Snails attacked my engine!

[Ken Cunningham]

This has gotta be the weirdest thing I've seen w/ my Turbo Regal. About 2 dozen snails invaded my engine compartment. Left baked on slime on the doghouse and on lots of the hoses. All that was left were the shells, all baked out. Most of the shells were up by the wiper motor. Also a lot on the other side by the heater box. Some were still on the fuel rail and some on the wire loom by the driver side valve cover. I cleaned out the engine compartment (mini-detail) on Sunday. Drove it to work on Monday, softball game Mon. night. On Tues morning, there they are. Since I lock my car every time it's parked, I don't think it was vandalism. But a mass movement of snails into my engine??? Doesn't make sense. Anybody else ever seen this?

 

[salvageV6]

Nope.

You sure your car ain't a slug?

 

[Renthorin]

I am not up on my Bible reading but this kind of sounds like something from Revelations........

Up here in Michigan we don't have that problem as they salt the roads. Keeps the little buggers from moving around too much.

 

[scottyb]

Give 'em a break.
They're just tired of going so slow and the neighbor's Mustang just didn't give them the fix anymore. You will never get rid of them.

 

[matt87]

musta thought the turbo was the mother of all snails! kidding aside sounds like maybe where you park is too damp. live near a pond or wet\marsh land?

 

[zam70]

ha...haHA....eeeeeeehahahaha ha... heh................. heh...


OK...weird....maybe they were trying to keep warm.


a heh....

 

[tom h]

consider yourself lucky , could have been worse than snails : rats ... squirrels ... kittens ... puppies ...

 

[Ken Cunningham]

Well, it looks like the total cost of my snail invasion: 5" diameter hole chewed in the hood insulator pad, boost solenoid filter eaten off, and one engine detailing job I have to do over. For such slimy, soft creatures, they sure have destructive mouth parts. And a bizarre appetite for car parts.

Southern California is semi-arid even here on the coast. But snails are prevalent in all gardens and landscaping I know of.

I haven't totally ruled out vandalism/intentional placement of the snails. But it's a pretty remote possibility. But then so is the thought of 25 snails crawling (slowly) up a tire, up the engine compartment, on top of the turbo, to eat at the hood pad right above the turbo.

Maybe it my karma. 2 years ago a chinchilla crawled into the engine compartment of my wife's car. We found it at least 2 days after it had been in there. We still have that little guy in a cage here.

 

[salvageV6]

I like puppies.

 

[Eddyman]

Never heard of snails attacking but a Racoon chewd the driver side window rubbers. Car was in the garage with the window down an inch! It has T tops, so i think the rubbers are hard to g
et?

• 86 T Type Stock, Bfg radial Drags. 14.05 @ 94mph.

 

[mygrain]

I had a mouse nest catch fire under the hood of a chevy pick up and burnt the whole engine compartment up.

 

[U1ARUNIT]

My great uncle had a big snake under his hood at one time. eeewwwwwww.......

 

[J Banning]

I found a dead sting ray under the hood of my car once! It was sitting right on top of the cylinder head for about 3 days... with me driving it the whole time!! It was pretty crispy by the time I found it. Scared the cr#p out of me. It looked like that creature from Aliens!!

Found out shortly thereafter that my buddy had put it there as a joke.

-Banning.

 

[Turbojorge]

I'll second that "looking for heat" theory. Don't think someone will play a prank like that.


I think you should put this in the lounge though.

 

[turbo buicks]

Originally posted by J Banning
I found a dead sting ray under the hood of my car once!

thats probably the weirdest thing i have heard in a LONG time. LOL

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by Ken Cunningham

I haven't totally ruled out vandalism/intentional placement of the snails.

Ya, then LA Cripes are just into all kinds of stuff now.
Lewd snail placement is just the newest in a long list of terroist crimes they're planning.

Trouble is that it takes so long to train attack snails.

Cripes or Gummit, hard to guess who could do something like that, Oceanside, hmm, maybe some experimential Black Weapons Work gone astray from El Toro?. Them uneployed seal training guys need something to do.

Maybe mutant snails have exscaped from that Nuke plant down by ya'all.

 

[motorhead]

Turbo = Mother of all Snails

LMFAO!!!

Dude, who would even think that snails could be vandelous? Amazing. Baked slime.

 

[topfuel]

the mother of all snails

Originally posted by matt87
musta thought the turbo was the mother of all snails! kidding aside sounds like maybe where you park is too damp. live near a pond or wet\marsh land?

Thats the funniest thing I've seen in a long time
thanks, I needed a good laugh...

 

[WE4]

Snails?

My sister lives in Cerritos down there and ck this out..

She gets home from work about 10 o clock at night. Then leaves at 7:00 in the morning. One night she pulls in car runs fine. Next morning car wont start.. She owns a new Infinity. So, she tows it to the Infinity dealer and drops it off.
She calls me at work to tell me that they say it will be 900.00 to fix and not covered under warranty. I said let me talk to this service manager. So little while later he calls. It turns out , rats had eaten the coil wires and the insulation on the coils. Each cylinder has its own on an Infinity. He claims it has been a big problem down there as the chillier weather sets in. This was fall last year. Now my question was, how the hell could the friggin rat even touch the engine for 4-5 hrs after she gets home as it is HOT. He still insisted that that is what had caused this. I told her to do what she needed to do but have them save the old "eaten" parts. So she has them fix it and they save the parts. I , personally, thought they were blowing smoke up our arses but then I see the parts and I read in a Motor Age Tech Bulletin that this is in fact very true! The insulation on these parts entices these little guys. Like a delicacy or somethin.
man, freak things do happen. ( Especially in L.A.!!!!!) LOL

I suggested her next call be the exterminator....Her husband said " After $900.00, I am the exterminator!!"
He waited night after night with the pellet gun.
The Rat trap the pest guy left finally got them. LOL

Bruce
WE4

 

[TurboDave]

Ken. We had that problem at my place in San Diego, A LOT. IT's not the snails that are causing the damage. It's what is dragging the snails up into your nice warm engine compartment to snack on them that is causing the damage. Same thing happened on Kathy's 87. Would go out and find snail shells all over the place, but mostly clustered in one or two areas. You could tell they weren't there as the result of a meeting , but rather had been brought there for some other critter's snack.
Whatever that critter was (squirrel, mouse, rat), it also caused some chew damage
It was only a problem on the car/s that were forced to sit outside over night or some other place for an extended period. The garaged cars never had the problem.

'Couse, over here in WI we don't know from snails