this is right under the battery on the passender side. I dont think any animal got there. The battery literality is on top of the whole thing. I will have to check if the other wire is damaged.

Crown lexus is ontario is where i took the car. I was charged 10hrs of labor to fix this one wire. Im pissed!

 

$1600 FOR ONE WIRE 10 hour to diagnose and fix, 3course lunch and dinner included don't pay unless the wire is 24k gold. any good auto electrician with a wiring diagram would get that in 2 hours, I did 5 years in the electrical shop go figure, sorry for your pain in the wallet, cheer up take the car to a track and flog the date out of it cheers.

 

Just remember, its not the work you are paying for, its the knowledge.

 

You're absolutely right.

If that tech had the damn knowledge, this would have NOT taken 10 hours. That's ridiculous.

The whole point of "experience" is knowing where to look first and faster, so jobs are done quicker.

That's a 2-hour job for any decently skilled electrical diagnostician. If it took me 10 hours to find that wire, it's my fault, not the car's -- and I'd be fired. I wouldn't have the conscience to bill you that.

Dealership level techs shouldn't take this long for a simple no power to a module problem. Seems like they trained a new guy on your dime.

 

Not exactly. The battery sits on a plastic tray that is not bolted to anything but fits inside another plastic piece that is bolted down. Underneath that plastic tray is the steering ECU (I know this because I have replaced mine), and under the steering ECU is the plastic piece bolted down to support the battery. Under that is the wire harness with the protector, and from appearance in the photo, the protector is externally damaged with a pretty sizeable crease in it. I can't comment on how the crease got there, but the photo implies this crease was directly above where the wire was severed/shorted.

If it were mine, I would be inspecting every single wire inside the protector to be sure the rest of them are in good shape. I'd also be investigating what caused it in the first place - manufacturing defect, idiot dropping a battery on the battery tray instead of setting it down carefully, etc..

If it can be shown to be a manufacturing defect, regardless of warranty status, I would ask for my money back. JMHO...

And FWIW, I have some wire harness work to do this weekend. I'll be pulling that tray out of mine to be sure I have no visible damage on that protector. I would be furious if my car failed to start under the same conditions you experienced.

 

So here's the follow up. I took it all apart today to see if my car had a similar condition, and it does show signs of chafing on the wire loom protector. Getting the cover off the harness without breaking it didn't seem possible, so I didn't inspect the wires themselves, but it is clear the FRP piece that sits over the wire harness protector was rubbing on it. I modified the FRP piece so this can't happen again.

Here's the floating plate underneath the battery:


Underneath the floating plate is the steering ECU:



After removing the steering ECU, the FRP piece is fully visible - BTW the connectors on the steering ECU are especially a PITA to remove, and the piece of broken plastic is from the harness protector on top of the engine, it shattered in a million pieces when I removed it:



Finally, here is the harness and its protector, visible:



Here's where the evidence of contact is:



Here's what the FRP looks like after modification:



I am now pretty confident if there is any damage underneath, it won't continue to get worse. While I was at this, I fixed a couple of other broken harness protectors and mounts. First the MAF wire support:



Note the mount wings are completely broken off. I am very big on wire support after years of working on aircraft in the Air Force. Wiring reliability is directly related to how well the wire harness is protected from vibration. Here's what it should look like installed - the part number from the picture is what you need to fix this:



This is the other one I replaced - actually two - I replaced the one in the foreground and the one behind to to the left:



Part numbers for both of those are 82817-53340 for the 90 degree turn and 82817-30L60 for the one on the fender behind and to the left.

I probably didn't need to do this, but the prospect of a similar failure isn't something I'm going to tolerate lightly, so I addressed it today when I was solving other problems. I was really surprised at how much dirt had collected under the battery. Really a sandy mess under there. All clean now...

 

I did bring it up to the shop foreman about how ridiculous it was that they charged/billed me for 10 hours.I will be bringing it up to the dealer manager and corporate. First if the possibility of getting it covered under warranty due to the fact of the possibility of manufacturing defect. The service write up does state no corrotion or water damage. As the post above shows, its clearly shows manufacturing defect.

We will see. It will be a long process.

 

Great post. Much appreciated

 

So is the tray that the steering module sets in directly setting on top of the wire protector? As in, is it is resting on it? So the steering module tray is on top of the wire protector, the steering module is on top of that, the floating battery tray on top of that and the battery on top of the battery tray. What I am getting at is if that bottom tray is making contact with the wire protector, then essentially the weight of the battery is pushing down on the tray, putting consistent 40lbs of pressure on the proctor, putting constant 40lbs pressure on the wires in the protector. Then vibration on top of 40lbs of pressure. If that is all setting right on top of each other, no wonder why the wire is broken. (hope all that made sense hahahaha)

 

That's right.

 

(Rubbing hands together) Oh hell. If this is what is wrong with mine, I smell a manufactures defect claim coming!