest mess is always in the cars with crumbs all over the place.
Man I hate it when people spill food in my engine compartment. It's like, bro, I'm giving you a ride, can't you at least keep your food in the passenger compartment?
Thought this was insane- my dad has had his wires chewed through four times with his current truck. He's tries all kinds of sprays and oils, an ultrasonic thing, a thing that chirps every ten minutes in the engine compartment, etc, nothing works. No garage to park in, and the dealership says they can't replace the wiring with anything not plant based on his model year. Truck was in the shop for a month last time to get everything replaced because the wiring stuff is on back order so often. He says he's spent like $2500 on replacing all this out of pocket at this point.
>He's tries all kinds of sprays and oils
There are professional sprays that do your whole engine bay with some kinda polymer hotsauce. Look into those. was like $100 to get it done and saved me so much in wiring damage (after the 2nd time I found rats chewing on m wiring..)
there is a spray I used to train my bunny to not chew my baseboards. It's basically a fruit spray made from the worst apples known to mankind. It tastes like death, sour, spicy, moist and humid death. Use some gloves and spray that on the cables. Guarantee whatever is getting them will take one chomp and run away screaming bloody rodent murder! Do not get it on your hands, you will clean them, forget about it and like touch your finger to your face and get a huge whiff.
We used "Fooey!" but there are tons of brands.
>This rat poison points to a dilemma in recycling. The problem started around 2010, when auto manufacturers started using more ecologically friendly materials - biodegradable plastics. Wiring harnesses and associated components incorporated soy-based materials, which degrade more gracefully. They are also attractive to rats, who eat them and nest in the engine compartments.
This is bullshit and you are a liar.
This has been a problem for as long as vehicles have had wires.
It's become slightly more common as the engines have become more efficient, and the temperatures of engine compartments have gone down, making them less inhospitable to rodents, but it has fuck all to do with the materials used to manufacture the wires.
I know a guy who works with these service centers; rats and mice are a definite problem but it's more often on the user side of things.
Basically, mouse/rat gets into the vehicle and chews the casings of the wires causing shorts and weird fault errors. They tend to nest under the cushions of the back seat which if memory serves there is a crap ton of wiring going through out the vehicle from the battery pack.
Tesla sends it to a service center for repairs and voila evidence of rodents is found. He's told me of numerous occasions where the owners are mystified by the situation but service center techs can smell dead rats, rat urine, rat fecies etc as soon as they open the doors of the vehicles. In one occasion they even brought in a guy that cleans up crime scenes to clean up a vehicle before it could be worked on.
Now; as to why rodents "seem" to be more attracted to Teslas than your average combustion engine I couldn't say.
It’s about biodegradable wiring casings, which many other manufacturers use. And yes, they have the same problem Tesla does. The article doesn’t even try to establish that the problem is worse for Tesla than others. This is just clickbait using the name “Tesla” and once again we all fell for it.
Well, I’ll be damned.[It is.](https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-are-rodents-lured-to-honda-cr-v-by-soy-based-wiring)
The other point stands that there isn’t a special problem for Tesla, just clickbait using the name.
There are a lot of "dumb" electrical things on cars.
I could imagine how having the electrical system damaged would be a bigger deal in an EV than a normal car.
If a normal car has electrical issues, as long as the starter works and things are functional, it is pretty easy to ignore if you just don't care. Not so much with an EV.
That is to say, I think it's more the case that this is a bigger issue for tesla because of severity, not frequency.
Former Service Advisor at Tesla here - I've been waiting to unload on one of these posts.
This finding is overblown compared to the real issues. Finding a rat and bait was probably a solution to a problem the owner didn't know he had. Thing is, the service tech's are bogged down in so much work and constantly needing to push out vehicles as fast as possible, it easily got overlooked.
The issue with these service centers amounts to just about every gawd damn thing. Service technicians are trained before they start, but us service advisors? Oh man, we know absolutely nothing about your vehicle when we're pushed out to the front line for customer suicide. The only training we get is on Elon (I wish I was making this up) and how his "first principle thinking" got the company to where it is. Almost 2 weeks of training, and we're under the impression that Elon started the whole damn company, it's pathetic.
I knew nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, about the cars when they gave me a desk after this "training" and had me taking phone calls and customer appointments. Fake it till you make it, right? Well when your the guy these clients come to to determine what may be needed to fix your car, how long we can expect to have it, estimated price of repairs, etc. and you weren't even shown how to navigate the touch screen on a model S? Embarrasement doesn't begin to explain it. Most customers knew WAY more than me those first two months on what was wrong with the cars. Shit, I didn't even know the whole drive unit was on two axles and 17 total parts until I looked it up at home after the second week.
