What have you done to your car today?

[pastymuncher]

On a previous skoda octavia. The front passenger light bulbs were such a pain to get at that dealers charged a flat fee of £10 to change them. Labour time required, 90 minutes!

After all the hassle I went through yesterday and still only managed to change one pair of bulbs I find that very easy to believe.

Think it was my Corolla where I had to take the front bumper off and take the headlights out because it was the easiest way for me to change the bulbs without finding a child to help.

I can see that is what I will most likely end up doing. It's like they don't even consider these things when designing a car. I would be screwed if my bulbs both failed when out and about as there is no way I could change them at the roadside.

 

[paradigm]

TT has been laid up since the start of December due to lockdown and MOT being due. Three decent rounds of snowfall left the poor thing under half a foot of snow for around 3 weeks in total, and it looks like this has taken its toll on the electrics.

Came to start it last weekend only for a host of electrical issues to manifest themselves, kind of made better with a decent jolt from my jump start pack. The battery had been on charge at least once a week since it was laid up, but still only showed 12.41v peak, and looked like it was draining within 48hrs, so likely shafted.

Bought a new battery but some electrical gremlins remained, and it still wouldn’t always start, nor would VCDS always communicate with the ECU.

Fast forward to today and I took the ECU out to take a look at the wiring loom and the ECU. Not helped by the fact that 2002 onwards TTs have the ECU caged inside an anti-tamper casing, sealed with thread-locked shear bolts, it took almost an hour plus a home-made nozzle for my hot-air station to finally free the ECU.

Upon removing one of the two connectors it became pretty obvious that there had been water ingress to the loom, which looks to have crept up the loom tape and saturated the connector. One of the ECU pins came off with the connector, damn.

I decided that ultimately a replacement ECU is likely to be the fix, but didn’t want to order one only to find the loom was toast too, so spliced into the missing pin’s corresponding wire on the loom, added a female dupont connector, then added a male dupont connector onto a bodge wire to the pin on the board. Re-sealed the ECU, refitted and gave it a shot, success.

So next weekends job is to renew all the suspect looking contacts in the loom connector, and order an ECU.

 

[MrKnifey]

Took the MK2 Escort out for a blast, was good to get out in it! Sounds like ive done something to the diff with the constant burnouts and sideways action mind!

 

[pugheaven]

TT has been laid up since the start of December due to lockdown and MOT being due. Three decent rounds of snowfall left the poor thing under half a foot of snow for around 3 weeks in total, and it looks like this has taken its toll on the electrics.

Came to start it last weekend only for a host of electrical issues to manifest themselves, kind of made better with a decent jolt from my jump start pack. The battery had been on charge at least once a week since it was laid up, but still only showed 12.41v peak, and looked like it was draining within 48hrs, so likely shafted.

Bought a new battery but some electrical gremlins remained, and it still wouldn’t always start, nor would VCDS always communicate with the ECU.

Fast forward to today and I took the ECU out to take a look at the wiring loom and the ECU. Not helped by the fact that 2002 onwards TTs have the ECU caged inside an anti-tamper casing, sealed with thread-locked shear bolts, it took almost an hour plus a home-made nozzle for my hot-air station to finally free the ECU.

Upon removing one of the two connectors it became pretty obvious that there had been water ingress to the loom, which looks to have crept up the loom tape and saturated the connector. One of the ECU pins came off with the connector, damn.

I decided that ultimately a replacement ECU is likely to be the fix, but didn’t want to order one only to find the loom was toast too, so spliced into the missing pin’s corresponding wire on the loom, added a female dupont connector, then added a male dupont connector onto a bodge wire to the pin on the board. Re-sealed the ECU, refitted and gave it a shot, success.

So next weekends job is to renew all the suspect looking contacts in the loom connector, and order an ECU.

Nice work and a bit ofa lesson learnt. I've found leaving my cars on the drive has't done either the RX8 or the 350Z any good and I've had to put some time over the last few weeks to have them back 100%. It's amazing what leaving a car for a few months does to them, absolutely no good whatsoever. Hence why I'm selling now... as lets be honest you can only drive one ata atime.

How much is an ECU on those and can you replace with a scrap one or you have to take to AUDI etc for it?

 

[paradigm]

Nice work and a bit ofa lesson learnt. I've found leaving my cars on the drive has't done either the RX8 or the 350Z any good and I've had to put some time over the last few weeks to have them back 100%. It's amazing what leaving a car for a few months does to them, absolutely no good whatsoever. Hence why I'm selling now... as lets be honest you can only drive one ata atime.

How much is an ECU on those and can you replace with a scrap one or you have to take to AUDI etc for it?

It’s true, cars don’t like being sat, at all.

A used ECU is anywhere between £100 and £200, but either needs the immobiliser mapping out, or main dealer equipment to re-code, doesn’t look like something I can do with VCDS.

 

[pugheaven]

It’s true, cars don’t like being sat, at all.

