nath_h

Staying on the parts topic here, I spoke with my local MB parts counter guy about availability. He said that MB now does all ordering by VIN number, and they try to centralize whatever parts they have left for old models, rather than allow stuff to sit around shelves at various dealers. In my case for the $12,100 part, it is indeed a rare part, with 3 left in the world, all in Germany currently. Of course, never to be made again. So yes, super rare, but really, gouge customers to THAT degree? An argument could be made that they'd like to clear off shelves and just get rid of stuff, too.

Something I've wondered about (but know nothing about) is 3D printing. Is it possible some long out of production parts could be printed? For example, rubber moldings no longer made.

BOTUS

if its in stock - the price should be what it was plus a small amount of inflation - sounds like they want you to pay the whole storage cost of 15 years and then to pay for some guy to get a holiday flying over so he can hand it over personally

nath_h

Yes, for sure. I could book a Lufthansa First Class ticket for a warehouse worker to fly the part to Iowa and hand it over to me.

sHocKR3P4IR

Thought I’d post an update. Turns out the magnets and solenoids were leaking oil. So went with option 2, and nothing to report yet. I believe the check valve and chain tensioners weren’t installed but it seems that you don’t cause any damage if you don’t go though with that procedure (from what I understand it’s done for acoustic reasons, might be wrong)—so will wait and see.

nath_h

Adjacent question...I was replacing the coolant temperature sender yesterday...part of the WIS instructions are to remove the harness for the crank hall position sensor. Which I did. Once put back together, I now have a car that won't start. Xentry says something about a bad wire to the crank hall sensor. I suspect that some brittle wire was damaged in the harness, just moving the harness a little bit, plus some brittle plastic crumbled in my hand on the plug. I've got a new crank hall position sensor coming to see if that might do the trick, but I think it is going to need wiring repair/replacement like Xentry says.

So, I'm afraid to ask...does anyone know if there is a harness that just goes to the crank hall sensor, or is it part of the entire engine wiring harness? I think I know the answer, because I can find no such crank hall sensor in EPIC. Can part of an engine wiring harness be repaired?

kevm14

Of course it can be repaired. It's just wiring. However, if it is twisted for noise rejection you will want to maintain a similar twists per inch as factory to avoid bad signals.

BOTUS

the pin bush housing is made of chocolate - representative of the entire build quality of the car

they are available - you need to buy the housing and the sensor