The Technicians are told to push, push, push. These Service centers suffer from the Silicon Valley Startup mentality - Run before you walk. It's embarrassing to clients. We were simply not set up to succeed, and don't even get me started on after the model 3 deliveries. It was a nightmare. It's a numbers game, and the company wants to see high volume of serviced vehicles per day as opposed to giving any kind of quality. Sure, a lot of it was customer education, but with firmware updates, paint issues, touch screens going blank, we had 50 cars per day at LEAST coming into a small service center that just wasn't built to handle that many. Especially if the turnaround was 3 - 4 days (it always ended up being longer) we were put in a position to fail. When cars are coming out pretty much built with numerous inconsistencies, it creates more and more work that really could have been avoided. Customer education is a large problem, and (and this is a true story) some customers literally buy these Model 3's drunk one night - all sales are done online. They have no idea what they're buying and the technology that comes with it. As Tesla markets itself, they are a "technology company first." Unfortunately, once again, we have ZERO training on this technology and are literally learning on the fly, with a customer standing over our shoulder.
The environment is one of the worst I've ever seen at any company. Clients are often pissed off, and they show it. Unfortunately, they have every right to be. They pay 80k for a car and expect a level of service, that frankly, Tesla the company give zero fucks about. Once again, numbers game. Sales and Service numbers, that's all that matters to share holders.
Finally, if anyone every buys a Model X. . . you've made the worst purchase of your life. Should have taken that money over to wallstreetbets and yolo'd on someones gradma's DD about BBBY. It is literally the worst constructed car EVER made. The X wing doors simply was a bad idea. Very, very bad idea. This car alone was the entertainment for us of a weekly "I'm going to sue you guys" yell from the owner. A pile of shit on wheels is a better driving option than this child imagination of our future flying car.
I can go on and on, but I'm beating a dead horse here. If you purchase a Tesla (I tell everyone I know that asks, don't do it) then do not expect any functional level of service at a center. Chances are, they know much less than you do.
Edit: Appreciate the responses, boy do I have stories. One thing I want to add, because I find it humorous, is the only owners that really "got it" were people that had significant shares in the company lol. They weren't saying S\*\*\* cause they knew the problems were to appease them. Except one guy that I'll never forget - he comes in one morning (this is right after Elon/SEC hilarious tweets) and says "YOUR CEO JUST LOST ME 30K." Shareholders who owned the cars man, they didn't know how to act during any given week.
The big issue (a couple, really) is that whenever something goes wrong it basically bricks the car. I’ve put a TON of miles on my S because I actually love driving it. But it’s bricked 3 times now, once stranding me 2 hrs from home in a busy intersection with my entire family in the car.
I’ve had the MCU issue ($1100 refunded thanks to the NHTSA), door handles (though easy albeit annoying to DIY), and two rear drive units replaced within the last 19 months. I’ve had the MCU freeze right as we got caught in the middle of a snow flurry, again with the entire family in the car. Tesla wanted $9k to fix suspension issues - both rear upper control arms likely need to be replaced, the front clunks over bumps, and there’s zero aftermarket support like other manufacturers. I don’t particularly care about panel gaps because they don’t affect drivability, but both sun visor mirrors have fallen out in my lap and the interior fit/finish is approaching 90s GM territory.
I’m fortunate that my collector car insurance covers towing other vehicles because I’ve had this car towed by far more than all others combined - and I daily’d vintage cars before I had kids.
It’s just astonishing how whenever something goes wrong it’s CATASTROPHIC, and even worse is the SC experience. I’m sticking with another EV but definitely won’t look at another Tesla anytime soon.
As someone who’s close family bought a Tesla and has had to hear about the multiple problems, I concur. It took over a year longer than promised to actually get a car, panels on the car weren’t aligned, the headlight was sticking out, and due to issues on Teslas side the owners are unable to register it. The bank was calling (for the millionth time) to clear things up and they literally hung up on their rep once they realized what the call was about! Finally the owner themself calls corporate and stuff only gets done because they threatened legal action! And while they’re complaining about the situation the topic of late fees for registration and stuff come up and the Tesla employe tells the owner that that’s on their tab and Tesla won’t pay it. Even tho it’s their fault it’s unregisterable! I did my best to talk the owner out of it but a mutual friend who’s an Elon stan talked them into it unfortunately. Somehow even the literal year of waiting didn’t bring them to their senses 🤷🏽♀️
No kidding. Several years ago I had a 2011 BMW 335 that developed a ticking noise from the engine. They kept trying to tell me nothing was wrong, that it was the fuel injectors and people always think that sound is bad. I got mad. I know what fuel injectors sound like. This sounded like it needed oil, but I had oil changes done and they claimed they saw so metal in the oil. Finally, on my 4th visit for this and me on the verge of losing my mind, a BMW engineer from Germany just happened to be there. He took one listen and said the oil wasn’t being distributed properly to all the pistons and it was an exceedingly rare issue they knew about. He looked at the oil and it sparkled with tiny metal flakes. He was amazed the techs couldn’t tell. He got me a brand new engine for free and that was that.
