Dashboard warnings sometimes lie. They flash on but sometimes vanish with what seems to be no rhyme or reason. When that happens, plenty of drivers just feel relieved that a potential problem is gone.
This one driver figured it was a fluke when a mystery light kept popping in and out over two weeks. Turns out it wasn't just anything, and now she’s afraid to even be in the vehicle.
A Furry Foe In A GMC
In a video with more than 57,000 views, content creator Holly Sherry (@alongcamehollyy) shared the story of how she found something living in her car.
"Guess what they found under the hood of my car," the text overlay on the video reads.
Sherry explains that the whole thing started two weeks ago, when a "service rear axle" alert flashed on the dash and then disappeared. She'd seen the same warning once before and shrugged it off, figuring it was a glitch.
A week later, she was driving her kids to a lake when a ringing sound started up out of nowhere.
"Am I actually fully losing it now?" she asked.
It was her OnStar system trying to reach her. A rep got on the line, admitted they weren't totally sure what was triggering the alerts, and reset the system.
A week after that, driving her three daughters to summer camp, the dash lit up all at once—service rear axle, service engine, a dead backup camera—before clearing itself again once she got moving.
Nothing about it screamed emergency, so Sherry figured the dealership visit could wait. But the warnings did remind her of something: back in 2019, she says, a mouse literally crawled across her foot while she was driving, and to this day she has no idea how she didn't crash.
So when she and her esthetician somehow ended up deep in a conversation about rodents at a wax appointment, the timing felt a little too on the nose.
"They can really get in there and chew up wires and stuff," she says the esthetician told her.
She says she picked her girls up from school, and the warnings started right back up. Later, backing out of the driveway for a grocery run, the car started beeping nonstop, and lucky for her, she could actually see an auto shop from her own driveway, so she pulled in.
"Mother effing rat was in my engine," she says, sharing what they discovered.
Not a mouse—a rat. Sherry says the mechanics held their hands apart to show her exactly how big they were talking. It had chewed through several wires under the hood before anyone caught it. They got the rat out, fixed the damage, and sent her on her way.
"I am sick. They weren't in here; they were in my engine," she says.
She says the mechanics told her this happens more than she'd think because of GMC's wiring insulation, which she says is made with "soybean something."
"No bc I am disturbed on so many levels," she said in the caption.
Why Soy-Based Wiring Exists
This isn't some one-off GMC quirk. Automakers have leaned into renewable materials for years now, and soy is one of the more popular options, The Drive reports.
Ford has used soy-based foam in its seats for roughly a decade and has swapped soy in for petroleum in some of its wire insulation too.
And it's not just a Ford thing. The shift toward plant-based components has spread across the whole industry, so any modern car can end up dealing with the same problem.
Does Soy Wiring Actually Attract Mice?
A 2016 class-action lawsuit went after Toyota after an owner paid around $1,500 to fix chewed wiring in his Tundra, with the attorney behind the suit arguing that soy in the insulation had made rodent damage far more common, The Drive reported.
Toyota, for its part, maintained there's no real scientific evidence that rodents are any more drawn to soy-based wiring than the old petroleum stuff.
Anecdotally, though, plenty of owners swear their "semi-organic" cars get targeted more than the neighbor's old beater. One Drive writer joked that mice in his neighborhood clearly preferred his BMW to the Mitsubishi parked right next to it in a separate article.
How To Actually Keep Mice Out
Step one is a thorough engine bay and interior cleaning. Mice tend to nest where they smell other mice, so getting rid of any existing evidence matters more than people think.
Beyond that, Mosquito Joe notes that engine compartments stay warm even after a car's been shut off, which makes them an appealing place for rodents to shelter, especially once it gets cold out.
Their suggestions include: parking in a garage when you can, keeping food scraps and nesting material away from the car, and trying peppermint oil, which rodents reportedly hate.
‘I’d Be In Tears’
Commenters shared their thoughts on Sherry’s experience.
“I’d still have to get a new car,” a top comment read.
“Every time I got in my husbands truck and he’d turn the air on I’d smell a musty barn. And I said to him that he needed to check around for a mouse nest. He wouldn’t believe me because he couldn’t smell it. One day my son said ‘dad why does the truck smell?’ He decided to investigate and GUESS WHAT HE FOUND!? Most satisfying moment of my marriage thus far,” a person said.
“The fear of thinking you were going to show us a picture of said [rat] nope you need a new car,” another wrote.
“This motivates me to try and keep my car clean,” a commenter added.
Motor1 reached out to Holly Sherry via email and Instagram direct message and to GMC via email for comment. We'll be sure to update this if either responds.
