connector body, plastic housing, shell, header, plug/receptacle housing
The housing does not carry current. It carries everything that makes current arrive in the right place: cavity count and cavity size, terminal retention (lances and secondary locks such as a TPA), keying and coding so the wrong mating half cannot be forced in, latch geometry, and the sealing interface if the connector is sealed.
The point that costs buyers time is that a housing is one part number in a set of three or four. A TE MQS housing accepts MQS terminals at a defined wire range and, on sealed variants, a specific single-wire seal. An Aptiv GT 150 housing accepts GT 150 terminals. Mixing families, or mixing terminal sizes inside a family, produces a connector that assembles but does not retain, or retains but does not seal. Unused cavities in a sealed housing need cavity plugs, otherwise the sealing class is void.
So a "connector" on a bill of materials is normally: housing, terminals, wire seals, cavity plugs, and often a TPA or secondary lock. Each of those is its own MPN with its own availability and its own lead time. A harness line can be fully stocked on terminals and stopped by a housing.
Harness Code sources the incomplete part of that set, which in a shortage is usually one line item out of five, and confirms the matching terminal, seal and plug references so the set arrives complete.
Related terms
Terminal / contact
A terminal, or contact, is the metal part crimped to a wire and inserted into a connector housing to make the electrical connection. Terminals are specified by family, gender (pin or socket), wire cross-section range, and plating, typically tin or gold.
Wire seal and cavity plug
A wire seal is a rubber grommet crimped with the terminal that seals the gap between the wire and the connector cavity. A cavity plug seals an unused cavity. Together they give a sealed connector its rated ingress protection; a single missing seal voids it.
Sealed vs unsealed connector
A sealed connector uses interface seals, wire seals and cavity plugs to keep moisture and dust out, and carries an IP rating such as IP67 or IP69K. An unsealed connector has no such protection and is used only in dry interior locations.
Manufacturer Part Number (MPN)
A Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) is the unique code a component maker assigns to one exact product variant. In automotive connectivity, the MPN fixes housing, cavity count, keying, colour and plating, so two parts with different MPNs are not interchangeable even if they look identical.