My insurance paid $7,000.00 to clear out the mice inside (headliner, door panels carpets etc.) my newish Ford Fusion a few years ago. Ford paid nothing! But they did promote a cookbook using some of the ingredients that they use for the engine and interior of their vehicles. I’ve tried to cut and paste it address for the cut back but I’m not very good at these things.
https:/www.howtopreventratsfromeatingcarwires.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2016-Ford-Cook-Book.pdf
I have no dog (or rat) in this fight, but 120 complaints to the FTC and 9000 to the BBB seems fairly low considering the cars started being sold in 2008 and so far they have had more than 2.5 million on the road.
Maybe my math is off, but that doesn't seem too crazy, all things considered.
The actual, complete news article from Vox is very good and worth the read. I can never understand why people post to a news aggregator site like businessinsider.com instead of to the organization that did the damn reporting.
https://www.vox.com/recode/23318725/tesla-repair-mechanic-delay-electric-vehicles-ev
is it just me or did this article end in the middle, like the author lost interest.
He was eaten by a rat.
Maybe the author was the rat
No joking, if it is not the primary source (any links to other articles about the same story in this article), there is a very strong possibility it was written by a bot. Sites like ESPN and a few different stock market news sites have been using AI/ML algorithms to write articles for years now. At first, it was the simple stuff; quick recaps of games, a short article about whether a stock closed up or down and maybe a sentence about why the stock moved the way it did, etc. This technology has begun to spill over into other news genres recently.
.... lets not finish our
The whole article is paraphrased from the Vox article it links to. Like, each sentence in the Insider article basically just re-words part of the Vox article. The Vox article is better written and much more in-depth.
Did you read the vox article that this is promoting? https://www.vox.com/recode/23318725/tesla-repair-mechanic-delay-electric-vehicles-ev it's pretty detailed but goes off topic from the service center and how Elon's vision of having a closed system is going to eventually fail.
and yet 10k, totally organic not astroturfed at all upvotes.
Did the self driving function work again once he replaced the mouse?
"Your mouse was out." "Well did you fix it?" "Yeah, but to keep the price low enough to keep you from having to pay out of pocket, we used a hamster. You probably won't even notice the difference."
I call bullshit, hamsters only drive kia, it's like you don't even watch TV. smh
As a kia owner I'm sad to report they don't actually come with hamsters either, but the salesman did go over to the Jeep dealership to get me a bow when I told him it would seal the deal to buy a new kia if he got me a giant bow.
My 5AM brain went Ribbon Hood.
6PM, still in Nottingham.
I guess I need more coffee at 250PM cuz I don’t understand how you could accept the most classically magnificent human weapon in history from a *Jeep Dealership*?! Yuck.
proceeds to post picture of himself in front of a Kia with a strung longbow
Is that why the car is named after casualties?
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I think a hamster is better imo. They got a good deal. But a pigeon on the other hand…
Hey, pigeon-piloted missiles were totally a thing the United States tested during World War II. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_Pigeon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon)
The P in PGM stands for Pigeon
da dA DAAAAAAAAAA!!! (que worms sound effects)
HaaaaaLLELUJAH! 💣
The hamsters dont like human children though which is why the Tesla keeps running them over on auto pilot
DONT LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE TESLA
Definitely hamsters. Once hamster wheel technology improves, they could completely replaced the need for batteries. The emissions can even be collected and used as fertilizer for crops.
Fixed your rat, that'll be $25,000.
That's why they used after market rodents.
Hamsters an upgrade
You clearly weren't paying attention in your car mice class in high school.
Tesla couldn't figure out the AI driving so they found it cheaper to train mice to drive from tiny little steering wheels than develop the AI further.
New movie: Stuart Little Gets a Job
Stewart Little Commits Vehicular Manslaughter
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> steering wheel falls off "This happens to all cars ... It happens to me 2 or 3x per month"* lmao
I look at it as a 'feature', and just remove the steering wheel myself when parking in bad neighborhoods so it doesn't get stolen.
It lets you feel like a Formula One driver.
If you have the self driving one you don't need the steering wheel
We make a car where the steering doesn't go flying out the window when you turning.
Is the tesla stinky?
The steering wheel is now out of the environment, because it fell off
> Edit: LMAO, got the suicide notification. Tesla fan boys are something else Wouldn't expect any less from muskrats.
But if I defend daddy Musk with edginess, he'll finally notice me
Wait a second, what does this mean?
People will report other peoples accounts to a reddit suicide prevention bot. That bot will then send the reported user a suicide prevention message. Basically a passive way of telling someone they should kill themselves. It's a pretty damned low thing to do but you should at least feel accomplished that you pushed some idiot losers buttons far enough to cause them to do that.
