ECU's

ECU's were a great innovation in automotive technology, but, can be a pain in the arse. At present, the car my Daughter bought to learn in (an Automatic) has developed a niggling gear selection fault, which has rendered it unsuitable for a learner, a diagnostic check (£50.00) has shown no "Fault Codes", so no mechanic can be sure what is actually wrong, in all other respects, the car runs beautifully, but until we spend about £300.00 just to find out what the fault is, it is just a piece of junk.
My Workhorse developed a fault a couple of days ago, somewhere a duff signal is being sent to the ECU, off to the garage again, £40.00 for a diagnostic check, no "Fault Codes" logged, so, once again, everyone scratching their heads, ball park £90.00 so far, and no one is the wiser, in the old days it used to be rust, that consigned a car to the Scrap Heap, now it is silly bogus untraceable electronic signals.

Re: ECU's

Never mind Spitty, I have read that when the computer becomes widespread we'll only need to work 3 days a week !

Re: ECU's

OMG! I don't work any at the moment!

Re: ECU's

Oh i dont know i always found garages were good at separating me from my cash even without a computer involved.

Re: ECU's

As with most things, the more complicated an item is the more there is to go wrong and the less chance there is to repair it, proof of this is the vintage car.

It is the same with computer control household appliances which become too expensive to repair when 'irreparable' expensive control units fail.

The chap who does my MOT /service an ex racing car driver was talking to me about this the other day having just come off the phone to a customer with an ECU problem.

He also told me that 'Electric cars' will have a short life because the batteries pack up after 6 years and cost as much to replace as a new car. If this is so I wonder how 'green' they really are.

Re: ECU's

Could be a case of the 'Wheel-tappers hammer' I suspect !

Re: ECU's

Mystery over, the wife spotted fluid under the car today, didn't take me long to sus out the Head Gasket has blown, so there is another "Workhorse" for the great scrapheap in the sky, in the last 12 months I have been responsible for taking Three Cars off the British roads, a BMW has been returned to Bavaria, a Toyota Avensis to Poland, and this one, destination at present "uncertain".