GM rant>crappy wiring harness

[Oh Haha]

So last week my wife drove the Suquinox and advised that the PS mirror doesn't work. No biggie as I don't adjust it anyway.

Yesterday the PS window did not operate. Wonderful.

I removed the door panel and did the standard power tests to figure out what is wrong. No power to the mirror or window. Only 1 side was out but I checked the fuses anyway and all was fine. By now, the speakers quit working as well. double wonderful.

A quick Internet search gave me many results that indicate broken wires in the harness where they pass from the door to the vehicle body.

I pulled back the rubber booty to find 6! broken wires.... On the side of the vehicle that gets used the least!!
I would expect this maybe on a classic car or barn find but not a 9 year old car.

This morning I pulled the door harness and spliced new wires in for the broken, shrink tubed them, and used harness covering. Everything is fine again and it didn't cost me anything but time.

That being said, the harness is pretty much foolproof to reinstall as the clips can only go to 1 component so I will give them a tiny bit of credit for that.

[Crowbob]

Apparently, GM is having problems with a simple ignition switch. Why go off on something as complex as a wiring harness?

It is a GM product, right?

[RANDY P]

count the numbers of old GM products with random shorts that drain the battery. We've all had one.

rjp

[Tobra]

Randy, I don't think there has ever been a time in my life where I did not know someone with a GM product that did that.

[Oh Haha]

2006 Chevy Equinox AWD

It's obviously not new so I expect an issue now and again but this was poor design at it's best.

They are notorious for the heat/cold blend motor breaking which means you get either all cold or all hot, whichever end of the sweep it broke. The part that activates the servo is plastic. The replacement unit is much better(as is in many cases).

The problem is that you have to remove just about the entire dash to get to the unit. We had that repaired under warranty but the estimate was $1200.00.

[wayner]

Aside from some classic car, I wouldn't touch a pre-bankruptcy GM product. It became all about counting the beans and educating the buyer that they should expect to drive a new car every three years. Why worry about year 4+

[diverdan]

That said, my Porsches of old have been the most unbelievably reliable even in terms of electrics, ahh, beside the dreaded turn signal stalk problems.
Diverdan

[Eric 951]

Co-worker just had the main harness worked on in his '12 Denali--(14) of the wires in the main plug were toast behind the dash where it comes through the firewall--prior to this none of the fuses blew--just minor gremlins started cropping up--drivers window inop, right side speakers quit, tire pressure warnings on, rear wiper quit--finally when the headlights wouldn't turn off after shutting the car off, he took it to the garage where they found the burnt connector--could have been much worse--he never smelled smoke, burning, no blown fuses...scary stuff.

[RANDY P]

I love GM wiring. It's common for random shorts that drain the battery to show up. Dealt with it the other day on neighbor's 94 C1500. My response to that problem was to totally rewire the circuit - faster than trying to find the point of the short- there were so many possibilities.


Stupid GM wiring trivia time- the old 82-92 F bodys have a button in the center console that releases the hatch- putting +12V to the side going to the hatch release kicks the starter (on the engine) over.

[RANDY P]

C4 Corvette uses an 8MM(?) nut next to battery to secure what is basically the nerve center for the electrical system.

No nylock, no loctite, and it comes loose so when you hit bumps the car goes black- then it comes back on. Like the car has it's own little poltergeist inside. Suffered from that for months.

[fred cook]

A number of years ago, I bought a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon for my wife to drive. NOT a cheap car! A couple of months after she had been driving it, she was in Albany, Ga for a 4th of July symphony concert along with our 3 yr old son. At about the hottest part of the day ( over 100 degrees ), the HVAC quit working. So, she and the boy spent the rest of the day melting! Take it to the dealer to be fixed and it turns out that there is only one ground wire for everything under the dash! Guess which wire broke? A few months after that, she was driving back into town in a heavy rain and the wipers and defrost quit working! Guess which wire broke? The third time it happened, I took the car back to the dealer and convinced him to take the station wagon back in exchange for a different car since this one had been such a lemon. This experience is one reason that we drive Ford cars and trucks now!