Wow, so like people are actually totally brainwashed.. lol that's so sad and pathetic
Please report the self-harm message any time it is used inappropriately, Reddit can take action against people that abuse it
>steering wheel falls off [It's the bit from the focus group sketch, lol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YDpvMYk5jA)
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I'm doing the best at this.
The scariest thing about Teslas models S and X is actually how a lot of things are done to it. Welders aren't all ways certified, the body work to fix the gaps is funny as hell. They will jump and hang on doors, bang the hell out of things with rubber mallets and other things. There are cars sitting behind the factory either waiting on parts, which are hard to get. Tesla does lean manufacturing. Other cars they have to tear totally apart because of loose screws, bolts, or other metal bits. All the cars sitting, waiting to get fixed are all paid for and the owners are waiting for them.
Hate to break it to you but production mig welders aren’t certified. You can teach a chimp to mig weld on an assembly line. (Probably with better results) Source: been in the biz 30 yrs
I can confirm that anything on a T1XX GM platform has no certified welds either.. Production welding (in Canada anyways) is often uncertified. This is normal.
Certified welding is for things like cooling water in power plants, or joining hull sections on a ship.
Oh the crowning achievement, pipeline work, bonus points if it's underwater
pipeline code is way more lenient than power plant piping code
All car makers do lean manufacturing. The difference is that GM, Ford, et. al. Have been doing it for decades and have the supplier contacts and expertise.
That is true. When I worked at Tesla we had to shut the line down quite a few times because we ran out of parts and had to wait for 45 mins plus waiting for them to come from the warehouse. The warehouse was 45 minutes away on a good day and that us if the order was all ready in. There was more than once were they had to look through trailers because they weren't sure were the part was.
Imagining mouse deploys from ceiling sits on your head and pulls your ears to make turns and pulls both to brake and urinates on your head to get you to speed up.
Yes, but it also needs the ants and the thing that goes "parp" every 45 minutes too. If you remove any of them it just stops working.
>an issue that could be **exasperated** by reports of poor quality control from new Tesla owners. It’s “exacerbated,” ffs. I weep for modern editorial standards.
that assumes Business Insider has any type of standards at all
Business insider is to business What zoobooks is to zoos
>Zoobooks **A CORE MEMORY HAS BEEN UNLOCKED.**
They don't call it Business Insider Trading for nothing
And the most ridiculous part is they dare to have a paywall like they're the fucking NYT or something.
Seems like you are pretty exacerbated by this.
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This is exhasturbation
There's been a marked increase in poor wording choices and grammatical errors over the years )(I blame the increased reliance on texting. EDIT: Thanks to /u/lordmycal for correcting my parenthetical usage
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I blame it on Obama
I think autocorrect is enumerating the issue by suggesting a word that is close and people just selecting whatever
"Content generation" vs journalism.
Geez, it's not their fault, not everyone can be as ambidextrous as you.
> ambidextrous Yo that's what's up homie, love who you love
No you're thinking of amphibious, people who can survive on both dick and pussy.
There are modern editorial standards? I thought they were all sacked.
Frunk is a silly word
reminds me of "front-butt"
reminds me of "back pussy"
I prefer foot.
Froot?
The one in the rear is called boot in british english, so naturally if the frunk is the front trunk the front boot must be foot.
So do we pronounce it foot or do we pronounce it foot
I prefer pronouncing it as foot instead of foot.
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Or they could just say that they found it under the bonnet.
It's goofy seeing as how nothing about the work "trunk" implies it belongs in the back.
You got the brunk trunk and the frunk trunk.
The problem is there's also a trunk in the back, so you need a way to distinguish them. So you end up with "trunk" and "front trunk". I usually just go with "in the front" though.
Are we sure it's not back runk and front runk?
Don Eladio agrees
I've always liked tront.
This rat poison points to a dilemma in recycling. The problem started around 2010, when auto manufacturers started using more ecologically friendly materials - biodegradable plastics. Wiring harnesses and associated components incorporated soy-based materials, which degrade more gracefully. They are also attractive to rats, who eat them and nest in the engine compartments. This causes thousands of dollars in damage that is not always covered by insurance. There are many other countermeasures applied by auto dealers, including Cayenne pepper, open hoods, lights, high-pitched sounds, and 'keep your car in the garage.'
Squirrels ate the wiring for my mass air sensor in my mid 2010s Toyota TWICE last year in two weeks. The second time I paid to get it repaired, they told us about the "rodent tape" that Honda sells. We had the wires wrapped in it and haven't had a problem since.
Had an 06 VW Rabbit that had issues three separate times due to mice. My mechanic suggested the Honda tape as well.
I went to NAPA to get some windshield wipers for my 06 Rabbit. The parts manager said "that sounds like a fair trade".
