EBH shorted out - not near plug

I've had an EBH installed in my 2008 Prius for a couple years now. Like many folks have experienced, about a year ago it shorted out just behind the stress relief on the plug. I snipped off the plug and wired on a replacement which worked fine...for about a year.

Well, it's shorted again (continuity between the hot and neutral wires). But when I confidently snipped off the replacement plug and got ready to wire in a new one, the short was still there. Didn't see any obvious breaks or damage to the cable, so I started snipping off 1" pieces hoping to get back to good wire...but after about a foot and still shorted, the problem looks to be farther down the circuit and I wanted to keep the cable long enough to use as a snake to pull new cable through if I have to replace the whole thing.

Is there anywhere I can buy just the cable, without buying the whole EBH kit? On the other hand, can the EBH itself short out so that I'd be better off just doing a fresh install?

 

Bought a new EBH kit, but ended up only needing the cord. Replacing that while leaving the original heater in place seems to have solved the problem.

Frustrating thing: now that it's off the car, for the life of me I can't find a short in the old cord. Checked all three wires, and no continuity between any of them. Tried bending the cord in various places, but still no obvious short. . Oh well, at least it's fixed.

Followed the suggestion I've seen in other threads of using a short extension cord to bridge between the easily shorted EBH cord and the extension cord feeding electricity from the wall socket. Hopefully this will eliminate stress on the EBH cord so I don't need to crawl under there and cut up my hands yet again.

FWIW, I used a longer extension than most people seem to have; it started as an 8' outdoor rated cord. I cut off the female end, snaked it from the grill to up near the fuse box, where I cut it to length and attached a new female socket. Thought this would be easier to get at up there, and less likely to get wet than a 1' one behind the grill.

I used some teflon-based lubricant on all the male plugs, which makes connnecting/disconnecting as smooth as silk.

 

snookums: I'm using a voltmeter (that's how I originally diagnosed the problem when the GFI in my garage tripped). Still can't reproduce the short now that it's off the car, but with the new cable the GFI is happy and the EBH is working. I'm guessing the short was caused by a pinch or bend in the actual install that I'm having trouble reproducing by hand.

efusco: orange connector seems ok on the old cable, but definitely that's a high-stress application - cycling between very low and very high temperature with periodic salt spray. It came out cleanly, and the new cable plugged right into the old core with no problem.

jayman: old core seems to be working fine at least for now. I've been running it almost every morning for 2 years. If it burns out, I've got a free core just sitting here that came with my $60 replacement cable.