I remember that the CAN bridge point was the ignition switch in the W210 chassis, always seemed like a strange interface point but I guess there must have been some reason to locate it there.

Agree totally on the placement of the ZGW model and the location of the CAN pins on the connector. Is there enough room on the wiring harness to re-orient the module with the connector facing down?

All CAN modules should have a fail-safe backup mode that implements a plan if all communications are lost with the CAN. At the very least that plan should include an error message in the module that clearly states that CAN communications have ben totally disrupted and a fail-safe mode was entered. I guess you can kind infer this when every module in the car issues 'the-sky-is-falling' general error messages but this kind of response kind leads me to believe that the software people never considered the possibility of this kind of failure.

Whenever I see something like this I keep thinking about how Elon and Tesla are going to deal with these kinds of issues in their 100% self driving cars that will be on the road in the millions by the end of 2020. It seems like an incredibly difficult hardware/network/software problem. Multiple redundant networks would be a good starting point I'd guess.

__________________
98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (123k)
13 GLK250 (135k)
06 E320CDI (323K)
16 C300 (62K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)