Thread: Numerous failures, but could it be an ECU error?

Sorry to hear of all your troubles Tim. Have no idea how to fix any of them. Sounds like a Friday afternoon special finish with a long weekend hangover. I would be pizzed off with it too

Gary

Unfortunately this sounds like the dealer through and through. They really have no idea what they are working with, in saying that, with the complexities of vehicles now days, work shops really need someone like an electronic engineer with all his toys (to be able to analyse CAN signals ect) on staff or on call at least. The dealerships can only “diagnose” a problem if one of the ECUs log a fault and report a code for them; if there’s no code they are truly stumped.

Back when my D2 was purchased, it had a strange engine surging issue at highway speeds that would come and go. No faults and luckily for me the workshop manager at the dealer took my word there was a problem and kept looking, I would leave the car with them for weeks on end, they could get it to do it occasionally but no ideas. Searching of the internet back then returned three other cases (all OS) described exactly as mine was doing. I printed these write ups out, took them in – they all reported a new engine ECU as the fix. Dealer told me that if the engine ECU has a problem the Trans ECU will report it – they could not comprehend the possibility of an ECU being faulty thus not passing any fault details about itself! Over the next 18 months they replaced every sensor, harness and connector under the bonnet, and during this time if I had found another vehicle that suited our needs it would have been sold. I eventually exploded in the dealership one Saturday in a very unprofessional rant that essentially emptied the building of customers. That afternoon a new engine ECU was fitted under protest of the experts in the workshop. We still have the car and it has not missed a beat since. My point is that quite often they really don’t understand what they are looking at.

Geez Harlie, that would have done me in for sure...

I can't see why they didn't take a punt on replacing the ECU earlier - when I was working for a large diesel engine manufacturer, replacing the ECU was almost first thing on the list if a truck came in with an issue that didn't throw a fault code - if it didn't fix it, you swapped them back and kept looking, and put the new one back on the shelf - nothing lost. Sounds like the dealer was a total tosser...

They're not cheap but it's one of those times when having a VCM or T4/T5 would come in very handy. Would allow you to make sure all the software versions for the various modules have been updated correctly and not missed by the dealer.

There was a fairly major looking software update for the audio system available that comes up in the main screen of SDD when a VCM is hooked up, not sure exactly what it does as it told me my car had already been done when i tried to run it. The LR diagnostic software also allows you to view the activity on the various busses to see the sort of communication drop outs described by others. I half suspect a lot of the dealers have no idea how to use their own tools for anything beyond the most common tasks.

The seat fans can crack inside, the drivers seat cooler on our 08 was similarly temperamental but was throwing an overheat code that could be seen in SDD. Turns out the little plastic air conduit between the fan and the vent inside the seat had cracked so it would work intermittently.

Shame you're not down here in Vic or I would have been happy to hook up to my VCM kit and see what it says for you, but may be worth finding someone other than your dealer with one up there.