Complete vehicle harness, except engine. Rodent damage on a new 760i. Bags are full of the wiring/connectors that get pulled through firewall/trunk/rear openings to prevent damage.
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Just curious if there’s a way from preventing this in the first place?
I doubt this product is installable with an already-installed electrical harness, but Techflex makes rodent-resistant sleeving. It’s probably coated with a chemical the animals don’t care for.
I had a bunch of mice build a nest in my ductwork in my car last year. I screwed down a metal grate over the cabin air inlet, got one of those electronic rodent repellents and zip tied it under the hood and change the batteries every week. I also got a plastic bin that I park over and throw the rodent repellent balls in there periodically. It was $2k for them to fix it and I don’t want to spend that again. Also curious if anyone has any other ideas.
How long did it take for the parts to come in?
I bet you learned a lot about the car, but whether you wanted to is another story.
BMW design has had better times.
Complete body harnesses are all custom made to order only depending on options, so it takes a couple months to get one.
That’s what I’ve heard. Lots of work!
I still don’t understand why they’re so expensive? They’re just different lengths of wire.
I want a rear door harness for my Land Rover but it’s like £230 and it only hooks up a wiper and central locking.
This harness is $16,500.
They’re handmade, apparently. Drives up the cost significantly, well beyond material cost. We’re pretty used to mass produced parts and wiring harnesses aren’t mass produced after the production run.
- Copper expensive.
- Wiring harnesses rarely fail/need to be replaced, which makes it a niche part.
- Even though they probably have warehouses full of spare wiring harnesses, oem manufacturers like to jack the price up because they know people will pay it - in particular, insurance companies don’t want to get sued/blamed/bad reviews for installing inferior third party parts, and so will pay whatever it costs to get OEM. Same with many mechanics.
- Aftermarket manufacturers, since they do tend to only manufacture the number of parts the market demands, do not benefit from economies of scale like OEM manufacturers, and will have much higher manufacturing costs per part for every step in the process. And since the OEM part is so expensive, they can still make a tidy profit selling a part that is less expensive but still quite expensive.
- It is typically very easy to replace any damaged wiring with generic wiring and connectors which are available for pennies at any auto parts or hardware store. So the people who are willing to pay the premium for OEM or OEM compatible wiring and connectors are typically also the sort of people to get sticker shock, shrug, and say “damn! Well, guess that’s how much it costs.” Or else they are “just so” people who absolutely must have exactly the right part on principle, even if it costs an arm and a leg.
“5) It is typically very easy to replace any damaged wiring with generic wiring and connectors which are available for pennies at any auto parts or hardware store.”
Not so much anymore. A large percentage of critical wiring is now “low resistance” circuits. They are very sensitive to resistance. That means we are only allowed to make a single splice per wire along its full length. So if a section of wire is missing, the entire wire must be replaced from end to end with new terminals. Those can sometimes be the full length of the car.
I’m not an electrical engineer, but there’s manufacturer recommendations and there’s “good enough for the job”. If I bought that car out of warranty, and had to splice a wire, would it actually matter? And if it did, couldn’t I just… use a thicker conductor and some high quality connectors?
Upping the size of the conductor adds resistance to the circuit. The wiring in those harnesses are like 20-26 gauge. When you’re sending a signal (rather than just supplying power) that extra resistance causes all kinds of problems.
If you’re making a repair with low resistance wiring, it’s pretty much standard practice to solder in a repair wire of the same gauge and conductor type. A butt splice will also add resistance to the circuit.
You can do a lot of things with power feeder wiring that you can’t with low resistance signal wiring.
Huh. TIL.
Copper isn’t that expensive. $6/lb = $480. Equivalent weight in Romex would be ~$700. $900 for shielded Cat 6.
I still don’t understand why they’re so expensive?
To answer the question as written: Correct. You do not understand why they’re so expensive. I’m very confident in this answer because I see you said as much, and you’re the authority on what you understand.
Glad I could answer your question as written. It feels good to help.
Coworker once had to do the same on an E60. Harness weighed 600 lbs and required an engine crane just to put it in the vehicle. We have come a long way.
Ever since you worked on it…
If only there were a few connectors to seprate that into multiple sections. Having to replace the entire harness suuuucks.
German engineering.
If someone mentions maintenance costs during the design process they are immediately dragged out and shot.
