ecu failure - is this likely/common?

[Joss Walker]

Hi all

I have really heard of this happening much but is the idea that my AA man came up with when trying to get my car running. I'm a little dubious because, although he was very helpful, I don't think this is the kind of problem he would have much experience at fixing.

As far as symptoms go, the car turns over strongly but won't fire, I ordered and fitted a new DME, battery is relatively new and fully charged, fuel pump sounds like it is working but I assume no spark etc.

Thanks for any help

 

[blade7]

there's an indy Porsche garage in Bedford and Promax aren't far away if you get stuck.

 

[edh]

It's not the first place I'd look (that would be the no-start fault finding procedures on Clark's garage.. [])
It could be any number of things, although you'd hope the AA man has done some systematic analysis.

So, is it getting both fuel and spark?

 

[colin944]

How good are you with the spanners ? If your not good then phone Promax .

 

[9four4]

Have a look for old alarms/immobilisers. Rule those out first, then move onto checking and or replacing the crank sensors (speed and reference sensors)..those are the next Achilles heel items to check after ruling out the DME relay.

 

[944 man]

Does the tacho needle bounce? Id probably suspect the connector at the rear of the cam carrier or even a faulty new DME relay. long before Id suspect the DME itself. Even faults which point to the DME can be caused by something else (injectors causing the driver circuit on the DME to have a turn, for example).

 

[Frenchy]

The ecu on my turbo failed just a couple of months ago, I will send the faulty one to Augment to get it "sorted" when I have some spare wong.
The car ran fine them would stutter and misfire, very intermittent, some days no problem, then at other times it would play up, swapped the ecu with a spare I had, not a beat missed since.