Yep.
2 Saturday ago, went to Ford for an oil change, everything was fine. Later on in that week, like Thursday/Friday I noticed my external temperature for the outside air wasn't working right. It was stuck on 50 degrees when it was 25 degrees out. Got home from work that Friday, opened the hood and found this:
Also found some chewed wires, but I'll spare you the pictures. Took it to Ford the next day (Saturday) and there was $345 in chewed wires, and I ordered the hood liner, PCV tube, and insulated battery bag to replace them myself to save some money, for another $130.
I set traps around the outside of my house that weekend and caught nothing.
I kept the car in the garage the rest of that weekend after being fixed (booted my wife's car outside), which is drywalled/finished/sealed so nothing could get in. Drove to work Monday, and came outside to see that squirrel. Opened the hood and found him busy making a second nest on top of the engine, and more chewed wires, this time including the wires coming off the brake fluid reservoir:
Started the car and all the brake system lights were on along with loud alarms telling me to service AdvanceTrac and check the brake system:
Luckily I still had actual brakes. Brought it to Ford that next day (Tuesday), got the car back Wednesday with another $375 bill. Thankfully I had to order the battery bag and hood liner and hadn't replaced them yet since the squirrel ate more of those the second time around. Drove the car for two minutes and the dash lit up like a Christmas tree for the brake system again. Drove right back to Ford, this time they stripped every single thing off the car they could, every plastic shield, stripped out the wheel wells, everything, and found a second nest *behind* the wheel well plastics in the fender, and $750 more in damage. They had the car til Thursday, and all seems well now.
At the point I learned it would be another $750, I involved insurance as the grand total for the two events was now $1602 and they stepped up like they always do, no questions asked, and covered everything beyond my deductible. Luckily they didn't try to split it into two separate events and exclude the first $345 I paid, they considered it all one loss event. Even better, since I replaced the hood liner, PCV tube, and battery bag myself, they actually paid me $80 in labor since they said they would've had to have paid the dealer that money anyway normally, which was awesome. So grand total to me ended up being around $420, and I now have a check for $1183 in my pocket from insurance, instead of the $1102 I was thinking it would be.
I now take the bus to work which sucks. I can never, ever drive that car back to work and park in that ramp. Building management set traps, but that doesn't really mean anything. They can catch 50 squirrels and I'll never know if they caught the one making the nest. At the end of the day, while taking the bus absolutely sucks, I was happy to find out that this was happening at work, and not at home.
Wife wants me to unload the car at this point since between having the wheels stolen, getting hit with a golf ball on the back edge of the hood which wasn't PDR'able and having to have the hood refinished (granted the hood corroded (Ford has a TSB for this, common problem) so it got refinished anyway), and now this, it's a lightning rod for negative B.S. She might be right.
