New ECU???

[Dom]

Ok, Fiat have diagnosed the fault with the throttle body as a fault on the ECU but apparently they cannot delve any further into it. So, it's £400 for a new ECU fully fitted but not even guarenteed to fix the problem! I got a little stroppy with them and the service manager is going to give me a call back tomorrow to tell me if my ECU is one that can be sent of for testing/potential fixing. What I need to know is:

a) Can I just get hold of an ECU from another 1.2 Bravo and plumb it in and what are the potential implications of this.

b) As Fiat don't seem capable of getting specific in terms of the ECU 'fault' would a company like Angel Tune be ablt o play with the ECU programming and potentially fix it.

Any advice whatsoever will be greatly appreciated and apologies for the multiple threads on my car problems at the mo!

Cheers

Dom

 

[Anonymous]

A lot of sensor failures can cause an error to show the ECU at fault when its not. Im sure you was selling your car for another? She wont let go without a fight. Anyway, yeah an ECU from a 1.2 aslong as its same year and model, as im not sure on different revisions should help you out.

Did no other errors show up?

 

[Dom]

According to the foreman at Fiat the error goes back to the ECU and he is "99.9 percent sure the ECU is faulty" which sounds like bull**** to me. So the ECU would need to be from the same year not just mk?

In terms of sensors what are the possibilities, all he's tried is sticking a donor throttle body on it and he's apparently ruled that out leading to his 99.9 percent conviction on it being the ECU. Surely they should be able to give more specific answers instead of using process of elimination?!

 

[Dom]

BUMP...

Need some help on this, someone must no the technical aspects of swapping over ECU's and/or reprogramming them. The potential outcome of this could result in me having to get public transport for a while!

 

[Andy]

im not sure what the implications of swapping the ECU will be, i should have thought it would just be a plug and play swap, get it diagnotic checked and make sure theres nothing wrong and then take it from there sort of thing

if its any help i have an ECU you can have for some pennies (well pounds...)

Andy_sx

 

[Dom]

Is the ECU for a mk2 1.2?? If so I would be very interested. Gonna here back from Fiat 2moz about sending my ECU to a 3rd party for testing so would rather buy it from a boo member than from FIAT (purely for selfish financial reasons!)

 

[AlfaNige]

Unless the ECU is physically damaged its unlikely to be the cause of your problems.
Basically the ECU is the most static item on your vehicle and the engine mapping is the one constant. Therefore unless the ECU was physically damaged it will continue to work until the end of time.
What is more likely is that a sensor that feeds information through to the ECU to process is faulty, or the circuit that is sending the information is at fault OR the operation that is to be carried out by a mechanical item after the ECU has told it to do so is at fault - rather than the ECU itself.
Firstly, though, make sure your ECU is clean, the connections are clean and dry and the plugs are not broekn, lose or wet! It sounds simple, but the number of times we see an ECU absolutely coverd in oil and crap is unbeleivable (you wouldn't be surprised if your home computer didnt work if you left it out every night in the garden under a tarpaulin and splattered crap over it each day now would you? :-D
Lastly... what are the problems you are having!
Nige

 

[Andy]

Dom, yep its the Mk2 1.2 bravo, phase 1, on a 99t reg

wait for Niges response once youve told him the situation, and if you still want to go ahead with it we can sort it from there, but Nige is your man to start with

(PS Nige, Marks audi n'alf shift now mate... trying to persuade him to get me one as a company car and get it remapped too )

Andy_sx

 

[Dom]

Cheers for the replies.

@ Nige, the problems I am having were the car running really lumpy, engine management light coming on and going into limp mode. This problem happened back in march and i got a new throttle body which fixed it until last Sunday. It's with Fiat now as my garage couldn't/wouldn't do the work.

Fiat are saying it's gonna be the ECU but what he's saying just doesn't cut it with me and going off what your saying doesn't cut it with you either! I'm going to be hearing from them this morning, not really sure whether it's even worth them sending the ECU off for testing (which i'm sure they'll charge heavily for). Apparently their diagnostic won't delve any further than "It's probably a faulty ECU" which is ridiculous.

 

[Ash]

it wont be the ecu.

 

[Dom]

Well got the car back today and my wallet is only £38 lighter! Turns out he reprogammed the ECU "I found a Fiat CD for the Bravo so whacked it in the laptop and she's purring like a kitten now". This is the guy that was 99.9% sure the ECU was faulty and that £400 worth of new ECU would fix it.

If it wasn't for some of the know how and advice picked up on here I could have ended up handing over £400 for something I didn't need so thanks guys and gals

Unbelievable

 

[scotty]

Another classic example of the pitt falls for the avarage motorist,at worst,absalute robbers trying it on,at best absolutely incompatence.

Its the same all over.
Glad you got sorted in the end without being ripped off.

Scotty.