Rat Damage Explained

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I am asked all of the time, how can I prove the rat lived in my engine before I owned the vehicle. Here is how.

On the Carvana.com website listing of my truck, there is a photo of the engine compartment. That image is here, and to verify that I’m not making this up, here is a link to the listing on their website. When you get there, click the photo images, and then look at photo 1 of 31, the engine.

To make it easy, here is that photo:

Above is a photo, cropped, and emphases the airbox. That airbox is not locked, and you see the orange air filter border.

The truck never ran correctly, the check engine light came on during delivery, take a look at this page to read about that.

You can read the full document above, or as this image shows, the air filter has an orange order, and the airbox is still open, as the notes indicate. This is how the truck was delivered to me.

So? It’s a photo on their website

To be clear, I emailed Jordan from the Executive team that worked my case, and was told that “To answer your question directly: yes, the photographs listed on our website represent the vehicle in it’s final, sellable condition at the time they are taken.” That supports my case that this is how the vehicle was delivered to me.

150 point inspection photo coming, see story to view

Additionally, the 150 point inspection they use to give confidence in the purchase, show they worked on the airbox. This is not how a vehicle should be sold.

Check Engine Light During Delivery

This also could be why the check engine light came on during delivery, where the driver said, “I thought we turned that off for inspection.”

DVI 6 Months after Purchase

The DVI from Sun Devil Auto 6 months (139,644 miles) after I purchased the Truck show that this is still open, and a photo of that same air filter is shown. Had they taken action, they likely would have found the rat nest, and saved the issue from happening. This is clear evidence that the air box was sold to me open, with a bad filter, with the rat issues in the engine, concealed behind thousands of dollars of repairs. The DVI above, shows the air filter, and mentions the air box not being locked.

In June of 2025, 6 months after the purchase, and while under the milage limit of my extended warrantee, Sun Devil Auto Scottsdale shows the airbox open, and the air filter is bad, with mouse droppings.

Fiat Purchase

In October of 2025, the truck basically became unusable, so I bought a Fiat, a car I wouldn’t have needed but for the unreliable nature of this truck sold to me as a ticking time bomb. Cost $20K

DVI Sun Devil – FLW

I finally had enough money to get the truck fixed, again, thinking I had just bought a bad Nissan truck, and figuring it was on me, as that’s the way a purchase works. It wasn’t until I had spent the first $5500 to get the intake, egr valves, soot cleaned out. Cost $5500

This is when they called me, and asked me to stop by. They showed me the air filter:

Then they showed me the rat nesting that they pulled out of my Diesel intake. Both that filter, and the rat bedding are the same as shown in the 6/25 Sun Devil Bell Road DVI. Also, notice the color of the air filter’s border? Same color as above, in their photo of the truck.

Time To Report To Carvana

Communications Fact To Be Linked

I called into Carvana, and tried to deal with this with them. Each time, I was promised a call, even times were set, “They Will Call You Tomorrow At 1:30 Your Time.” No call.

After many calls, all ignored, I stopped by their corporate offices at 300 Rio Salado, Tempe, AZ. While I was there, I was provided a sheet of paper with the email address hr@carvana.com. As I believe in being up front, I laid out exactly what my playbook will be if they do not take responsibility for the damage cause by the rat before I purchased the vehicle.

I sent an email address to that email – Note, this is the same email I sent to every email address I could find.

I received this auto response, the only email I was to get from this email. The same email I sent to HR, I sent to all of the email addresses exposed. I did this over a week, no email or communication form anyone. No one at this business cares about the consumers.

That exposed the email address payroll@carvana.com, careers@carvana.com, benefits@carvana.com, leaves@carvana.com, and then their link to there employment verification 3rd party company.

I also found: investors@carvana.com, press@carvana.com, media@carvana.com, leaddirector@carvana.com, a possible email address to the CEO: ernie.garcia@carvana.com, partnerships@carvana.com, realestate@carvana.com.

###AAMCO New Transmission###

From there, the transmission was damaged, as when the engine doesn’t work, the transmission has to work harder, according to the Transmission experts at AAMCO. Cost $8300

After the transmission was fixed, there were still codes, and the truck was under powered.

###Turbos Need Replacing####

I went back to Sun Devil Auto FLW and they diagnosed the turbos were also bad, having in taken more rat bedding. – Cost $7000