[asphaltgambler]

Some of you guys should look at the last gen VW wiring / connector issues. Unbelievable. Their accountants must have instructed the wire harness vendor to make each wire / connection as short as possible but still juuuuuust reach other connectors. The same principle was applied to any vacuum hose, any tighter and you could play a tune on it. Ended up costing them millions in buy backs and warranty claims.

[Dantilla]

Originally Posted by Oh Haha

They are notorious for the heat/cold blend motor breaking which means you get either all cold or all hot, whichever end of the sweep it broke. The part that activates the servo is plastic.

Common fault on 944s is for heat to go full hot when a small plastic piece gets brittle and snaps.

My 2001 Chevy pick-up just passed 250,000 miles. Can't believe how reliable it has been. Recently took out the original starter and alternator and had new brushes and bearings installed just because there couldn't be much life left in them. Outside of normal maintenance, the only repair was a new fuel pump at 175,000 miles.

[Hugh R]

Bought a TR7 used 25 or so years ago. The TR7 is the main reason that England is no longer the "Empire". Wiring harness was some plastic ribbon thing and I moved it under the carpet in the trunk and it literally broke, as in snapped. Coming back from a long trip via' LAX one night the recessed headlight started opening and closing on their own. I pulled over and had to jam pencils/pens under them to keep them open.

[Dansvan]

I have to make the door jamb wiring repairs repairs on all of the big three makers. Ford, Gm and Chrysler all have issues with it. Some have an insane amount of wiring in the doors. Where I'm at it's not a one manufacturer problem. Subaru has some pretty bad wiring issues as well.

[biosurfer1]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

Common fault on 944s is for heat to go full hot when a small plastic piece gets brittle and snaps.

The difference being it took me about 20 minutes and a $10 part to fix that, then you get another 20 years before it breaks again!

[intakexhaust]

Such is life.

I once looked at a massive spaghetti wad of harnesses laying on a BMW dealer shop floor...... out of a brand new 7 series. That was awesome.

My 12,000 mile Stang GT convert was another winner. While under warranty Ford dealer, car was in the shop for a WEEK. They couldn't figure out why ALL the lights were inop. with exception to the headlamps. I mean everything out.... dash, courtesy lights, brake, t.lamps! Ford's solution? Somehow hack wired the car and saved the best for last - they ran a big fat red wire..... outside of the loom, direct to the tail lamp cluster. What a POS Ford is.

[mattdavis11]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

My 2001 Chevy pick-up just passed 250,000 miles. Can't believe how reliable it has been. Recently took out the original starter and alternator and had new brushes and bearings installed just because there couldn't be much life left in them. Outside of normal maintenance, the only repair was a new fuel pump at 175,000 miles.

Does that rig have the OEM A/C compressor on it? If so, the Smithsonian might be interested. Nearly unheard of.

GM trivia- When you have electronically controlled, dual climate zones on GM SUV's and trucks, what do you do before you rip the dash out to replace actuators?

Reset the HVAC ECU. Almost always fails to default after the battery is changed.

[sc_rufctr]

Lol at the "issues"... So typical of modern cars and the ever cheapening of the wiring.

More than 20 years ago Nissan had introduced some sort of card bus system in their cars. What that meant was that the wiring in the car was greatly reduced because everything ran on a digital network.
Does anybody know what happened? I ask because the system didn't catch on but I thought it was a good idea at the time.

[zelrik911]

Originally Posted by asphaltgambler

Some of you guys should look at the last gen VW wiring / connector issues. Unbelievable. Their accountants must have instructed the wire harness vendor to make each wire / connection as short as possible but still juuuuuust reach other connectors. The same principle was applied to any vacuum hose, any tighter and you could play a tune on it. Ended up costing them millions in buy backs and warranty claims.

Wiring looms are a surprisingly expensive component in car manufacture.

I read an article on the cost to build a Mitsubishi sedan about 10 years ago.
Total cost was about $8K in components BUT the wiring loom cost $1K.
Not surprising that the Accountants over rule the Engineers on reducing the cost on this component. They would jeopardise your reliability and safety to save just $5 on every car.