A Different Strategy to Protect Your Car from Rodents

Ah, fall. Bonfires, crisp breezes, and the inevitable need to consider how to keep rodents out of stored cars.

Unfortunately, the cars at my house are no strangers to visitors. Seemingly every spring, the interior of my race car—a 2000 Miata that, according to one of my friends, “smells like barn”—has a half-eaten acorn or two and a trail of mouse droppings that need to get vacuumed out. A couple of weeks ago we even discovered a mouse nest in the spare tire compartment of my wife’s daily driver. The rodent problem is real, and it can be costly.

It’s not for lack of preventative effort on our part—we put cinnamon-mint pouches out diligently and set traps regularly. For a short while we had a barn cat, Destroyer, who was so-named because of all the presents she brought us. Unfortunately, as effective as she was, she really didn’t get along with our dog, Turbeau, so we had to find a new home for our four-legged rodent solution.

Therefore, the several cars in Eddy’s Barn of Wayward Toys, most of which get parked for the winter, are still fair game for wiley creatures. This year I had been content to play the odds and order up a bunch more packets of those fragrant pouches—my wife also uses them to protect her dahlia tubers—when an email showed up in my inbox from a company called CoverSeal.

The brand makes car covers (along with grill and patio furniture protectors) with a weighted lip that’s designed to make it impossible for rodents to find their way onto, and into, what the cover’s protecting. CoverSeal asked if I’d like to try out one of their heavy-duty weighted car covers. Since my aunt’s Buick Centurion was freshly revived, I thought this would be a nice opportunity to try a different way to protect a cherished possession.

The cover arrived soon after. The company wasn’t kidding about it being weighted—the large comes in at a hefty 42 pounds. The weather-resistant material is thick, soft on the inside, appears sturdy with quality stitching, and most of the heft comes from the band around the bottom. First blush suggests it’s a well-made product more than capable of protecting from rodents and the elements, though I don’t have to worry about the latter.

At over 224 inches, the Buick takes up a lot of space, and it definitely needed every inch of the large cover. Once it was fully on the car, I checked to see that the lip of the cover was in contact with the ground all the way ’round. The cover is vented on either side at window height, and I left the passenger window on the car slightly cracked to help the interior breathe a little (the car was musty after decades of storage, and I’ve since put in new carpet and thoroughly cleaned the interior, so I don’t want to take a step backwards). Having done the other necessary prep like adding fuel stabilizer to the tank and a few extra pounds of air in the tires, the car is now ready for the winter. I did decide to pull the battery and put it on a Battery Tender outside of the car just to be doubly sure I wasn’t creating an opportunity with the cord, no matter how small, for entry.

Will the CoverSeal keep the rodents at bay? I imagine it will, and our team plans to take stock of all of our winter storage activities in the spring and report back on what’s been the most successful. In the meantime, the Buick is under wraps and ready to emerge when the weather breaks.