I am new to this forum so if I ramble please excuse my aggravation (with the dealer).
I have a 2004 Stratus coupe, with about 42,xxx miles. About a month ago my wife stated that she could smell something in the car that smelled like “plastic burning”. When I drove the car after work I really did not smell anything that I could put my finger on. Two weekends ago on the way to church, while running the defroster, I was finally able to smell the odor and (as usual) she was right, it did smell like burning plastic.
When we got back home I looked into the defroster vents and around the area but was not able to find anything. Last week she said that the defroster and heater quit working altogether. That evening I went to check it out and what I found was that the 30 amp fuse for the fan motor was melted but that the fuse link inside was not blown. The fuse block had completely melted and a hole about the size of a nickel where the fuse used to be.
Being an electrician by trade I pulled the block out of the car to investigate further and to my surprise I found that even though the wiring harness has several 12 to 16 gauge cables coming into this block, that the wiring on the inside the fuse block that is punched down internally uses much smaller cables.
Ok, so this morning I went to the local dealer to pick up a replacement fuse block. So since everthing plugs into the block, I should be able to replace the block, simple enough right? Well the dealer tells me that the fuse block is part of the wiring harness and that I Will have to purchase a new wiring harness ranging from $800.00 to $1150.00 depending on the part number of the harness!
Question, has anyone heard of an issue or problem like this before and if so what actions can be taken? This could have caught the vehicle on fire if I had not found this or if other conditions may have existed.
Thanks,
opgtech :help:

 

this is an old problem with Chrysler prodiucts , going back to 70's at least and glass tube fuses. The trucks melt this fuse holder clip out of plastic on A/C cars, then springs that hold it have no temper , and it will heat up and burn again. My soluton on several was to get behind fuse block (easy on truck) and solder a NAPA heavy duty in line fuseholder to the wire feeding the heater, insulate w shrink tube and the other end to the battery / IGN feed, which you can figiure out byu looking at back of fuse block. A new block will do it again. This also happens at firewall connector, they run 40 A thriough a 1/4" faston, no way. it melts, big hassles with intermittants. Cure is cut off heavy wires at bulkhead, run THHN 10 though fire wall w grommett ,and soder on other side. Only need to do this to two heavy wires.[/align][/align]Fastons are good for 15A that is it. Don't use high blow is another short term fix, but not realistic [/align]

 

I'd get another from the junkyard or search car-parts.com for one in the area ... Then if it was MY car I think I'd split the defroster and the heater onto a spare circuit to split the load ...