Rats Chewed Through Wire. Getting Stop Safely Now Error

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Dutch

Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2018
Messages
6
I had a rat chew through a small green wire inside the 'engine compartment'. There are three orange colored high voltage harnesses entering the area on the left hand side. This is a small green wire in the middle harness. Anyway, the local dealer said they would need to replace the compressor assembly and gave me the part number of CV6Z-19703. I'm not sure why this would be necessary. I am wondering if I can repair this wire and reset the system or computer to get rid of the 'stop safely now' error code. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on the situation? I disconnected the high voltage disconnect behind the back seat. Do I need to take any other precautions?
 
I would fix it myself if it was going to cost me money to have the compressor replaced. Just make sure theres no current in the wire and you should be fine. Solder it, seal it up well and you should be good. Maybe the wire is part of a harness that is permanently affixed to the compressor? The dealer does not repair wires so that probably why.
 
That makes no sense. I find it hard to believe the wire harness for the AC compressor isn't replaceable. I believe that small wire was a part of a safety circuit designed to sense when the HV wire is cut and not allow the HV wire to be energized.
 
Oh, I forgot to mention, there are 2 high voltage disconnects. The one in back of the seat for the upper battery, and one outside by a rear wheel for the lower battery.

http://www.boronextrication.com/2012/05/30/2012-ford-focus-electric-hv-battery/
 
Thanks, I was aware of the disconnects. I will disconnect both and solder the wire and see what happens. I have not had time to work on it yet but will let you know what happens.
 
Ok, so I removed the high voltage disconnects and soldered the wire together. I put everything back and the car works fine. Just as I thought the dealership was just trying to fleece me. I wonder how many people they screw over every year. They tried to charge me $2700 for something that took 30 minutes to fix and required no parts.
 
Awesome job. Now you can convince your wife that you can buy yourself a nice expensive toy since you just saved $2700. :mrgreen:
 
Dutch said:
Just as I thought the dealership was just trying to fleece me. I wonder how many people they screw over every year. They tried to charge me $2700 for something that took 30 minutes to fix and required no parts.
To be fair a dealer or for that matter almost any repair shop doesn't repair damaged parts. They just replace with new parts.
 
@Triangles, you must work at a dealership. There were no damaged parts that could be replaced to even fix the problem. The problem was a wire was chewed through and needed to be repaired. The only way you could justify trying to charge that much money to repair the car is if you are a dishonest person. I am not a mechanic and I don't know anything about electric cars but was able to fix it myself. The truth is dealerships and most auto mechanics for that matter have very bad reputations for stealing from people. This is just another example.
 
Dutch said:
@Triangles, you must work at a dealership. There were no damaged parts that could be replaced to even fix the problem. The problem was a wire was chewed through and needed to be repaired. The only way you could justify trying to charge that much money to repair the car is if you are a dishonest person. I am not a mechanic and I don't know anything about electric cars but was able to fix it myself. The truth is dealerships and most auto mechanics for that matter have very bad reputations for stealing from people. This is just another example.
:lol: That's a good one! I don't work for a stealership nor do I even work in the automotive industry. In fact I loath stealerships and my next car will likely be a Tesla to avoid the whole stealership experience.

I was merely pointing out that most repair shops including dealers do not fix broken parts they only replace parts. So it's really foolish to expect them to fix a damaged part. In your case your wire harness was broken so the appropriate dealer action is to replace that wire. Unfortunately it is a part of the compressor so they would have to replace the whole compressor just to get the new wire harness. I do not dispute that this is the stupid thing to do when the wire can be easily repaired but since ford stupidly designed our car with a non replaceable wire harness for the AC compressor, replacing the whole compressor just to fix a bad wire harness is what almost any repair shop will do. I'm not sure why you seem so shocked by this. You should be mad at Ford not your dealer.
 
Fair enough. I misunderstood your angle. I am definitely not surprised by how dealerships operate. It just angers me when I think of how many people they take advantage of. What tipped me off was how they were trying to sell me on how much damage the rats had done. I asked to take a look at it myself and quickly saw that it wasn't a big deal. It's fine if they don't repair parts but it would be nice if they were honest about it. They could have easily explained what the problem was and how they would fix it. I actually asked them to try fixing the wire to see what happened; they claimed they couldn't do it because it was high voltage. That of course was complete BS because I just did it.
 
Same issue with my wife's 2016 FFE, chewed the small green wire not the HV wires, fortunately.

Dealer wants $260 to fix. Took 13 days so far. Had to talk to Ford engineers to see if they could repair the wire or not. :roll:
Damn rodents.

Probably could have jumpered it and driven home to fix myself but we're trying to buy a Tesla M3 :shock: before the end of the year and need to trade/sell this car ASAP.
(CA Carpool sticker expiring end of 2018, wife needs it for her commute, we want more range and luxury than the FFE provides)

hI018tX

https://imgur.com/a/hI018tX
 
barrey said:
Same issue with my wife's 2016 FFE, chewed the small green wire not the HV wires, fortunately.

Dealer wants $260 to fix. Took 13 days so far. Had to talk to Ford engineers to see if they could repair the wire or not. :roll:
Damn rodents.

Probably could have jumpered it and driven home to fix myself but we're trying to buy a Tesla M3 :shock: before the end of the year and need to trade/sell this car ASAP.
(CA Carpool sticker expiring end of 2018, wife needs it for her commute, we want more range and luxury than the FFE provides)

hI018tX

https://imgur.com/a/hI018tX

Had the exact same thing happen on our 2015 FFE, dealer charged us $375 to fix our little green wire.

We also just finished trading our FFE for A Model 3 (not a M3, the M3 is and always will be a very desirable BMW!!). We are really loving it. Not sure what you're doing with your FFE, but we traded ours in to Tesla. CarMax offered us $10K (2015 w/ 38,500 miles), Tesla offered $11,500. I seriously doubt I could have gotten that private party. So I took it and ran.

What color / model of Model 3 are you getting? We have a LR RWD, Obsidian Black. Had it three weeks so far and love it.
 
triangles said:
It would have been far cheaper, quicker, and easier to just fix it yourself.

I completely agree, however I did not have the skillset to diagnose where the wire was chewed. Once I had that, I know I could have jumpered it.

Keith
 
Yeah I completely understand. For some reason I was assuming that the cut wire was discovered before taking it in. I guess what they say about assumptions is true... :lol:
 
triangles said:
Yeah I completely understand. For some reason I was assuming that the cut wire was discovered before taking it in. I guess what they say about assumptions is true... :lol:

Nope. Car just wouldn't start one morning. Got it towed to the Ford dealer, hoping that perhaps my battery had bricked and I would be getting an upgraded (larger capacity) one to replace it. Service writer called me and told me that I had rodent damage, and that he was working with Ford to make sure that his simple fix would not invalidate the 8 year warranty. Ford ok'd the fix, so they did it. Otherwise, he was recommending that I submit an insurance claim, as the cost to replace the harness would have been about $1700.

Needless to say, I put traps and poison all over the garage, and haven't had a problem since. I did see some critter footprints under the hood of my old Buick, but I guess they didn't like what they saw under there, as nothing appeared to be chewed or disturbed.

Keith
 
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