wiring harness bad????????

Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives

I've been having issues with the car getting terrible gas mileage and all. well, took it to the Ford Dealer after nobody else could do anything and they said that almost every sensor and code came up as bad, and they traced it to the wiring harness. So the wiring harness is bad. I'm in need of advice bad. The car has 53,000 on the clock, just put about $500 or more into it the past few months, but most of the money I put into it I can get out of it (rims, system, etc.). I am thinking this is not cheap to fix, I know very little about electrical stuff to do it my self, do I sell it? Now, it was in the body shop for the hood flying up and it got broken into, so thats not possible to be related is it? My other option is to keep it, but it dosn't get more then 24mpg at 75, 16 city being dang easy on it and is lacking power. I will NOT screw someone over when I sell it, I wil tell them the gas milage honestly, and the problems but it runs good once it warms up and it mechanically flawless except for the wriring harness. Is $2k for this too much? it looks nice, I'll attach a pic so you guy can help me decide what to do. But heres to sum up what all i just said: My wiring harness is bad, how much to fix it and should I sell or keep it? Thanks guys. Oh btw, the recall expired 2 yrs ago for it.

The car looks MUCH better than this, this pic is before I learned how to use a camera very good-

The harness and labor is more than the car is worth by alot. Not an easy fix.

I think gas mileage is the least of anyones concern if they were to buy the car with a bad harness like that.

Originally posted by CSVT1214:
The harness and labor is more than the car is worth by alot. Not an easy fix.

I think gas mileage is the least of anyones concern if they were to buy the car with a bad harness like that.

Yes, the parts and labor are at least $2,500 if they replace all the wiring harness.

As for the mpg, mine usually gives 18 city and 24 highway. And I consider mine as a well maintained car. Auto trannies do get less than manual trannies. And Duratecs get less than Zetecs.

If you can trace it to an individual harness, you may want to consider just repairing that. But if you can't and you have the cv joint, struts, other miscellaneous stuff to deal with, it is a hard call.

As for the selling price, a Capitol Area CEGer sold his 98 SVT for $2,800 because of the wiring harness issue that he did not want to deal with.

Good luck.

Originally posted by Tony2005:

Originally posted by CSVT1214:
The harness and labor is more than the car is worth by alot. Not an easy fix.

I think gas mileage is the least of anyones concern if they were to buy the car with a bad harness like that.

Yes, the parts and labor are at least $2,500 if they replace all the wiring harness.

As for the mpg, mine usually gives 18 city and 24 highway. And I consider mine as a well maintained car. Auto trannies do get less than manual trannies. And Duratecs get less than Zetecs.

If you can trace it to an individual harness, you may want to consider just repairing that. But if you can't and you have the cv joint, struts, other miscellaneous stuff to deal with, it is a hard call.

As for the selling price, a Capitol Area CEGer sold his 98 SVT for $2,800 because of the wiring harness issue that he did not want to deal with.

Good luck.

yeah, if you can trace the exact issue, there is a product you can use thats a liquid, you put over the exposed wires and it hardens and creates a really good insulator... a lot of people here use it to fix their cracked harnesses, and its considerably cheaper. Sorry to burst your bubble, but its really not worth fixing unless you can do it really cheaply...

Oh your not bursting my bubble, I was originally thinking no way to fix taht, I jsut wanted to see how much it would cost me to fix it. What I'm thinking is keep it, live with it to get me back to MN (in FL for the summer), park it and use it when I have to at college (all my friends and my roomates have cars) and give it to my sis in a year when she starts driving so she has somehting to drive around in and save up, get something nice. Becuase the cost of having the car vs. how much i actually used it last year at college is not friendly, and this way I can jsut put insurance on it for a month or somehting when I need to use it for a road trip or something and let it sit when not using it. That way I don't have to fix it, don't have near the cost of mainitainig it, and still have a car when I really need it. my parents may even beintrested in buying/using it if I'm jsut gonna park it at their house so that works for me. Oh btw, it randomly ran excellent about a month ago and my gas mialge was near 30 at 75mph, and it used to do that until latley, so I KNOW that 24 at the same speed is terrible, not to mention it has maybe half the power cause all the sensors think theyre bad. But still open to suggestions if you guys have any.....

Update!!!!: it is not the whole wiring harness, but the one taht controls the MAF, idle control valve, ERG, etc taht is bad. So I'm going to trace those wires and see what I come up with. Hopefully I can figure this out so I can fix this before I go home. So I'll keep ya guys posted and anyone with expirience please chime in if you would causee that would be helpful, as I know what I'm doing but havn't done this before. thanks!

Here is some good reading info from the Main Site FAQ.
http://www.contour.org/FAQ/recall/99M03/

Originally posted by Teenage Contour:
Update!!!!: it is not the whole wiring harness, but the one taht controls the MAF, idle control valve, ERG, etc taht is bad.

There are four harnesses that could be bad. From your description above, those sensors are part of two of the harnesses. By far the worst of the harnesses will be the fuel injector harness,and the 10 or so connectors that are part of it. The wires under the UIM are subject to the highest heat and show the insulation degradation the most. The wires to the crank postion sensor also were in bad shape on my 96 SE. I replaced mine and the car ran noticeably smoother after. I MIGHT have a brand new one for sale if you're interested.

call around to local junk yards and see if they have a wireharness for the car.. you would have to lower the engine out to replace it but thats the only logical solution i can come up with.. good luck

I think i might be onto somehting here-I disconnected what looks like some kind of sensor for the A/C lines, I'm not quite sure what it does but I disconnected it when I was playing with all that was hooked into the harness and it immediatly wa happier idling and when I plugged it back in it bogged down and rougher idle. So I left it unpluged for the drive to work and it had acceleration!!! I mean it actually accelerated when you stepped on the gas, somehting that has been lacking for a while!!! Not quite where it should be but pretty close I think. I circled it in the attached picture. WHat is it and what does it do? The ac works fine with it unplugged, so will it hurt anything to just leave it unplugged and forget about it? I tested the volts and its at about 8v, not sure where it should be, does that mean anything to you guys? Anyway, any input is helpful. heres the pic-

That is the power steering pressure switch. When there's a load on the engine from steering the car, lets say durning a slow turn, the engine computer will increase the idle speed based on the input from that sensor.

Originally posted by eepals:
That is the power steering pressure switch. When there's a load on the engine from steering the car, lets say durning a slow turn, the engine computer will increase the idle speed based on the input from that sensor.

That's right.

8V

Should be more like 12-12.5 with car off, 14-14.5 motor running. Might have either a bad battery or alt.

Originally posted by SvtTour98.5-3:

Originally posted by eepals:
That is the power steering pressure switch. When there's a load on the engine from steering the car, lets say durning a slow turn, the engine computer will increase the idle speed based on the input from that sensor.

That's right.

8V Should be more like 12-12.5 with car off, 14-14.5 motor running. Might have either a bad battery or alt.

Could this be on the right track to the short? Since the voltage is this low I would think that I a on the right track as everything else was 12+ volts (maf, IAC, etc.). I'm guessing I should also connect that back the shouldn't I.