ECO-friendly wire insulation !
Welcome to the club.

At least you can get $1000 from Cal State and pick n Pull.

small consolation.

Oh, I wish I had got that much. Cal will only give money if the car actually passed smog and PicNPull gives a monumental $56 for a car. It was towed away wearing 4 new tires. I have all the new plugs, coils, wires, etc on Ebay.

I filed my complaint after getting no where with Mercedes, not even the favor of a reply.
NHTSA complaint # 11000303

The engine harness in my '95 E320 was starting to fail, I caught it before it shorted out. I found several pulls on eBay and one claimed to be a replacement (2nd generation) so for $185 I bought it and put it in, no more worries!

For a few 1970 years, MBZ used a "new, improved" low voltage ignition wiring instead of tried and true copper with good insulation. After a few years, depending on where the car was located and the amount of movement the wiring was subjected to, it started to disintegrate. It will will literally be destroyed by rolling the wire with your fingers. No fix except to rewire the car. MBZ has, fortunately, changed their suppliers.

Keeping the vintage Benz thread alive..
 

Tell me this- is the soy/degradable wire issue just a problem under the hood, or does it include the entire wiring harness over time including bundles under the dash, seat heaters, airbags, lights and indicators, etc. That would be a real nightmare, yikes.

So far my 1995 C280 only needed the primary engine wiring harness replaced years ago. All other wiring systems appear normal.

Sorry, don't know the answer. Only my high voltage wires from the coils to the plugs were affected.
FYI, my daughter's BMW wiring was partially eaten by mice as they also used "improved insulation" that probably smelled good to rodents. We found that our comprehensive insurance covered it so it was an inexpensive fix.

I don't know for certain, but I suspect the whole wiring in the vehicle may be affected. I had to repair three of the six wires that flex at the trunk hinge because they were brittle.

The engine wiring harness gets a lot of attention because it sees a lot of heat.

What I found on my '97 600 was eye opening. Yes, they changed out the crappy "green" mandated wiring EXCEPT for the 4 fiber optic ones. Sure enough, one of them let loose and grounded me. No problem, I'll just buy the cable material and have my communications major son rewire it for me. HAH! No where could we duplicate the German product. Think that's why Benz never replaced them? So I ordered out a new harness from the Benz Classic Car Center with a one year guarantee. Pricey but I would never buy anything like this from Ebay or any other Chinese supplier.