I was doing an inspection II on an E46 325Xi a few days ago.

These have three underbody protection panels (plastic undercovers). The car came in covered in snow, although I'd taken it down the road to warm the oil up a bit. Got it in the air and started the draining ritual, removed a few leaves I saw up around the core support.

After about two hours of work, the floor was pretty much a mess and the car was still dripping. I happened to look down and noticed an odd shaped "leaf" on the floor, one with a tail and legs. Turned out to be pancaked mouse. Totally flattened like Wile E. Coyote after the road runner dropped a load of boulders on him. There was other evidence around the engine bay. My theory is that he fell into one of the serpentines and got smashed, then fell out on my head as I removed the covers, and turned brown in the wet nastiness on the floor.




When storing an E34/E32/E31: the recirc flaps always stay open, which allows rodents to essentially gain access to the cabin of the car, and notoriously nest in the heater box. I find mice nests in practically every single heater box I see on aforementioned cars. One thing to do is, prior to storing the car, turn on recirculation, then disconnect the battery. The flaps will stay closed (versus automatically reopening after the car/recirc is turned off).


best, whit