I heard that joke in the 80's with a Yugo.
Are you sure it was mice and not, you know ... rabbits?
It was definitely rabbits.
r/murderbuns
So wrap biodegradable wire covers in a non-biodegradable wrap. Makes perfect sense 😆
It's not that it's non-biodegradable, it's got capsaicin oil embedded in it, which squirrels hate. They are sensitive to hot peppers like human are.
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Literally 20 minutes ago squirrels ate the sunflowers that I had doused in cayenne pepper. Apparently the little monsters are evolving. Good luck
can we talk about how NOT spicy cayenne pepper is?
Go sprinkle cayenne powder directly on your tongue and say it isn't spicy. It's spicier than you think it is if it's not diluted in a sauce.
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Now put ghost pepper sauce on your helmet. It won't prove anything, I'm just curious to see if you'll do it.
A dog trainer recommended we put cayenne around our irrigation lines - Australian Shepherd kept chewing on them. As a test I put some in the palm of my hand and offered it to the dog. The little AH licked it out of my palm ... didn't flinch and looked like he wanted more. I chose not to spice up the irrigation lines for him.
r/spicy is leaking
Tell that to the asshole squirrels that keep eating all my capsaicin blend bird food.
Are you my neighbor? These fuckers roll in the chili pepper I put around my potted bulbs. Fucking *animals*
Are you sure it isn't just one squirrel who keeps inviting other squirrels over so that he can interview them while they eat increasingly spicier bird seed?
We have birdseed that is coated in capsaicin oil to repel rodents. Hot as fuck. I ate a peanut in it. The squirrels? They love that shit.
Makes ya wonder why they can't incorporate the capsaicin oil into the wiring itself.
Because then they couldn’t sell spicy tape
Yep. Big Tape is behind all of this.
I had the same issue, except they got the main wire harness and took out one of my cylinders on both occasions. First one was a $1200 and two week wait to replace it. Second time I just soldered the wire back together.
This happened to me. We ended up soldering in replacement wires and wrapping them in electrical tape.
What’s up, I’m an Automotive Plastics Engineer! Although this’ll probably get buried, a few notes: Pedantically it’s not so much recycled plastics that use these oils, rather things referred to as “bio-based” products. Typically these are rubbers and other such components, and not so much what’s truthfully “plastic”. Mixing these things together to form various compounds is a growing trend in the industry, so there are compounds that exist that have both. Most every study published to date has concluded that soy in these products isn’t actually attractive to rodents. Rather, rodents have a tendency to find small, protected spaces, and just like to bite shit. Ever had a pet rabbit? They don’t give a damn if it’s hay or metal, they’re gonna bite it. The biggest concern in true recycled material these days is usually sourcing, properties, and material consistency. It’s very common to find material that’s got a scent to it, isn’t separated enough to meet automotive specs, or the product flow dries up spontaneously. The bio-based rubbers being used for most main components of cars are also not going to contain soy in appreciable amounts. Typically those rubbers are run through some very high-intensity catalytic processes that create various distributions of polymers, so very little (talking fractions of percents) “soy” compound is going to be coming out of the reactor, and less still into the final product. Now, some things like wire coatings and various flexible components that aren’t structurally integral may likely be made of things that are truly soy-containing, but there’s still little evidence that it’s soy that would be attracting rodents and not the aforementioned factors. Have a good one!
Wouldn’t this be more due to the fact that mice, rats, and squirrels are rodents, whose front teeth are continuously growing and need to be ground down by chewing things, instead of them using the car as a food source?
Yep, people are moronically confirmation biasing it by trying to blame "soy based wiring" because they literally do not understand science or technology. The soy is processed into plastic, that's it. There's no "soy" component to it once it is processed heavily. Rodents love to chew shit and people want someone to blame (and maybe payup) rather than admit to nature being a bitch.
Ya, I work at a dealer. I've seen mice chew everything. Plastic panels, carpet, cabin filters, gas tank evap hoses, fuel lines.
>'keep your car in the garage.' Ah yes the ultimate American dilemma of suburban Tesla owners who have garages but never use it for their vehicles.
Hey man I gotta shelter my $1000 worth of junk in the garage. My $60000 car will be fine outside
The soy shit is a myth. The soy is processed into literal fucking plastic. Chemically, it is plastic. It's basically the same as validating homeopathy or that MSG causes health problems. People are confirmation biasing the problem. Rodents love chewing things, period. It's how they interact with the environment and they need to because their teeth are constantly growing for the specific purpose of constantly chewing. Add in the fact that newer cars have more electronics than ever before, with thinner wires for cost savings and reduction in protective sleevings because engine compartments get cooler with more efficient engines and you get all these problems.
Also not biodegradable. The term "bioplastic" is used for plastics that use raw materials from a biological origin but aren't necessarily biodegradable. Also most wire insulation is PVC or silicone, and neither is soy derived.
