I'm experiencing a strong almost overpowering rodent smell in my 2003 S2000 that is likely a mouse nest or mouse urine or worse. I'm unable to find the source and wondered if others having experienced similar invasions have determined the likely location of the deposit from which the smell is emanating? Both actual experience and likely suspicions will be helpful. Thank you.

 

Cabin filter area, under the hood.

 

Thanks. That seems to be the people's choice.

 

You mean rodents choice...

 

I was hopeful but the cabin air filter area is not the source.

 

A rodent made a nest on top of my gas tank. This picture is when I replaced soft top, you won't have this good view unfortunately - see felt missing on top of gas tank area? Pull your spare and have a look around here. To clarify, there are 2 problems here: 1) straw nest on top of fuel pump under cover - not good but you probably wouldn't smell that. I also had a significant nest in this area next to the spare tire consisting of chewed felt and lots of stinky rodent pee...

 

I had mice build a nice big nest in my air intake box during the winter one year. That picture above on the fuel tank is going to give me nightmares ...

 

I had a really bad smell of a rotting mouse last year and couldn't find the damn thing after I stripped things down pretty good. It dissipated after a week or so but it was pretty nasty. I live in the woods and over the years, I've found nests in my cabin filter area, inside the airbox and more recently...in the hole under the center console! They went in through the e-brake area and crawled all the way in the back which makes it a perfect place for a nest directly under the armrest. This is what it looked like in there after I took out the massive nest.



As cat2004 mentioned-- most of my felt is gone as well and used for nests. One place I did not look was under the gas tank plate!

 

Ugh. Reminds me of when a bird flew its way in through the bumper grill opening and lodged itself underneath the EPS-module/battery tray. Poor bird bent my front plate and ripped through the plastic grill thats how i knew for sure the smell had to be up front. Inside the car had no smell at all so maybe if it smells inside too then youll know for sure its in the cabin air filter hole or behind you in the gas tank area.

 

Anywhere they can put a hole in soft material. My seat felt a little weak in another car, and they had crawled up under the seat, between the springs and pulled some padding out of the seat. They weren't living in the hole they left, but I later found the material under the spare tire.