My first experience was the O2 sensors on my 2014 Challenger. The wiring for the sensors was eaten away and I had to have them replaced. A couple months later, it happened again. Then, a few months later, I went to start the car after it had been parked in the driveway for about twenty minutes on a warm spring day. Heard the squealing sound of a slipping belt. Shut off the engine and opened the hood. Found two large groundhogs looking at me. One was up by the fire wall. The other was in front and had been caught by the serpentine belt. The belt had been knocked off the pulleys and had taken a significant amount of fur with it. No amount of yelling, arm waving or slapping the fender seemed to faze the critters. Finally, I walked away, and they left on their own. At that point I made some room to cram the Challenger into the garage with the old cars. That was just over a year ago.
But, it didn't end there. I noticed that when ever I stepped outside, any groundhogs that happened to be in the yard, would immediately run for cover to the nearest car or truck parked in the driveway. Over the last year, I have had to replace plug wires on a 67 Belvedere wagon three times before I finally sold the car this month. On some of those plug wires, there were only a few inches of wire and the boot left behind. No other wiring on that car was ever touched.
A few months ago I called an exterminator after I found an assortment of under hood wires chewed through on my 96 Ram pickup. The exterminators caught and removed four groundhogs in two weeks. I have since tried baiting traps myself using apples, lettuce, cantaloupe and left over plug wire remnants from the wagon. But the remaining groundhog was too smart to go into the trap. All I've caught were a squirrel and two opossums.
Meanwhile while trying to track down why the Brake and ABS light was on, for my daily driver 99 Durango, we found first that the ABS wiring to the right front had been chewed along with some other under hood wiring. And the main chassis harness going to the rear of the vehicle. I'm currently in search of a replacement chassis harness for the Durango.
Based on the size of the bite marks on the plug wires and the chassis harness (and the large segments of completely missing parts of the wires) , I have ruled out mice and squirrels as the culprits. Since the groundhogs have been spotted on several occasions climbing up into the vehicles, I am certain of their guilt. Once they come out of hibernation in the spring, I will be resetting the traps.
The groundhogs like to relax on my deck. In the first photo, a groundhog hangs out on the deck as the opossum waits in the trap to be released. In the second photo, the groundhog relaxes on the deck just a couple feet from the baited trap that he never went in. Before all the destruction, when I still thought they were cute, I named this one Norm. He always likes sitting on the step and leaning on the deck like Norm bellies up to the bar on "Cheers".
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