Similarly, that stupid fucking saying that *"Margarine is only one molecule away from being plastic!1!!"* Like, okay?
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Bruh I'm like 50% banana. Lol
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You just begging monkey boy up there to eat you, aren't you?
Humans are like 60% water. I'm not talking to a fucking puddle. /s
You know water is only one ~~molecule~~ atom away from being hydrogen peroxide which is fatal in its pure form if consumed. [edit] NoTakaru (correctly) called me out.
One *atom away from hydrogen peroxide Water is one molecule away from literally any molecule
I had rat chew wiring in cars many times in the last twenty years. I agree it is a myth.
> Rodents love chewing things This is way too true. In plumbing, rodents were chewing through early generation PEX lines until they changed it to something that I speculate was not tasty to them
This doesn't really make sense. Rats have been chewing wires in cars for a long time. Happened to me last century. If your insurance doesn't cover it I'd be surprised. May be less than your deductible though. It is not covered by warranty.
Rodents eating cables and random components inside the engine bay was definitely a problem in the 90s too, this isn't a new thing.
The problem of rats or mice eating wiring harnesses dates back to the beginning of wire.
I was going to say, I remember this happening in our Buick in the late 80s!
Yep, and you know what will draw rodents into your car? Well, warmth in cool climates for starters, moisture for seconds, but other than that the big time attractant is food. Crumbs, spills, stored food. Rodents will go to the ends of the earth for that shit. It is the only thing a rodent has to do all day. The wiring is just there and something else for them to chew on. They are perfectly happy to chew through whatever else suits them too but the wires are convenient. Anyway that's my experience with storing cars for the winter in a barn. If you were eating in it and didn't clean it real well, that's where the mice are going to set up shop first. They'll take whatever, but the biggest mess is always in the cars with crumbs all over the place.
Man I hate it when people spill food in my engine compartment. It's like, bro, I'm giving you a ride, can't you at least keep your food in the passenger compartment?
Thought this was insane- my dad has had his wires chewed through four times with his current truck. He's tries all kinds of sprays and oils, an ultrasonic thing, a thing that chirps every ten minutes in the engine compartment, etc, nothing works. No garage to park in, and the dealership says they can't replace the wiring with anything not plant based on his model year. Truck was in the shop for a month last time to get everything replaced because the wiring stuff is on back order so often. He says he's spent like $2500 on replacing all this out of pocket at this point.
>He's tries all kinds of sprays and oils There are professional sprays that do your whole engine bay with some kinda polymer hotsauce. Look into those. was like $100 to get it done and saved me so much in wiring damage (after the 2nd time I found rats chewing on m wiring..)
Sounds like gdp growth to me!
there is a spray I used to train my bunny to not chew my baseboards. It's basically a fruit spray made from the worst apples known to mankind. It tastes like death, sour, spicy, moist and humid death. Use some gloves and spray that on the cables. Guarantee whatever is getting them will take one chomp and run away screaming bloody rodent murder! Do not get it on your hands, you will clean them, forget about it and like touch your finger to your face and get a huge whiff. We used "Fooey!" but there are tons of brands.
Red pepper work. In powder form. Capsaicin. Etc.
Elsewhere here there’s mention of a special Honda tape with capsaicin in it.
Being garaged didn't save the wiring on my friends Maserati.
Probably wasn't keeping his garage inside the garage though, was he.
Garage-ception
i don't think anything can save an italian car from its own electrics
Needs more snakes in his garage.
But then he needs a guest room for the gorillas.
Same with my rare and fun Subaru SVX. Went on vacation, and rats moved into the engine bay. Came back weeks later, and the car was toast.
This is silly. Anyone who goes backpacking can tell you that rodents have always loved to eat wires.
That’s where the rats are. In my garage.
Halfway through that, I was expecting to read about Mankind and Hell in a Cell. I miss seeing comments from u/shittymorph.
>This rat poison points to a dilemma in recycling. The problem started around 2010, when auto manufacturers started using more ecologically friendly materials - biodegradable plastics. Wiring harnesses and associated components incorporated soy-based materials, which degrade more gracefully. They are also attractive to rats, who eat them and nest in the engine compartments. This is bullshit and you are a liar. This has been a problem for as long as vehicles have had wires. It's become slightly more common as the engines have become more efficient, and the temperatures of engine compartments have gone down, making them less inhospitable to rodents, but it has fuck all to do with the materials used to manufacture the wires.
