Trans-Gendered Sprinter (w/ Apologies to Futurama)

My wife is in the dog house for wishing for a "White Christmas". Here in the Portland area, life shuts down at 2". We have over 14".

My outside service van had it's frosty toupe' fully intact when in the driveway. At my 1st stop, AVALANCHE! Along with the snow pack was my antenna! I am not impressed. If a "Mercedes" engineered antenna cant handle snow. I can understand if I whacked it into an overhead or it was ice or something... But snow?

Now being trans-gendered has its fallbacks. The antenna is actually functional, especially with AM. Off to the dealer! At first there was an issue weather to bother with warranty for a $5.00 part. Turns out that just the wire (not the base) is $114.00! So I made it a warranty issue. There was some resistance, but they saw I was not messing around.

The antenna arrives the day before Christmas. To be covered under warranty, an authorizes Sprinter Technician has to screw it in. So I am waiting a week for the qualified person to get off vacation.

A little bit of intel while I was there...
The parts person said that Chrysler marks up ALL of the Sprinter parts 40% and then the dealer marks the parts up from there. So we have Mercedes wholesale + Chrysler wholesale + Dealer retail markup = RIPOFF! I can understand why some of you are brokering shipping containers of parts out of Germany. The way Chrysler is tanking, this may be a lucrative business!

everybodys gotta eat

UPDATE!

Turns out that the antena breaks inthe base. This requires replacing the antenna and base unit at about $160.00! Funny thing is that there were other sprinters on the lot that were also "gender challenged".

I want to thank you for that posting. After I read it, I used a broom to knock off the snow. In Seattle - 150 miles north of Portland, OR - we had an ice sheet sandwich: powder snow, crunchy frozen rain/ice, and snow.

I wonder if that helped dislodge your antenna.

Either way, I think you might have saved mine so I wanted to thank you for the report.

-Jon

It's posts like this, that remind me why I moved from Chicago to Florida 35 years ago.

qualityair said:

It's posts like this, that remind me why I moved from Chicago to Florida 35 years ago.

Click to expand...

Hey Qualityair, have you got room down there for a couple of sprinters outfitted for plumbing? I'm getting real
tired of winter too.
Cheers - RO

principal said:

Hey Qualityair, have you got room down there for a couple of sprinters outfitted for plumbing? I'm getting real
tired of winter too.
Cheers - RO

Click to expand...

Yea, come on down. We always need good plumbers here, especially one's from up North that really know plumbing.

PM me and We'll trade phone #'s, and I can explain in greater detail.

Update:
Dealer wanted me to come in for 2 hrs while they disassembled the headliner (remind me to pack some insulation up there) and install the exact defective unit! I Called Chrysler (India) and told them to get their heads out. I was to get a response in four days. It has been a week now...

Today I got on to their customer support site and filled out a form griping about them not paying the $95.00 tow bill (locked steering wheel thingy) and not getting back to me on the redesign.

I should have grabbed a picture of the 8 or so Sprinters on the dealer lot with busted antennae.

If I don't get some love, the towing bill goes to small claims and I do some research and implement a proper antena setup. I have some HAMs in the neighborhood drooling to hook me up!

Of course passing the bill off to Chrysler...

jdcaples said:

I want to thank you
//snip//
- we had an ice sheet sandwich: powder snow, crunchy frozen rain/ice, and snow.

I wonder if that helped dislodge your antenna.
//snip//
-Jon

Click to expand...

That was exactly what got me in a Dodge van. Snow sandwich with an ice crust only I thought the way to get it off was to hit the brakes in a parking lot. It worked great. All the snow came off in an impressive avalanche......along with both my wiper arm assemblies. Never did that again. Not as expensive as a Sprinter antenna, but still cost more than I expected. Since then I had a telescoping snow broom I used to drag off the top.

I can't even really reach the top of my standard roof. (I learned it's not a "low" roof here from Herr Doktor ) I get part of the top from the door ledges, but that still leaves quite a bit. What do others do? I really don't want to drag a ladder out, but with the antenna price that's probably worth doing. vic

Still no word from Chrysler. I called, filled out online forms and have been totally blown off. Chrysler blaming dealer and dealer saying "What the ****!!! Seems we all are stuck between Chrysler and Daimler's pissing contest.

I am taking my baby to a local body shop to get a FULL quote to plug up the antenna holes and install a Larsen antenna to the roof where it belongs. Larson makes the cool antennas for emergency vehicles and HAM operators. There will also be a significant gain in signal and I can actually repair it if necessary with industry standard parts!

Then off to small claims court to fund my redesign!

qualityair said:

It's posts like this, that remind me why I moved from Chicago to Florida 35 years ago.

Click to expand...

That means your missing the -35 F temps with the -50 wind chills. One thing I can say about Chicago winters is as a plumber I enjoy all the burst water lines. A note most of the burst pipes are from people that relocated to Chicago from some southern state, and did not know how to prepare for the cold snaps like this.

And Yes Florida has the most lax-ed plumbing codes in the whole nation.

Larsen is asking for the connection type of the antenna cable to the radio. Does anyone have an idea what connection it is? We have the base, antenna and cable specd out but need the end connector info.

If someone has overhead pull information or stock antenna assembly information, it sure would help.

I called Freightliner today. There is no update to the problem and Chrysler has only 4 replacement units in Los Angeles, the rest of the US is out of stock. (These are the bad design ones that break when they see snow.)

I can't be the only owner with a busted antenna. Am I barking up the right tree?

Don't know what plug is called, but you can find it under Audi/BMW/Mercedes/VW flat plug, something like this...

http://www.qualitymobilevideo.com/40-VW12.aspx

Good start. I really would like to see the actual OEM plug from the antenna. I did send your link to Larsen to see what they can come up with.

I did get a couple of part numbers from Larsen. One is for the whip and the other is for the base.

Ham Radio Outlet has these available online for a GREAT price! Once I get the plug end specd out I will do the conversion.

You can barely see the antenna connector in this thread...

https://sprinter-source.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3795