A rat's front teeth never stop growing, and they are astonishingly hard — around 5.5 on the Mohs hardness scale, which puts them above copper, iron and even platinum. Combine constant growth with that hardness and you get an animal that has to gnaw, and can gnaw through almost anything. The list is longer than most people imagine.
What a rat can chew through
- Wiring insulation and cables — the classic, and the costliest in cars.
- Wood — doors, skirting, furniture, floorboards.
- Plastic — pipes, containers, casings.
- Soft metals — aluminium, lead, and thin sheet metal.
- Cinder block and soft concrete — given enough time, to widen a gap.
- Rubber — hoses, seals and gaskets.
- Brick mortar — the softer joints between bricks.
Why this matters for your car
A closed bonnet feels like protection, but to a rat it is just another barrier to gnaw. Once inside the engine bay, wiring, hoses and the cabin filter are all soft targets — which is how a small visitor turns into a repair bill of tens of thousands of rupees. (More on that in can rats really damage car wiring.)
The takeaway
You cannot out-build a rat's teeth. Sealing helps, but the reliable answer is to stop rats wanting to be there in the first place. The EchoRepel Car Rat Repellent keeps the engine bay hostile to rats while your car is parked, so those remarkable teeth never get near your wiring.