The Telegraph- Eco-friendly brake cables eaten by foxes after switch to soy insulation
Eddie Mitchell, who lives on Broadwater Green in Worthing, the latest target for hungry foxes, said: “Everyone around us has been affected. There’s been at least 20 attacks by foxes on the brakes system under cars.”
Recent photos show multiple cars covered in blue plastic for protection after a spate of attacks.
Brake cables? I think a 36 Pontiac of my youth had brake cables but I’m not positive. It had friction shock absorbers, an enclosed driveshaft, and enclosed front suspension in oil so why not brake cables.
Your memory is not slipping, the hand brake was cable operated in cars of the ’30s. The main brakes would have been hydraulic drum brakes controlled by a master cylinder under the driver’s floor board.
The Brits could always shoot the foxes, but that’s unacceptable now isn’t it?
Cars of that vintage often had cable or steel-rod acutated brakes controlled by the brake pedal. Hydraulics came later. Some new cars still have cable-operated parking brakes.
Apparently standard Volkswagens had mechanical cable brakes up to about 1960.
The cables carry fluid which operates the brakes. Dumbass.
Cable carrying fluid? So says Danny Dumass.
Not the first time this sort of thing has happened. In November 1942, the 22nd Panzer Division found that many of its tanks were immobilized. Shortage of fuel had crippled the German army at Stalingrad for months. During the huge Soviet counterattack, they found that many of the divisions’s tanks could not be started because mice had chewed up the wiring.
Rodents are the problem here, as most farmers have discovered when they go to start combines and tractors after a long winter’s nap.
Once again, replacing something that works, with something that sounds good.
I side with the foxes.
Soy-eating foxes, though?! I thought they had better sense!
There used to be a patent medicine that advertised itself with the striking slogan, “Foxes Don’t Get Constipated!” And frankly, if this is how well they eat, I’m not surprised.
My Toyota needed a new wire harness earlier this year. Rodents. Repair shop sees a lot of it now they’ve switched to this biodegradable insulation for the wires. So now I keep poison bait traps near the cars.
I had porkies eat all the wiring and fuel lines under my car once. That was bad enough, and they were not even soy
Yup. The buggers ate the brand new seat on my dozer about fifty years ago one weekend.
My boss laughed and said it was because I had a sweaty arse.
I cant imagine why break lines would be considered important.. A micro example of environmental solutions completely ignoring the functions they seek to replace.. But unlike starving or sitting in the dark .. No breaks is very alarming, on a personal level..
A situation where the Just Stop Oil road blockers get run over because of soy break lines would be seen as progress?.. They wonder why everybody has lost faith..
If those foxes are going after that nice sweet-tasting brake fluid, I would think it to be a self-limiting problem. Ethylene (or Di-Ethylene) glycol is quite toxic, and for a critter the size of a fox it would not take much for it to be on its way to wherever foxes go when they shed their mortal coil.
Of course, knowing the eco-freaks of the EU, it may be that the less-toxic Propylene Glycol was mandated for use in brake fluid, and those foxes can continue to caper on with their warfare against human occupation.
An Atlanta friend’s Chrysler Pacifica van (with soy coated electrical wiring) got eaten by mice, squirrels and chipmunks over a couple of years being parked outside in tall grass. Cost her over 2 grand for new wiring.
Years ago we had two cats that were left in the house most winter days while we were at work. They took to chewing on the stereo speaker wires, and I painted those wires with Tabasco Sauce End of problem.
One could paint Tabasco on the brake lines and wires, but splashing though rain would wash it off. Maybe someone could come up with a waterproof pepper extract for the job. The animal teeth would scrape it off, and they’d quickly give up on it.
Or maybe a class-action lawsuit would result in a recall to replace the tasty stuff with the proper polymers.
So very Boeing!
Two cars, downtown T.O., both soy wiring harnesses eaten by rats.
I can not understand why engineers haven’t made cars entirely out of cheese yet?
Soyboys beware! The rats are after your scrawnies!
Soy covered wiring has written off many an RV.