Kenneth's ECU is good!

[william]

Eureka, my cold start problem has bee found! Kenneth's 2002 ECU was fited yesterday and this morning the car was 100% normal. I still cannot believe it. Interestingly the ECU never gave a fault reading in 3 diagnostic plug ins although it was found to be modified and sent down to Christchurch for repair. I still don't know what they did to it but it made no difference.

[bradc]

Cool

[Kenneth]

good news William. I take it they didn't try the stepper motor then?

So what do you plan on doing about it now?

[d i c k i e s]

how much for the repair? i had a few ECU problems with my ol 93 Galant.
Some reason, im thinkin the ECU is being sent to the same place mine got sent to.

[william]

No Ken, they did not try the stepper motor, mine is obviously working OK. What do I plan on doing now? - I think hanging on to this ECU for as long as possible!! Lol, only joking! I obviously do not want to go back to the old one and have not really made up my mind. A stand alone ECU sounds like a lot of work and I am not too sure if a piggy back on my current one is going to solve my problem.

I will drop off your ECU this weekend, or do you not need it that urgently??!!

Dickies, the amount on my invoice for "fixing" my ECU was $150, but as I said, it did not solve the problem.

[Kenneth]

No Ken, they did not try the stepper motor, mine is obviously working OK. What do I plan on doing now? - I think hanging on to this ECU for as long as possible!! Lol, only joking! I obviously do not want to go back to the old one and have not really made up my mind. A stand alone ECU sounds like a lot of work and I am not too sure if a piggy back on my current one is going to solve my problem.

I will drop off your ECU this weekend, or do you not need it that urgently??!!

Dickies, the amount on my invoice for "fixing" my ECU was $150, but as I said, it did not solve the problem.

Can you demand a refund for them being morons and not doing what they charged you to do (not to mention getting it wrong so often)

It isn't urgent that I have it back, so you can hold onto it while you work out what you are going to do.

I wouldn't be in that much of a hurry to go to a standalone ECU unless you really want to do some serious tuning to your car.

I would sell you that ECU, except for the fact that I want it for the Galant!

I do have a pre-facelift ECU that I don't need, obviously I want the 2002 ECU because I think it'll be better. What I am hoping to do is download the ROM off the 2002 ECU and see how it compares to the 1997 ECU and decide which is better from that.

[bradc]

I would definitely ask for a refund, or maybe a full D service with a cam belt change and stuff.

As for the options, I think you will find that a facelift manual ecu is difficult, and I don't know if a prefacelift will fit straight in, I know that Andy (the vee) had some issues with his car and I think one or two pins may be different.

[william]

Thanks Ken. Yes, I am going to have a "chat" to them about all this. I'll keep in touch re the ECU and if you find there is little difference between the two I'll take the other one off you. Interestingly my ECU has the metal body like the 1997 model in your piccies. The date on mine says 29/09/98

[bradc]

That is only just after the facelift changeover date.

My October 98 facelift had a plastic covered ecu in it, but that was an auto.

[william]

Yeah, Brad my car is a 2000 model as you know. I wonder wether the previous owner had some other ECU in it and put this one in when he sold the car, hence the problem.

Asking Simms for a D- service is no good - I had it done and asked them to check out the cold starting problem at the same time and that was where the saga started!

[Subaru ETA]

maybe it had prefaceligt ecu in it? who knows....
i would have thought they would have tried swapping an ecu out of another car while it was there...surely thery would have had another vr4 there at some stage while yours was there!

anywho good to hear its all sorted...

on a side note, when my car had idle prblems the dude at mitsi on the shore said its either the stepper motor or the ecu, no questions....go figure