So today I took my Jeep in for service, they found this wire where the insulation had split. I asked about it being under warranty ('15 w/15k miles). The service advisor told me it was aftermarket so it wasn't covered. I told him it wasn't aftermarket as I haven't done anything but bumpers and winch, he called over a tech, an older guy so I think a senior tech, who said oh yea it's factory and it's an easy fix or else it'll be a new harness, a younger guy chimes in, look it's been fixed before, long story short, not covered under warranty because of the winch electrical, $125 to fix.
(it's worse than it looks in the pic, I taped it up for now)

 

that one little spot on the white wire?

 

If this is the white wire you're referring to, I would just get some liquid electrical tape and dab it in the cut, or if your able to slide some shrink wrap over the lug that would probably be better.

 

LMAO. Some things just aren't worth the time to argue over. This is one of those things that just fix yourself and move on. Not that big of a deal. There's next to no cost associated with it. Small bit of liquid electrical tape, maybe heat shrink as mentioned above. It wouldn't have even crossed my mind to ask them about that.

 

Yeah, but not fighting for the small stuff is how they start thinking they can get away with bigger things.

 

My issue isn't with how serious the damage is, it's the fact that they brought it to my attention and then telling me it's not covered by warranty. Thanks for all the comments.

 

I guess some people would be happy they noticed a bad wire. Now if you are sure the wire was fine and you think they damaged it that might be another issue.

 

I was glad they found it, don't get me wrong. And no, I don't think they did it, it is obvious that the insulation split due to the extreme bend in the wire (it's a light blue wire BTW). My issue is that when you buy a $35k rig with a 3 yr 36k bumper to bumper warranty they should've fixed it under warranty, not want to charge me. It doesn't matter to me how much they wanted, what matters is that they said since I installed a winch cable to my battery, this wire was affected by it and is not covered. I didn't even disconnect the battery when I wired my winch so how could I have caused any damage to a factory wire? I guess I'm the only one who expects the dealer to honor their warranty anymore. Keep the comments coming, I'm enjoying reading them.

 

You've got to get some decent dealers in your area. I took mine in for recall work today and despite the jeep having 145k miles on it with the last visit to dealer being 5 years ago, they didn't even suggest any other services. Sorry to hear you've got a bad dealer and that I don't have a comment to put down your situation.

 

This is just my perspective, feel free to correct me. I'm not looking to argue or give you any grief, I'm just trying to look at this from your perspective and the dealers. In regards to the dealer, for warranty claims they get paid by FCA, so they would be happy to fix this for you under warranty. However, when they turn in the paper work for a warranty repair claim, they need to provide an investigation report with pictures and their analysis. If FCA is able to look at that and agree this was not caused by any modifications that you may have done to the vehicle, FCA will write the dealership a check for the repairs. Case closed, everyone is happy. The dealership got paid for the repair work and parts, and you got this fixed at no cost out of your pocket under warranty.

So now I'm looking at the picture you posted as if it was part of the dealership's report submitted to FCA. On my JK there is battery post clamp which has a single wire attachment point which clamps the factory blue wire and the dual red wires. What I see different on your JK is that there is battery post clamp which has 3 separate wire attachment points where the factory blue wire is connected to 1 attachment point, the 2 factory red wires are connected to another, and your winch wire is connected to the 3rd. Was this battery post clamp added as part of your winch install to be able to accommodate the winch red wire? If it was, then if I'm FCA looking at this report with that picture, I would conclude that the factory wires were moved onto the aftermarket battery post clamp. The aftermarket battery post clamp looks longer than the factory clamp to accommodate the 3 wire attachment points. That relocation of the factory wires and the additional length of the aftermarket battery clamp adapter caused a bend and additional stress on the blue wire as shown in your picture. That additional stress, caused the wire to split and therefore this problem was caused by the customer (you) by adding an aftermarket accessory battery clamp which caused the problem. Claim denied, sorry dealership we will not reimburse you for this work.

Please explain if I made any incorrect assumptions. Your JK may have came from the factory with that battery post clamp. If that is the case, then please feel free to correct me. I'm just going by that it doesn't look like the same battery post clamp that came on my JK.