On Friday I am making a 400+ mile drive back to my school so I thought it would be a good idea to check my fluid levels under my hood. Everything was checking out fine until I opened the airbox to check on the air filter. Here's what I found.



My question is how much damage could this have caused? I had been running an Amsoil for a while but at the end of summer I swapped in the paper filter and I've driven about 2k miles since. The filter is about 1 1/2 years old and has been in the car for roughly 5k miles total. What can be done to see if this has damaged anything? Should my first move be to get an oil change?

 

Have you noticed any considerable difference in engine performance or any weird noises? That is too weird. I personally havn't ever seen a filter do that. I do think that 1 1/2 years is old for a paper filter, but that's just me. It does look pretty clean.... Hmmm.. wild, man.

 

It looks like you had a rat in your airbox??

 

Is this actually possible? It did look like there were some droppings of some sort in the airbox. I did the elbow removal when I put the Amsoil in about a year ago and that would leave a big enough hole for a rat to get in. All I know is this sucks.

 

yeah, it had to be a mouse. It's a real problem in Colorado. They like the warmth under the hood. I once had to pull a squirrel out of the fanbelts of a chevy truck. He was stringy, man, and tangled up in all three belts. Hell of a way to go.

 

Oh man, that conjures up some images! Yeah, a rodent makes sense now. I forget about that, out here in the desert we really don't have to worry about that generally... Now rattlers curled up behind your tires, that;s another story....

 

So what kind of damage could unfiltered air do to the engine?

 

Not enough to worry about if it was only like this for a short time.
I would pull the intake tube and just make sure there isn't any paper floating around inside.

 

As long as the damage is on the upsttream side of the filter, I wouldn't be too concerned. It doesn't look like there are any LARGE holes that would have passed any debris. Although I would check the piping back to the throttle body for any signs of debris. No need to do an oil change, either.

I had a mouse in the airbox of my 3.0 a few years ago, although he didn't try to eat my air filter. I DID have to clean out a bunch of corn kernels that he had stashed away...

 

That was definately a rodent of some kind.
You might want to drop your blower motor next.

......someone actually posted a pic of a 4runner blower fan with a mouse nest in it.

 

is that the mouse that everyone uses to power the 3.slow?

 

 

I had a mouse get into my heater fan and it chewed it's way out! I always wondered why the fan was so noisy and vibrating. I thought it was just cracked and that I could melt it back together, until I removed it. 2 holes chewed right thru it!! Had to get another whole fan/motor from a junkyard on New Years' eve (a few years ago). That was one cold drive to the junkyard! Then I found a hole under the dash in the heater box where the mouse chewed his way out! I duct-taped it shut and my heater was fixed. Darn mice!!

 

Here's what I was looking for:

 

If that was on the intake side, unless the mouse chewed all the way through, no particles should have made it through. Right?

A rat, mouse, or even a squirrel can wreak havoc on an engine. People who leave their vehicles parked for extended lengths of time are the most vulnerable. My mom and dad had a rat get in their car and truck engine bay about 2 weeks ago. The rat chewed through wires in my moms camry and through the heater hose on my dads S-10. It doesn't take very long for one to do a lot of damge.

 

The holes go all the way through, so there was unfiltered air getting into the engine for anywhere between 0 and 1400 miles.