LAPorsche dismantlers have a wiring harness I need but I have heard a lot of hit or miss stories about them. Can anyone in LA check this out for me? A new harness from Porsche can take up to 3 months just to get the part (they have to make one) and is $6k.

I would like someone to verify the part, no damage, complete, etc. Actually, if someone knows a good tech that would be familiar with the part I'd be willing to pay something for them to check it out for me. Thanks!

 

The stories are mostly "miss" with a limited number of "hits". Try Oklahoma foreign, Silver Star (Sacramento), or Parts Heaven first.

Best of luck in your search...

 

I got two "hits" from them, interior pieces for a 993.
But I have seen lots of negative threads about them over the years . .. .

 

No luck from those others, a couple had turbos but location of damage to the car probably means the harness is damaged. The one at laporsche the car was hit left rear, this harness is everything from front trunk back to the ecu (not engine) so should be undamaged.

It is from a 2001 (same year as mine) and they told me it is already off the car and are emailing pictures and vin today.

 

I've dealt with LA porsche on a couple of ocasions and Caleb always took care of me real good. Once they sent me a spindle that had stripped out brake caliper bolt holes, but I've sent them pictures and they sent another one out. They also seem real dilligent at wrapping stuff the right way.

 

The guy I have spoken with sounds like he knows what he's talking about and has been pretty responsive. They've said they guarantee it works or a full refund.

 

As explained to me by several knowledgeable builders and some P-car afficianados much more knowledgeable than I am....Porsche actually builds the car around the wire loom. This actually makes sense if you think about it. When a customer orders a car with certain options, or the factory decides to build XX number of cars with certain options....these options determine how the wire loom is put together, and the car is built to accomodate those options you see in your option codes. Whereas you might get another loom from another car of the same make/model and year....you have to make sure that the options in the loom from the donor car match, or at least come real close to the options in your car.....otherwise you're going to be short some wires....or end up with extra wires that go to nowhere and make you wonder if you screwed up somewhere. Something to think about....sometihing I never thought about.

 

Honestly, I dont see what the big fuss it. What is exactly burned in your original harness? Did it sponteanusly combust in between all connectors? and more importantly why? I'm sure you're not doing this yourself and any mechanic experianced in electrical work that involves a soldering gun can probably easily fix it once all taken apart. If you get a harness from another P-car samebodystyle and model, I'm sure once everything is apart, comparing the two harnesses will not be rocket science. Also, if you have two with a little bit of variance, I'm sure swapping some wires over will not be that hard either.

 

Make sure to pay with a cc, so if they refuse to accept it; you can dispute the charges and get your $$ back.

 

im going there 2morrow to check out an engine

 

Mfletch on the Rennlist 996 forum completely rewired my 99 996 that had an electrical dash fire and insurance totalled it. He bought it and I stayed in touch because I was interested in his progress with my old car. He amazed everyone by completely cutting the old harness at the front and replacing (actually rejoined all the cut ends) it with a donor after tearing out the dash. His efforts were photographed and made into a thread (search for Burnt 996 rebuild) dedicated to his restoration....take a look at what he had to go thru. Whereas for those of you who are adept at electrical systems it may not seem to be rocket science....but when you take a look at the pictures Mfletch posted, it becomes a nightmare for the layman or even the more advanced folks. The Porsche dealership offered my insurance company a quote of $25K to redo the wiring...thank God they decided to total it. I do miss that car though.

 

I have a harness from a 2002' GT2 if it helps. Let me know!

 

As Chuck mentioned its just an overwhelming amount of wires and its not really possible to see if damage is elsewhere without unraveling the entire thing throughout the car. On top of that I still have to have another harness to replace the areas in the dash. So worst case they could do a perfect job splicing in all those wires in the dash area and cutting another harness up to do it, then I could fire it up and still have a short that wrecks the whole new thing.

The labor to do all that checking and splicing is probably not that much less than just replacing the whole thing since I already have to have another harness.

You can see why it happened and pictures in my 'electrical issues' thread

 

http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforum...ebuild-23.html

I attached the link to the said post for curious minds like me to look at.

Gotta admit that it looks like it was a hell of a project When I made a comment I was thinking more in line if a small part of the harnes has a short or gets toasted. I hope you guys didn't think I was being arrogant. In case of a dash fire that pretty much melts all the wires I can see it being extremely hard to figure stuff out since there is really nothing left to compare the new harness to. Nothing someone without great deal of experiance or a huge reserve of patience would like to handle. I've done my share of car repairs, and since my dad is a mechanic I've always been around him taking stuff apart and putting it together performing all sorts of wicked surgeries, I'm also very patient and take my time with things to do them right, but electrical problems are the hardest to pinpoint/trackdown and fix.

It was nice to see the guys step in to help with diagnostic equipment and schematics as these do make it easier to work.

 

Even with Mfletch's expertise and tenacious approach to very carefully labelling each wire with a string tag....I still ended up taking Loren (RennTech) up to Mark's house where we connected a PIWIS Loren has and chased down some "loose ends" (literally). By looking for fault codes, he figured out what was disconnected. For some reason, Porsche LOVES yellow wires with black stripes, and we ended up with about 8 sets of exactly the same color combo that had to be switched around to try to figure what went to what....you could run into the same problem with other color combinations. I think it ended up with about three wires that Mark couldn't figure out went where....until sometime later. This is a time consuming and very tedious process that takes patience and perseverance....which I'm a little short on....VISA works better for me. I have no idea how involved replacing the entire wire loom would be...but it obviously means disassembling a lot of the dash, seats, access ports and who only knows what else. That's probably why Porsche quoted my insurance company $25K to rewire my car. Good luck...honestly.