I think my ECU just died

[spellmaster]

You know when you wish you'd never opened your mouth? Well there i was last week, talking to my mates in the office, where my S4 has become a bit of a running joke; what with its ability to consume vast amounts of my cash.

I said "hey guess what!, my car hasn't cost me £500 this week". well no sooner had i said it than trouble started to brew.
Monday, Started the car, it stalled. odd i thaught, restarted and all was well. Sort of, driving to work it didnt seem happy, every now and then cutting out like a miss or clogged injector.
Tuesday -> Friday, all is well.
Saturday, returning from the shops, i get one miss then all fine once more.

This time i decide i need to get to the bottom of this. Out with vag com. No fault codes atall. darn. So i set it up to look for miss fires. and leave it running.

Then it stalled. however this time no restart was possible. Worryingly uppon attempting restart i also noticed that the fuel pump was nolonger primeing and the throttle body was not making the usual noises either.

So i check the fuel pump relay. its fine. So onto the ECU, all fuses fine. and all necessary pins are getting 12v and earth. I dont like where this is going.

Best open up the ECU and take a look and see if there are any visible signs of dammage.




First thing i notice is the component circled in red. Theres a resedue on the PCB all arround it. It doesnt look to cleaver. Part is a General Semiconductor LMP 95, unfortunatly not avalible at your local super market.



Next on the happy happy joy joy list was the white stuff you can see on the SIEMENS Chip. Corrosion im gussing due to the ECU living in the plenem chamber. Also note the APR EMCS2 on the left.

So there we are, if anyone happens to be an electrical expert then get in touch. Or if you know of any decent ECU repair shops please post. idealy id like this one repaired as the APR is solderd to it.

On the up side it means i'm walking to work so i should be a bit fitter by the time its fixed!

[jamie226bhp]

I used a place in greenwich that cost about £250 if they can repair or just £57 for the diagnostic if they can't, do a search for ecu repairs as thats the name they go under or there's a place in rochester kent called BBA REMAN who charge about the same

[spellmaster]

Update

Monday: Sent the unit of to camco automotive as recommended by awesome gti.

As my ECU has the APR soldered on chip they said that if this is the fault it would need to be replaced by a standard chip. However i may get back in touch with awesome and see if they can take a look before they remove it.

Wednesday: Talked to camco, I'm quietly confident that it will be something on the power stage of the ECU as there test bench found it to be completely dead. Fingers crossed.

Either way its £235+vat. Hopefully back early next week!

[AwesomeSarah]

Hi
How did yu get on with this? Did you get sorted?
Sarah

[spellmaster]

yea, got the ECU back from camco. I'm not sure if it is my unit reconed or a new one off the shelf, as its warrenty sealed.

The APR chip came back separately, apparently this was at fault some how. Or they couldn't be ***** to solder it to a new board. either way my car is back and working although its not as ballistic as it used to be 310 down to 265 . although my turbos are probably not complaining.

So anyway I sent the APR chip to Andy at awesome, he took a quick look at it and said it looked ok but couldn't test any further. So really i need to find an s4 ECU on ebay to try the chip in, as i don't want to risk messing about with the new/recon ECU.

So all in all its cost me a £300. Big up to Andy for is time checking the unit out. Ill definatly be back in touch should i find an ECU on ebay and get them to install the APR chip on that, plus the cruse control extras. However xmas then marriage take priority!

[AwesomeSarah]

Hi
Yes he is not a bad lad really
I must admit , we dont have many issues with them , to say how many are done
But if it can be sorted , we are here to help

Good luck with the wedding , nice to hear it is a priority
Have fun
Sarah