We've had a great few months with our new (to us) camper conversion but now disaster has struck: parked up in London for five days and rodents have destroyed three separate parts under the chassis. The most expensive is the NOX sensor and that's been chewed so close to the end that i dont think patching together the cables is going to do the trick. I have hope that the oil sensor cables can be fixed (would also avoid having to renew the oil, which was only replaced 2k miles ago) and probably the ad blue injector too.
Van details as attached (2019 reg.) and also pics of the damage.
My questions for forum are: w
(A) what anyone's experience of patching cables is in terms of reliability versus getting the parts replaced? I'd dont have the skills or tools to do this myself so it will be going to garage. Local garage has quoted full market price for replacement parts x3 (an eye watering amount), but has said they'd fit something I'd supply, or could do the rewiring.
(B) I've seen previous comments that after-market NOX sensors arent a great option, but OEM is about £750/800 just for that one part whereas others can be bought new for about £250/300. The wiring for the NOX sensor has been chewed so close to the end that it's pretty much a stump, so I think this particular part will have to be replaced rather than even trying to patch the wires (see attached pic).
(C) What's the best way of knowing that I'm buying the correct replacement parts? Is there an authoritative source? The owner manual is useless for that and even the printed or stamped labels on the parts that have been chewed don't seem to correspond to what's listed on sale.
(D) these cables and many others under the chassis seem to be hugely vulnerable to this type of damage, but I can't see many if any products available to protect the parts (e.g. wraparound gauze or something like that): anyone aware of effective deterrents?
And in case wondering, these issues came to light due to the "check oil sensor", "check exhaust system" and "refill adblue" errors coming up on the dash. Had diagnostics done and those codes cleared (got Halfords to return and do that no-charge as they'd fitted a new battery the previous week and I assumed these new faults were 'just' down to that and the ECU not being properly recoded... unfortunately not that simple), but they popped straight back up. In trying to get to the bottom of it myself I looked underneath and saw the oil sensor hanging down, and then saw the other two chewed parts after having crawled underneath to look more closely. Gutted that the critters have done so much expensive damage in less than a week: madness.
To be clear: these faults were not showing prior to the battery replacement. The battery was replaced as the van is 5yrs old and the battery was either original or several years old and it wasn't reliable at start-up (the nice small company that I bought from covered this replacement as part of sale price).
And yes, I have fully comp insurance but from what I see online it seems insurers would try and say this level of damage wasnt done in one sitting, and usually the van is stored in a garage as per my insurance but during the past few weeks it hasn't been as I was helping a friend to relocate.
Thanks all! A long one for my first proper post, but have been gleaning lots of useful info from this forum in recent months and I'm sure answers to these questions will be useful to other users too.
Van details as attached (2019 reg.) and also pics of the damage.
My questions for forum are: w
(A) what anyone's experience of patching cables is in terms of reliability versus getting the parts replaced? I'd dont have the skills or tools to do this myself so it will be going to garage. Local garage has quoted full market price for replacement parts x3 (an eye watering amount), but has said they'd fit something I'd supply, or could do the rewiring.
(B) I've seen previous comments that after-market NOX sensors arent a great option, but OEM is about £750/800 just for that one part whereas others can be bought new for about £250/300. The wiring for the NOX sensor has been chewed so close to the end that it's pretty much a stump, so I think this particular part will have to be replaced rather than even trying to patch the wires (see attached pic).
(C) What's the best way of knowing that I'm buying the correct replacement parts? Is there an authoritative source? The owner manual is useless for that and even the printed or stamped labels on the parts that have been chewed don't seem to correspond to what's listed on sale.
(D) these cables and many others under the chassis seem to be hugely vulnerable to this type of damage, but I can't see many if any products available to protect the parts (e.g. wraparound gauze or something like that): anyone aware of effective deterrents?
And in case wondering, these issues came to light due to the "check oil sensor", "check exhaust system" and "refill adblue" errors coming up on the dash. Had diagnostics done and those codes cleared (got Halfords to return and do that no-charge as they'd fitted a new battery the previous week and I assumed these new faults were 'just' down to that and the ECU not being properly recoded... unfortunately not that simple), but they popped straight back up. In trying to get to the bottom of it myself I looked underneath and saw the oil sensor hanging down, and then saw the other two chewed parts after having crawled underneath to look more closely. Gutted that the critters have done so much expensive damage in less than a week: madness.
To be clear: these faults were not showing prior to the battery replacement. The battery was replaced as the van is 5yrs old and the battery was either original or several years old and it wasn't reliable at start-up (the nice small company that I bought from covered this replacement as part of sale price).
And yes, I have fully comp insurance but from what I see online it seems insurers would try and say this level of damage wasnt done in one sitting, and usually the van is stored in a garage as per my insurance but during the past few weeks it hasn't been as I was helping a friend to relocate.
Thanks all! A long one for my first proper post, but have been gleaning lots of useful info from this forum in recent months and I'm sure answers to these questions will be useful to other users too.