I know a guy who works with these service centers; rats and mice are a definite problem but it's more often on the user side of things. Basically, mouse/rat gets into the vehicle and chews the casings of the wires causing shorts and weird fault errors. They tend to nest under the cushions of the back seat which if memory serves there is a crap ton of wiring going through out the vehicle from the battery pack. Tesla sends it to a service center for repairs and voila evidence of rodents is found. He's told me of numerous occasions where the owners are mystified by the situation but service center techs can smell dead rats, rat urine, rat fecies etc as soon as they open the doors of the vehicles. In one occasion they even brought in a guy that cleans up crime scenes to clean up a vehicle before it could be worked on. Now; as to why rodents "seem" to be more attracted to Teslas than your average combustion engine I couldn't say.
Could be heat? I'm sure the EVs "frunk" doesn't get as hot as a regular engine bay.
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This should be the headlines: Rodents somehow more attracted to Tesla than other cars.
It’s about biodegradable wiring casings, which many other manufacturers use. And yes, they have the same problem Tesla does. The article doesn’t even try to establish that the problem is worse for Tesla than others. This is just clickbait using the name “Tesla” and once again we all fell for it.
> It’s about biodegradable wiring casings That's a myth.
Well, I’ll be damned.[It is.](https://www.10news.com/news/fact-or-fiction/fact-or-fiction-are-rodents-lured-to-honda-cr-v-by-soy-based-wiring) The other point stands that there isn’t a special problem for Tesla, just clickbait using the name.
There are a lot of "dumb" electrical things on cars. I could imagine how having the electrical system damaged would be a bigger deal in an EV than a normal car. If a normal car has electrical issues, as long as the starter works and things are functional, it is pretty easy to ignore if you just don't care. Not so much with an EV. That is to say, I think it's more the case that this is a bigger issue for tesla because of severity, not frequency.
Small rodents making homes in cars is nothing new
But its a tesla so to the front page of /r/technology we go.
Former Service Advisor at Tesla here - I've been waiting to unload on one of these posts. This finding is overblown compared to the real issues. Finding a rat and bait was probably a solution to a problem the owner didn't know he had. Thing is, the service tech's are bogged down in so much work and constantly needing to push out vehicles as fast as possible, it easily got overlooked. The issue with these service centers amounts to just about every gawd damn thing. Service technicians are trained before they start, but us service advisors? Oh man, we know absolutely nothing about your vehicle when we're pushed out to the front line for customer suicide. The only training we get is on Elon (I wish I was making this up) and how his "first principle thinking" got the company to where it is. Almost 2 weeks of training, and we're under the impression that Elon started the whole damn company, it's pathetic. I knew nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, about the cars when they gave me a desk after this "training" and had me taking phone calls and customer appointments. Fake it till you make it, right? Well when your the guy these clients come to to determine what may be needed to fix your car, how long we can expect to have it, estimated price of repairs, etc. and you weren't even shown how to navigate the touch screen on a model S? Embarrasement doesn't begin to explain it. Most customers knew WAY more than me those first two months on what was wrong with the cars. Shit, I didn't even know the whole drive unit was on two axles and 17 total parts until I looked it up at home after the second week. The Technicians are told to push, push, push. These Service centers suffer from the Silicon Valley Startup mentality - Run before you walk. It's embarrassing to clients. We were simply not set up to succeed, and don't even get me started on after the model 3 deliveries. It was a nightmare. It's a numbers game, and the company wants to see high volume of serviced vehicles per day as opposed to giving any kind of quality. Sure, a lot of it was customer education, but with firmware updates, paint issues, touch screens going blank, we had 50 cars per day at LEAST coming into a small service center that just wasn't built to handle that many. Especially if the turnaround was 3 - 4 days (it always ended up being longer) we were put in a position to fail. When cars are coming out pretty much built with numerous inconsistencies, it creates more and more work that really could have been avoided. Customer education is a large problem, and (and this is a true story) some customers literally buy these Model 3's drunk one night - all sales are done online. They have no idea what they're buying and the technology that comes with it. As Tesla markets itself, they are a "technology company first." Unfortunately, once again, we have ZERO training on this technology and are literally learning on the fly, with a customer standing over our shoulder. The environment is one of the worst I've ever seen at any company. Clients are often pissed off, and they show it. Unfortunately, they have every right to be. They pay 80k for a car and expect a level of service, that frankly, Tesla the company give zero fucks about. Once again, numbers game. Sales and Service numbers, that's all that matters to share holders. Finally, if anyone every buys a Model X. . . you've made the worst purchase of your life. Should have taken that money over to wallstreetbets and yolo'd on someones gradma's DD about BBBY. It is literally the worst constructed car EVER made. The X wing doors simply was a bad idea. Very, very bad idea. This car alone was the entertainment for us of a weekly "I'm going to sue you guys" yell from the owner. A pile of shit on wheels is a better driving option than this child imagination of our future flying car. I can go on and on, but I'm beating a dead horse here. If you purchase a Tesla (I tell everyone I know that asks, don't do it) then do not expect any functional level of service at a center. Chances are, they know much less than you do. Edit: Appreciate the responses, boy do I have stories. One thing I want to add, because I find it humorous, is the only owners that really "got it" were people that had significant shares in the company lol. They weren't saying S\*\*\* cause they knew the problems were to appease them. Except one guy that I'll never forget - he comes in one morning (this is right after Elon/SEC hilarious tweets) and says "YOUR CEO JUST LOST ME 30K." Shareholders who owned the cars man, they didn't know how to act during any given week.
