Car Trouble: Watch Out for Those Pesky Wabbits
July 5th, 2008
When we moved into our house, we were thrilled to find wild rabbits frequently visiting our yard. We’re animal lovers, so while many people consider them pests, we don’t mind too much that they come and eat our sprouting grass and leave giant rabbit pellets all over our yard; we figure it’s good fertilizer. We even tried to feed them once, but they had no idea what carrots were for (a squirrel ended up eating it). But this time these cute little rabbits have gone just a little too far.
With our automatic garage door inoperable, we’ve been parking our car in the driveway these last few months. Last week, when I needed to go the hardware store, the car wouldn’t start. Everything sounded fine, the engine cranked, the battery was good, but the bloody car simply wouldn’t start.
I called our auto insurance company (Progressive) with which we have roadside service, and arranged for towing to our local mechanic, and 2 hours later my mechanic called with the diagnosis: rabbits had chewed the cables under the car. This is a common problem in our area due to large amounts of undeveloped land - our house is one of 5 or 6 on our street.
This simple problem of chewed cables cost us $150 for the mechanic to take apart the engine and fix the cables. This repair supposedly took him 2 hours (at $75 per hour), but I have a hard time believing that it really did, because when I got there a little under 2 hours later, the mechanics were playing solitaire on the computer. This is what I hate about hiring people to do work that I myself don’t know much about. I have half a mind to go and learn auto repair - and everything else it takes to maintain the entire house.
On top of it all, I had to traipse across the desert (alright, just a small chunk of desert - about 10 minutes) in 101 degree heat to pick up my car.
So a word of advice: If you live in an area where there are wild rabbits, try not to park your car outside, especially during hot summer days. They hide under the car to get away from the sun, and because there’s nothing else to do, they gnaw on whatever they can find under the car - namely, wires. When I went to pick up my car, the mechanic pointed out parts of my engine that had rabbit hairs stuck to them.
I do still think they’re cute. I suppose you can’t blame them. They don’t know any better, and they have to chew things to keep their teeth from growing to long. To prove just how cute they are, here are a couple of bunnies that visited us a couple of years back. Now how can you hate anything as cute as this?
P.S. We are now looking harder to find a professional repairman who will service our area.
