VWM Harness warning

[just me]

A heads up for anyone who has a VWM harness that they bought in the last year and a half. I bought one 16 months ago and installed it 14 months ago.
It looked great and fit correctly. As it should for the price paid. However, now that it has a bit over a year on it, ALL of the rubber grommets on ALL of the Douglass connectors have failed! They are dried out, cracked and falling off. This leaves direct shorts from the wire to the shell and thus the chassis. This is an extreme hazard for both operability and fire.
PLEASE TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT YOURS BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS.
This has also happened on another M37 in my town with a harness of approximately the same age but only installed a few months ago.

 

[NDT]

Please let the vendor know this happened so they can issue a recall and safety bulletin. Sounds like bad quality rubber from, let me guess, an offshore supplier.

 

[m38inmaine]

That company changed hands last year but is still using the same name, don't recall where the new owner was, might have been VA. I have several harnesses from the original Maine company from many years ago and all are standi8ng up fine.

 

[emmado22]

all my VWM harnesses are good, but they were made before Joe Hall sold the company to the new guy....

 

[just me]

The two failures I am aware of were made by Joe. But he sold shortly after.

 

[just me]

The new owner is aware of the issue now and is investigating the issues(s). He is also taking care of those of us with the bad grommets.

 

[MatthewH]

Any idea how far back the issue goes? I have a VWM harness, and will definitely be looking it over tonight when I get home.

Any idea what the new owners name is, incase there's an issue we've got a name to ask for?

Thanks

Edit, just checked my records, looks like I bought mine around March/April of 2012, didn't think this project had taken this long.

 

[MatthewH]

Had a chance to check mine over today while in the garage. My insulators are cracked and falling apart as well. So its safe to say the issue goes back a few years. I'll call Monday and see what I can find out