Eco-friendly brake cables are being eaten by foxes, after manufacturers switched from petroleum-based insulation to soy, forcing owners to wrap their cars in tarpaulins. The Telegraph has the story.
Recent photos show multiple cars covered in blue plastic for protection after a spate of attacks in Worthing, West Sussex, with locals claiming at least 20 vehicles were targeted by foxes.
Jack Cousens, the AA’s head of roads policy, said the animals may be attracted to the soy-based insulation on brake wires.
Since 2000, peanut and soy-based oils and waxes have been used on car parts including gearbox insulation, primer bulbs and diesel injector wires, instead of petroleum-based coverings.
“There are two reasons why foxes attack cars in this way,” Mr. Cousens told the Telegraph. “The first is that some cables can be soy-based and therefore they get attracted to the taste of that.
“Secondly, within brake fluid there is something called glycol, which is a sweet-tasting alcoholic fluid, and they get a little bit attracted to that too. But they would only get attracted to it if they chew so far through the cable and uncover it.”
Eddie Mitchell, who lives on Broadwater Green in Worthing, the latest target for hungry foxes, said: “Everyone around us has been affected. There’s been at least 20 attacks by foxes on the brakes system under cars.”
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A new headline for the green lobby “Cars being recycled by foxes”
“Recent photos show multiple cars covered in blue plastic for protection after a spate of attacks”
What these car owners don’t realise is that the planet-mauling plastic previously used for these blue tarpaulins has been replaced by planet-loving woad dyed hemp;
A substance known to be both delicious to foxes, and one which sends them into a dope-fuelled violent frenzy.
Residents of Worthing beware!!!
Goodness me! Won’t somebody save the poor foxes? Eating soy is so bad for them!
Soy fox.
Mmmmm.
And there was me chilling in the garden with sun on face, sipping a cold beer, and thinking life doesn’t get much better than this. Then this beauty – the genius of food based insulation used on exposed parts!!!
. The icing on the cake.
But what is the icing made of? Or the cake, for that matter?
Probably the same stuff they’ve started making tyres from!
Someone please tell me I haven’t just read this headline, please!
Having enjoyed myself taking the Mickey over this article a more serious thought occurs to me:
If it is actually true that foxes have taken to nibbling cars what about creatures or fungi or moulds that would be much harder to keep away from the car’s vitals? Could an infestation of some sort of beetle feasting on the cabling ruin a car or make it unsafe?
Again, if it’s true, surely some sort of testing should have been done before introducing such a change?
The Telegraph article feels like it ought to have been published on April 1st.
Mice, rats, squirrels also like a good chew.
Here in Thailand it’s the rats that go for it.
And what about the rats? They are the usual cable chewing animals on certain types of cable, traditionally. There are some places where they have to be careful about proper protective anti-chew coverage on cables that are accessible in places where there are plenty of rats.
There was a ‘Grand Designs’ where a guy built a house in the woods that he owned using timbers and shingles etc that he had cut himself. The main walls were straw bales shaped with a chain saw and covered in lime plaster. He was off-grid and had a small bird-chopper windmill to charge batteries for power. He cabled the place using orange metal sheathed ‘pyro’ cable. He said is was expensive cabling but cheaper than rebuilding after the fire if the mice chewed the ordinary cabling he might otherwise have used.
A bit of a rich eco-nutter but a lovely house when he’d finished.
See what happens when the Blob interferes with natural, rural life – bring back fox hunting with hounds, that should solve the problem.
Foxes might be drinking brake fluid but they’re not addicted to it because they can stop anytime they want.
Pretty soon the Animal Rights people will set up the BFA (Brake Fluids Anonymous). The wily old foxes can gather in a church hall to tell the story of how they became addicted to the pretend to save the planet brake cables.
Sloppy article written by someone who doesn’t know the difference between brake cables (handbrakes) and brake pipes, usually made of steel or alloy, that contain fluid under pressure (when braking applied).
So just what are foxes eating?
How much land and water is being used to make useful things from food?
So let me get this straight, there is hydraulic fluid in brake wires/cables and chewing therough the insulation allows a fox to get to glycol in the fluid?
When I last worked on car brakes, admittedly on my AH Frogeye from 1959. the brake fluid was contained in fairly tough steel tubes. They had to be tough because of the extremely high pressure developed when braking.
I am puzzled by the need to insulate these pipes since the ethylene glycol in the brake fluid is also used in the cooling system to stop water freezing!
I realise technology has moved on somewhat and there may be brake wiring actuating, for example a brake servo, but those wires contain electricity not fluid.
My conclusion is that this is technologicl rubbish.
PS Ethylene glycol is said to be an intoxicant, but I have no personal experience of that.