SLK/R170: Dead Mouse in Car Somewhere (Phew!)
11-09-2015, 01:20 AM
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Dead Mouse in Car Somewhere (Phew!)
I just recently retrieved my '03 SLK230 from a neighbor's garage (we sold our home so I stored it there for a month) and I found mouse evidence under the hood. They'd eaten my hood insulation pad and made a nest under the electronic bay next to the battery. I ripped out the hood pad.
The interior had NO odor until today (4 days after taking the car out of storage).
Now, days later I am getting the foul smell of a dead animal in the cockpit, and it's getting worse by the hour. The car has only 40k miles and formerly smelled showroom new (the car had never even been driven in the rain), so this is most distasteful and distressing to say the least.
The only place I can detect any direct odor with the doors open is under the passenger dash foot well area. I am thinking that this may be the source of the odor that "fills" the cockpit when the car is closed up. Unfortunately I have no covered area now to keep the car where it can be left open to "air-out" if that's even remotely possible.
It appears that the under-dash panel (the only place I can smell the odor w/ the doors open) can be removed by removing two Philips screws at the backside, and the perforated shield should possibly come out toward the passenger seat? I don't know how something could have gotten up in there, but mice can squeeze through very tight places.
I suspect the activity of retrieving the car may have scared a mouse deep where it got trapped and possibly died, and now is beginning to decompose.
Any ideas from those who've had that part of the car opened up that would be useful would be much appreciated.
The electronics bay (black box with removable top at the firewell just inboard of the battery) is perfectly clean inside, but it would be helpful to be able to lift it to get rid of the nest located under it, but I see no clear way to move it.
I plan to remove the battery, which will give at least limited access to under the box, but I doubt it will be enough access to get out the majority of the nest made from the hood pad.
Thanks,
Bob
The interior had NO odor until today (4 days after taking the car out of storage).
Now, days later I am getting the foul smell of a dead animal in the cockpit, and it's getting worse by the hour. The car has only 40k miles and formerly smelled showroom new (the car had never even been driven in the rain), so this is most distasteful and distressing to say the least.
The only place I can detect any direct odor with the doors open is under the passenger dash foot well area. I am thinking that this may be the source of the odor that "fills" the cockpit when the car is closed up. Unfortunately I have no covered area now to keep the car where it can be left open to "air-out" if that's even remotely possible.
It appears that the under-dash panel (the only place I can smell the odor w/ the doors open) can be removed by removing two Philips screws at the backside, and the perforated shield should possibly come out toward the passenger seat? I don't know how something could have gotten up in there, but mice can squeeze through very tight places.
I suspect the activity of retrieving the car may have scared a mouse deep where it got trapped and possibly died, and now is beginning to decompose.
Any ideas from those who've had that part of the car opened up that would be useful would be much appreciated.
The electronics bay (black box with removable top at the firewell just inboard of the battery) is perfectly clean inside, but it would be helpful to be able to lift it to get rid of the nest located under it, but I see no clear way to move it.
I plan to remove the battery, which will give at least limited access to under the box, but I doubt it will be enough access to get out the majority of the nest made from the hood pad.
Thanks,
Bob