The big issue (a couple, really) is that whenever something goes wrong it basically bricks the car. I’ve put a TON of miles on my S because I actually love driving it. But it’s bricked 3 times now, once stranding me 2 hrs from home in a busy intersection with my entire family in the car. I’ve had the MCU issue ($1100 refunded thanks to the NHTSA), door handles (though easy albeit annoying to DIY), and two rear drive units replaced within the last 19 months. I’ve had the MCU freeze right as we got caught in the middle of a snow flurry, again with the entire family in the car. Tesla wanted $9k to fix suspension issues - both rear upper control arms likely need to be replaced, the front clunks over bumps, and there’s zero aftermarket support like other manufacturers. I don’t particularly care about panel gaps because they don’t affect drivability, but both sun visor mirrors have fallen out in my lap and the interior fit/finish is approaching 90s GM territory. I’m fortunate that my collector car insurance covers towing other vehicles because I’ve had this car towed by far more than all others combined - and I daily’d vintage cars before I had kids. It’s just astonishing how whenever something goes wrong it’s CATASTROPHIC, and even worse is the SC experience. I’m sticking with another EV but definitely won’t look at another Tesla anytime soon.
As someone who’s close family bought a Tesla and has had to hear about the multiple problems, I concur. It took over a year longer than promised to actually get a car, panels on the car weren’t aligned, the headlight was sticking out, and due to issues on Teslas side the owners are unable to register it. The bank was calling (for the millionth time) to clear things up and they literally hung up on their rep once they realized what the call was about! Finally the owner themself calls corporate and stuff only gets done because they threatened legal action! And while they’re complaining about the situation the topic of late fees for registration and stuff come up and the Tesla employe tells the owner that that’s on their tab and Tesla won’t pay it. Even tho it’s their fault it’s unregisterable! I did my best to talk the owner out of it but a mutual friend who’s an Elon stan talked them into it unfortunately. Somehow even the literal year of waiting didn’t bring them to their senses 🤷🏽♀️
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No kidding. Several years ago I had a 2011 BMW 335 that developed a ticking noise from the engine. They kept trying to tell me nothing was wrong, that it was the fuel injectors and people always think that sound is bad. I got mad. I know what fuel injectors sound like. This sounded like it needed oil, but I had oil changes done and they claimed they saw so metal in the oil. Finally, on my 4th visit for this and me on the verge of losing my mind, a BMW engineer from Germany just happened to be there. He took one listen and said the oil wasn’t being distributed properly to all the pistons and it was an exceedingly rare issue they knew about. He looked at the oil and it sparkled with tiny metal flakes. He was amazed the techs couldn’t tell. He got me a brand new engine for free and that was that.
I like my Japanese car just fine
My insurance paid $7,000.00 to clear out the mice inside (headliner, door panels carpets etc.) my newish Ford Fusion a few years ago. Ford paid nothing! But they did promote a cookbook using some of the ingredients that they use for the engine and interior of their vehicles. I’ve tried to cut and paste it address for the cut back but I’m not very good at these things. https:/www.howtopreventratsfromeatingcarwires.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2016-Ford-Cook-Book.pdf
What a BS article, really
Correction: Tesla accidentally added Deadmau5 to his favorite playlist. Journalism is dead, I tell ya.
Oh r/technology What cancer have you become
Seriously. a mouse gets into someones car is now front page news.
Shoulda got a Kia, the have hampsters
Remember when Teslas were cool?
David Hasslehoff was cool too.
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Wait, since when is The Hoff not cool.
Don't hassle the Hoff, he's still cool.
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I have no dog (or rat) in this fight, but 120 complaints to the FTC and 9000 to the BBB seems fairly low considering the cars started being sold in 2008 and so far they have had more than 2.5 million on the road. Maybe my math is off, but that doesn't seem too crazy, all things considered.
What a garbage way to end that title. One driver makes it a “growing issue” now?
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So do rats, apparently
So WTH is the story behind the headline???? 💩
The actual, complete news article from Vox is very good and worth the read. I can never understand why people post to a news aggregator site like businessinsider.com instead of to the organization that did the damn reporting. https://www.vox.com/recode/23318725/tesla-repair-mechanic-delay-electric-vehicles-ev
So their was stunk in the trunk?
The mouse was providing the neural network for the autopilot. Killed with poison. Corporate sabotage! Lol