Aron9000

^This. I'd look over all the wiring in the engine bay very carefully. This is a repair you can do yourself very easily IMO.

BUT BEFORE YOU START IT AGAIN, PLEASE TAKE APART THE AIR FILTER HOUSING. MICE CAN ROOST IN THERE, THEN A PIECE OF GRAVEL GETS SUCKED INTO THE ENGINE AND GRENADES IT

#1 If its just a few wires, in one place, then go ahead. If you notice the little vermin have gnawed the wires in various places, then I'd go ahead and replace the whole harness.

#2 You need a souder gun, souder, heat shrink, electrical tape, plastic wire insulator, a heat gun or very hot hair dryer, and a wire stripping pair of pliers. All of this can be found in your local home depot for about $20 or so.

#3 You need to strip the broken wires back to good copper, use the wire stripping pliers.

# 4 Put the heat shrink on one side of the wire. Now twist the two exposed copper ends together, for about half an inch on each side.

# 5 Make sure the souder gun has been plugged in for a good 10-15 minutes and is hot. Take the wire souder, the heat tip of the gun, and the wire, melt all three together in the middle where you twisted them together.

#6 Slide the heat shrink over this repair of motled and fused metal. Use a heat gun or your wife's hair dryer on MAX setting to literally "shrink" the heat shrink over the spliced section of wire.

#7 Wrap electrical tape tightly over this repair and heat shrink.

#8 Wrap electrical tape over the whole bundle of wires.

#9 Slip some of that black plastic wiring harness loom over the repair, then wrap in electrical tape.


I feel fairly comfortable repairing wire like this, since I've wired up quite a few aftermarket radios in my old POS 90's cars that had crap factory radios.


EDIT: I've also dealt with vermon under the hood in my old beater, a black 1993 Toyota truck. Of course the A/C is broke in this truck, so it stays parked unless I need to haul stuff from late May through early September. Damn rats or maybe a squirrel had chewed almost completely through the rubber fuel line that runs from the firewall to the fuel rail. If that thing had burst I might have had the whole truck go up in flames.

Marqevans

Correction it was "Six foot metal munching moon mice".

RatHater

I just wanted to thank everyone here for their replies!

I took the car in to the dealership this weekend. I wasn't sure I caught all the damage and as stated previously, I'm not comfy with electrical work.

While I was there I received a recall repair, oil change and the ignition coil primary/secondary circuit wiring fix for $263. Since I have only had this car for a short time, I had no idea what to expect and I have to say, I was surprised it wasn't more expensive. All filters, including cabin, were checked and looked good. I don't mind paying for labor - it is a skill and that's just part of the game when you don't want to do something yourself. Naturally the parts were minimal - I'm sure it was just a pigtail or similar.

Fortunately they did not just tape the wires together (from what I could see).

I just have one thing sticking out in my mind - why was this ignition coil primary/secondary circuit that was on the cylinder #3 side affecting cylinder #4? I suppose we shouldn't always believe the OBD codes, but it is something I am going to try and find out.

Thanks again everyone!

SteveCraig

The vehicle management system will put up error codes pretty accurately. Start opening or shorting circuits in the system & all bets are off. System sensing a bad coil , at the same time sensing an unusual resistance value on another sensor. The shorted conductors here + the open conductors there send the whole system for a loop.

Back in '93 my boss bought a new MB SL500. Rocket ship on rails with a real pretty face.I won't tell here how fast I had that thing going a few times.
6 months in it needed a new windshield due to a large rock chip. I dropped it off in the morning with plans on picking it up that afternoon. Pulled back into the driveway at the office & noticed the turn signals acted quite differently than the truck I normally drove. Made a comment about it to the boss. He goes out & tries it. Apparently everything else had gone a little funny.
The "shop expert" kid at the glass shop put the mouldings back on & had a few screws mixed up. Put a long fastener in a short hole just above the rear view mirror, shorting out "something".
Boss was a little upset. Towed it to the MB dealer. Had them go through everything until the issue was found & repaired. Sent that bill, including the tow, to the glass shop. I saw the bill, it wasn't pretty at all.