Skeleton of Front Dash Pictures ?

[CTScott]

Originally Posted by xnamerxx

The AC enters the car directly in the center of the firewall. You can see it from the engine bay there are two metal lines that come out of a large rectangular grommet. The heater core is directly to the right of that in a smaller hole with two black hoses coming out of it. It would be really obvious if there was damage in either of those from the firewall. You can see both of those holes from the picture Jason has posted neither one should allow enough of an opening for a squirrel or rat to get in. In order for there to be a breach in the cabin air filter it would need to get past the blower, which is a pretty tight space. There is a small hole where the water drain is located, in the passenger side footwell, you can also see the hole in Jason's picture.

I would be more willing to bet that the holes that are plugged with the large rubber grommets on the underside of the car, is where its getting in rather than from the firewall area. There are 4 in the cabin area and one large one in the trunk. I would be looking there.

The AC actually enters on the passenger side of the firewall and it it has a plastic duct that brings the air in, which unfortunately has holes large enough for a mouse or chipmunk to easily go through. Once they do, if the intake air knob is set to outside, they can easily get to the top of the cabin air filter (if you have one). Once there, if you flip the knob to recirculate, the critters can then step off the top of the filter right into the inside of the dash.

I was parking one of mine outside for a while, so I removed the wiper cowl and added aluminum screen mesh to the holes in the plastic duct, as I had a huge problem with my Tacoma with mice getting into the dash.