EPCO

My fixes broke as well. I am going to try to add an inch or two to each wire to give it some more length.

Lost Lake

Did you get this fixed under the extended warranty?

RamGazer

No, I got it fixed (for free) w/ a letter they sent to me about it being a safety issue.

seafish

My 2005 truck is getting BOTH rear door harnesses replced under the the Chrysler MaxCare extended warranty that I bought with the truck. That being said, I am trying to think of ways to PREVENT this from happeing AGAIN in another 70k miles.

From what I can tell, the wire(s) in the rubber boot eventually break due to metal fatigue from the door opening and closing and ALWAYS bending the wire back and forth in the EXACT same spot, even though the rubber boot is keeping the wires from being "pinched".
I am positive that it is metal fatigue causing the wires to break because the wires which were NOT broken had a hard, stiff section about 3/4" long, all in the same section. It is JUST like bending baling wire back and forth in one spot with your fingers until it breaks, but if you stop bending BEFORE it actually breaks, you have a stiff, hard section that will no longer bend, and then eventually when you start bending the wire back and orth again, the wire breaks right at where the flexible wire joins the stiff wire.

In any case, that is my educated guess on the failure...it is not so much the wires being too short, but simply metal fatigue.


SOOOOOOOO....I am thinking that if there SOME way to keep the wires slightly separate from each other,a nd then inject silicone caulking into the rubber boot/jacket, that the flexible silicone will still let the door close, but might ALSO protect the wires from bending only at one point, by directing the force of the bend over a larger area, due to the silicone actually encasing the wires.

Just my .02, but since it can't hurt, I am going to try it after I get the truck back from the dealer...course I won't know if it worked for anohter 7 years.

Hitman

Use flexible silicone wire and add an inch to it when you splice the wires back together.

handymantim

I had the same problem with my 04. It is now 2021 FWIW. 2 wires in the left rear door boot broken in half.

Gorilla Torque

Same thing happened to my 2007.5 right about the time of this thread coming up in 2012. Way too much of a flex in the wire on the back doors from open to closed position. I replaced the wiring harness that attaches inside the door column and goes to the various points in the door because the wire in near proximity to the breaks didn't look like it was going to last much longer if I went with the soldering fix. So now that this has happened I'm just waiting for the front driver side door to do the same thing and not be able to roll up the window or something like that. Good news is that the bend it makes from open to closed is much less, but it sure gets used a lot and I have to assume will fail at some point like the read door did.

Lblue04

Is there better replacement harness for this or is the fix just soldering the wires?