Hmm. That's not the kind of gnawing I had which were on the distribution cables to the sparks. Don't know if your local mechanic can handle it for less. (mine did when it happened to me the second time). Harder wrap all of that in the rodent tape.

 

I have a mechanic who works only on Honda and Acura vehicles, but his shop is 30 minutes away and it's not a place where you can get a priority repair. The car wasn't drivable due to a lack of electric power steering, so I had it towed to the dealership 5 minutes away, believing it was just the 12V battery. The repair was expensive, but looking back, I think it worked out better for me. I would have needed to call around Monday morning, hoping to find another trustworthy mechanic to fit me in for an urgent repair and travel there. The diagnostic fee would have been $190 if I had declined the repair plus needing to tow the car again. The dealership was also a safer place to park my car over the weekend. It would have been bad if the rodent came back and did more damage.

The dealership took care of everything over the phone and kept me informed from the moment my car was dropped off by the tow truck driver. The part was ordered Monday morning after I approved the repair, and the vehicle was ready by 9 a.m. Tuesday morning for pickup. Rodent tape was wrapped around the new EPS wire harness, and a steering angle recalibration was done. I'm not sure if they updated the BCM software, but my intermittent wipers used to do a double wipe randomly(gone now), which I think started after the BCM recall update. Currently my car is not parked in the same spot but around the same area. I don't really have a choice with limited parking, so I'm crossing my fingers I don't have to deal with this again.

^Also found a video of a Honda tech doing the same repair for another Gen3 Insight. Sadly, that Insight was attacked twice.

 

Your dealership was more proactive then with going to the rodent tape right away unlike mine. After the rodent tape, I didn't have damage to the distributor wires again. To further discourage rodents gathering in there again, I left the hood up for a couple nights in a row but I didn't prefer doing that because I'd like to keep the engine bay otherwise clean from the elements (vs. rodent droppings and nesting materials). After a clear year of not seeing any more hood insulation chewed up for nesting on top of the engine, I ordered a replacement Honda hood insulation part and installed it myself.

In our neighborhood, rodents have been displaced by a lot of water/street work. We've had to have the city and our building's pest control service try to stay on top of the rodent problem too. Two years later, we are at the tail end of it and trying to get them out of our building itself.

 

The technician wrote it down as part of the repair order, but I would've brought it up if they didn't. I'm going to wrap the other exposed wires I can reach with that rodent tape and clean the engine bay when I get the chance. Multiple vehicles have parked overnight in that very spot over the past week, and I haven't seen any of my neighbors' vehicles with a reported problem. So it might've been just bad luck the rodent chose my Insight, but I'm going to let the pest control guy know when he comes to inspect the property again.

 

Would someone please provide a link to this "rodent tape"?

I have chipmunks where I live/park and while they have not chewed through anything yet, I have found peanut and other shells in the engine bay.

Maybe worth using this "rodent tape" proactively

 

Honda Part # 4019-2317

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Heh I know that the garage I'm parking my Insight in this summer had a lot of mice last summerso I've had 3 traps set around the car at all times since July. The traps have caught around 20 mice so far, mostly in the last month since the weather is getting cooler

 

Same, but by traps I mean I let my 3 cats guard my garage from rodents...they dispose of them as well (they eat them)