95 E320 wiring harness failure
 

Well just got the word from the dealer that the wiring harness is bad on my wifes 320 wagon. A 95 with 150K on it. They want 1200 for the harness. I can't see fixing it so its going to be scrapped. It's kind of pathetic to have to junk the car because the wiring harness is shot. Think about it - I have a 62 willys that still has the same harness from day one, etc.

The thing is that what other MBs of a newer vintage can be trusted not to have this problem? I would like to know before I venture into to the MB world again ( My car is an 88 300ce , but immune to this as far as I know).

Any how if any one needs parts email me at abauman@qdessa.com

Thanks
Alan

This is classic for this era...for a while MB was doing them free as goodwill. If you are the original owner they probably still would but they don't extend the courtesy to the great unwashed masses who can only afford used.

The mid 90's were a time when MB experimented with bio-degradable wiring insulation...only thing is it degraded while the cars were still being driven. Yours lasted much longer than most.

If it is any consolation the job is not too difficult to tackle yourself I have heard and I don't think the replacement harness costs anywhere near $1200. You might just do a seach here for wire harness replacement and see all the threads.

That must be one rough car to scrape it for an engine wiring harness. The harness should be under a thousand and the car is worth a lot more than that. Selling it for parts is both a very slow go and an awful lot of work. If you have that much time and energy try building a new harness.

Alan,

You can get a wiring harness cheaper than $1200 and replace it yourself. What your doing is the equivelent of junking your car because it needs tires.... :(

Alan, why not put your 1995 E320 wagon up for sale rather than junk it? If it's in good shape someone will be eager to buy it. It would be a shame to junk a perfectly good car at that low mileage. That vintage MB should be good for 250,000 to 300,000 miles if maintained properly ... and wagons are desirable.

Alan, are you serious? Are you really going to junk a fine car (assuming that the rest of the car is not thrashed) because of a $1,200.00 wiring harness?

That's crazy. :silly:

Assuming your car is in otherwise good shape, a $1,200.00 repairs is nothing. Where are you going to be able to buy a similar car for less than $1,200.00?

As others have suggested, you can probably get the harness for less/ Installing it yourself is fairly simple. There is even a DIY step-by-step guide here, with lots of pics. Putting christmas light on a tree, or around your house, is a lot harder than changing the wiring harness.

Where are you located? If in So. Calif. I can recommend a good shop to look at your wiring harness and give you the straight dope on it.

I would encourage you to seriously reconsider your decision. New cars are sexier, but those car payments are a pain in the ass.

I have a 1989 300TE with 197k miles on it. In a few months it will be my son's first car. I would not hesitate to put $1,200.00 in repairs to the car. Where else am I going to find a better car for a newbie driver for that kind of money?

Think about it my friend.....

Good luck Alan.

Alan:

Check this thread.

Changing the harness is a no-brainer.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=157055

Dude, you sound like an idiot.

You are considering junking / parting out a car that needs an engine wiring harness that costs less than $1,000, yet your car is worth probably around $5,000.00. You need to find a new calculator or at least sharpen your pencil.

People consider junking / parting out cars when the cost of repairs is more than the value of the car.

Easy Paul...:eek:

Maybe we can buy his wagon and offer it for sale at Enrique's. :D

Yeah, no kidding. :D

Someone on the forum recently said they rehabilitated their old harness by essentially replacing the deteriorated wiring with marine wiring. He didn't explain how he did this, but from what I gathered it involved splicing or soldering the new wiring to the old connectors. It was very inexpensive. If that is possible, why haven't we heard more about it? I wrote to one of the rebuild companies to inquire about a remanufactured harness and they weren't interested. For some reason they will sell you a remanufactured throttle body for $400 but they won't do it for a wiring harness. It don't make no sense.

Too many wires to replace. If you look at a picture of a defective wiring harness you will see that almost all the wires go bad...sooner or later.

I think that the marine wires was a suggestion of a possible replacement material, not that a person had actually done it.

Mercedes dealer parts mgr told me that they make a repair kit for the wiring harness where you can splice in pieces very inexpensive but time consuming.
If the rest of the car is in decent shape I wouldn't scrap it.

i have not had this problem with my 95 c36. its only got 70k on it and has been garaged here in fl mostly. do you guys think its only a matter of time? everything looks great under the hood so far.

I've mentioned marine wiring for the harness issue. And I've actually rewired my harness awhile ago using said material. Cost maybe $50 and took a couple days, with me working rather slowly. If you can solder worth a damn, its a relatively easy job. Using masking tape with a corresponding number for the plug and connectors makes it an easy replace. E.g. when you remove a plug, label it as "1" and the connector you removed also receives a "1" etc. When rewiring simply go one wire at a time, I layed the harness out...pulled the new wire to the same length as the stretched original and cut. No big deal really and there probably won't be many surprises. Check the ETA wiring DIY to see how to open some of the connectors etc.

I've heard the "rewiring" notion mentioned quite sometime ago. And I had considered rewiring harnesses for other people though interest in this endeavor is limited.

Best of luck