So here's the current situation, after dealing with BAR and CAP I've moved the car to another CAP approved shop and will be getting another $500 allowance towards smog related repairs. This new shop seems to be much more knowledgeable, though I can tell they don't know they're way around a Mercedes as well as I do. Since the car won't get through a smog test CAP won't pay for any work done on the car. The new mechanic has done a bit of good will work to the car and did find that the engine wire harness is shot. I took a look at it today and can say that it's going to need to be replaced without a doubt.

The whole situation seems to be quite clear to me now. The first mechanic while working on the car must have ruined the harness enough to where it put the car in its current state. Judging from the sloppy work I can't imagine they were very delicate around the harness, and since it was already in a bad state ruining it was bound to happen. What I can't believe is that the first mechanic didn't realize this since it's so obvious; instead every other thing was to blame.

It really angers me that so called professionals don't know *****, and this applies to every profession. At this point in my life I seem to know vastly more than most and just do things myself because of this. The one time I don't, with my car at least, it gets ruined by lack of knowledge and stupidity.

I'm going to tow the car to my place, install the harness myself and hope that solves the issue. Then take the car back to the new place and try to get some smog related repairs fixed with the new $500 CAP money. This time though I'm going to take close watch.

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1992 Mercedes-Benz 400E
2002 Mercedes-Benz ML500