A used ECU is anywhere between £100 and £200, but either needs the immobiliser mapping out, or main dealer equipment to re-code, doesn’t look like something I can do with VCDS.

Yeah that's what I was thinking... that'll probably cost as much as the ECU, however, needs to be done so, at leays you've not paid anyone to diagnose it man, and for that nice work!

 

[paradigm]

Yeah that's what I was thinking... that'll probably cost as much as the ECU, however, needs to be done so, at leays you've not paid anyone to diagnose it man, and for that nice work!

I’m certainly not paying main dealer prices, I’m pretty good with electronics, if I can find some reference documentation then I’ve got another option of buying a donor ECU and swapping over the flash ROM so that the donor ECU becomes mine. I don’t think I’d be able to replace the corroded connector as it’s around 100 pins, but the chips are doable as I’ve got a hot-air rework station.

There is a remapped and immobiliser bypassed ECU currently for sale, but at £200, it’s twice the cost of a working “stock” donor.

 

[pugheaven]

There is a remapped and immobiliser bypassed ECU currently for sale, but at £200, it’s twice the cost of a working “stock” donor.

Emmmmm, I'd be tempted with that BUT would everything else work even if it's immobilised bypassed?

 

[paradigm]

Emmmmm, I'd be tempted with that BUT would everything else work even if it's immobilised bypassed?

From what the seller is saying (he seems to do lots of Audi ECUs) and from what I can find on various automotive forums (like mhhauto), it should be fine. There’s no CANBUS on this era of car, and as such no component lock stuff going on to link module serial numbers.

 

[Frozennova]

From what the seller is saying (he seems to do lots of Audi ECUs) and from what I can find on various automotive forums (like mhhauto), it should be fine. There’s no CANBUS on this era of car, and as such no component lock stuff going on to link module serial numbers.

Audi of the era are pretty forgiving. One of the guys at work has a couple of MK2 Golfs with 3.2VR6s in using the stock ECUs with nothing more than in immobilizer bypass

 

[[TW]Fox]

It’s true, cars don’t like being sat, at all.

Whilst this is true 2 months parked shouldn't ruin an ECU surely?

 

[paradigm]

Whilst this is true 2 months parked shouldn't ruin an ECU surely?

Also true, but until it had been sat under a snow drift for that long, I wasn’t aware that both the scuttle panel seal, and the drainage hole under the scuttle were both compromised. Sitting didn’t do the battery any good, nor the fact that no heat had been in the car to dry out the loom.

Had I still been using the car multiple times a week, I’d likely have never had the problem occur.

 

[dlockers]

Best of luck. Reads like you were heavy handed with the connector then went to town on the ECU, did a bodge and then got yourself back to square one. Are the electrical gremlins gone?

Edit: Ahh it started. Fingers crossed it is the ECU.
Edit2: If it was under that much water sounds like you are going to have more issues than just the ECU

 

[pugheaven]

1. Changed Diff Oil front and rear
2. Changed Transfer Case Oil
3. Changed Engine Oil and Filter
4. Changed all 16 Spark plugs for nice new Iridiums
5. Changed the Battery Terminals for shiny new ones with protective plastic covers
   
6. Lanoguarded the whole underneath of the chassis and wheel arches for the year

 

[Rroff]

• Changed Diff Oil front and rear

• Changed Transfer Case Oil

• Changed Engine Oil and Filter

You don't want to know what the dealer charged to do this

EDIT: It did include rebuilding both rear drum brakes, replacing hub seals and backing plate and some other bits, breathers, etc. but £290 in labour and £242 in parts :s

 

[Brookert]

1. Changed Diff Oil front and rear
2. Changed Transfer Case Oil
3. Changed Engine Oil and Filter
4. Changed all 16 Spark plugs for nice new Iridiums
5. Changed the Battery Terminals for shiny new ones with protective plastic covers
   
6. Lanoguarded the whole underneath of the chassis and wheel arches for the year

What are you driving, a main battle tank from yesteryear or something?

 

[Dis86]

What are you driving, a main battle tank from yesteryear or something?

V8 with twin plugs.

 

[pugheaven]

What are you driving, a main battle tank from yesteryear or something?

Jeep SRT8

 

[Akagi]

I felt pretty stung when I had to buy 8 IK20's for the Celsior and it cost me nearly £60.
16 though. Phwoar.

 

[pugheaven]

I felt pretty stung when I had to buy 8 IK20's for the Celsior and it cost me nearly £60.
16 though. Phwoar.

yeah not cheap esepcially Iridium's but has to be done and that's that for 50k miles (they quote way more but I generally change mine at 50k just for myself whether they need it or not) and the SRT has done 40k on originals. They reckon the originals are good for 100k... but for me, there's no spark plug that is optimimum after that amount of miles. Anyhow, thought I'd start going through everything so I know what my baseline is and these things now are the most important. Big Ern is being Ceramic Coated and paint corrected next week so, body and chassis will be spot on. Engine and transmission will be spot on... always a good place to be.