Car with/without ECU

[hamdi.tn]

hi everyone,

so i found this article, ( or he find me since they mail those thing ) and it talk about something i think interesting to discuss, the unfortunate experience with the writer who was forced to buy a new ECU for his car and i think this is what motivated him the most to write this article. And i think most of us had to deal with this once, defected ECU, expensive to replace and sometime hard to find. So this bring the question do you rather like to own a car packed with electronics ( all sort of stuff , from driving assistance to multimedia and rubbish accessory)  or to have an old model car robust and reliable. Interested to know everyone opinion about this.

[tom66]

Car with electronics. Fuel economy and better ride. Worth the risk of having to shell out £400 for a new ECU if the old one fails, which is quite a rare event.

[dexters_lab]

Dont mind electronic gadgets in cars, but i think they should be run using discrete electronics, as in i dont like how everything is run from or through the main ECU.

having owned some classic toyotas, their ECUs are bullet proof, they just never die IME thankfully. Toyota do have a liking to be a bit old-school about their electrics and have various things run from separate control boxes dotted around the car.

But as cars age, things break and sometimes it's not worth fixing small things, having discrete control over some part does give you the option of disabling or removing it if you need to

[nctnico]

If you want a car without electronics you should go for an old style diesel. A basic diesel engine doesn't need any electronics or electrical systems to run.

[AndyC_772]

I have no problem at all with electronic control, but it does present the opportunity for manufacturers to make some truly loathesome design decisions.

Shortly after I bought my current car, I tried to clean the LCD navigation screen, and scratched it. I was annoyed, of course, but managed to find a 'like new' replacement screen at a very reasonable price on Ebay. I had a local garage install it, and it worked fine - except that it was stuck at full brightness all the time, even at night. Turns out it's coded to the car in which it's first installed, and so can only be replaced with a brand new unit at a cost of over £2000.

Apparently there's another little ECU that controls the heating and air con, and if that's not coded properly to the car, you can't even adjust the a/c 

A while later I sent the car in for a few paint chip repairs. When it came back, there was a fault code on the dash indicating a problem with the battery, so I booked it into a dealer to be checked out. Apparently the battery is - yes, you've guessed it - coded to the car, and if it's disconnected for some reason, its little ECU has to be reprogrammed.

Now I hear there are security vulnerabilities in the 'connected drive' feature, whatever the heck that is. Something else I don't want, don't use, and didn't ask for.

The car itself is great when it's working... unbelievably smooth and powerful for a diesel vehicle, and that wouldn't be possible without sophisticated electronic controllers. But it could stand to lose a dozen other ECUs and would be a much better car for it.

[dannyf]

And i think most of us had to deal with this once, defected ECU,

I have owned no less than 20 cars (old and new) so far and driven likely 50 cars (mostly new). I have yet to encounter a car with a defect ecu.

With that said, I think the fuel savings and performance enhancements of today's engines more than justify the potential to replace the ecu.

[mzzj]

I have no problem at all with electronic control, but it does present the opportunity for manufacturers to make some truly loathesome design decisions.

Shortly after I bought my current car, I tried to clean the LCD navigation screen, and scratched it. I was annoyed, of course, but managed to find a 'like new' replacement screen at a very reasonable price on Ebay. I had a local garage install it, and it worked fine - except that it was stuck at full brightness all the time, even at night. Turns out it's coded to the car in which it's first installed, and so can only be replaced with a brand new unit at a cost of over £2000.

Apparently there's another little ECU that controls the heating and air con, and if that's not coded properly to the car, you can't even adjust the a/c 

A while later I sent the car in for a few paint chip repairs. When it came back, there was a fault code on the dash indicating a problem with the battery, so I booked it into a dealer to be checked out. Apparently the battery is - yes, you've guessed it - coded to the car, and if it's disconnected for some reason, its little ECU has to be reprogrammed.

Now I hear there are security vulnerabilities in the 'connected drive' feature, whatever the heck that is. Something else I don't want, don't use, and didn't ask for.

The car itself is great when it's working... unbelievably smooth and powerful for a diesel vehicle, and that wouldn't be possible without sophisticated electronic controllers. But it could stand to lose a dozen other ECUs and would be a much better car for it.

Partly you can blame it on greedy car manufacturers but immobilizers, stolen vehicles and the black market for the parts is another big reason.
Pretty often you can find local garage/car nerd to do the coding so that eventually you are able to use the (stolen)  a/c ecu you just bought from ebay 
For some brands and models there is also "translator boxes" available that will change the coding on the fly and makes it possible to mix and match parts.

Battery disconnection has probably caused low voltage error code, these can  be usually reset with 10 euro OBD-tool. Or some less severe errors even clear themselves with time.

In any situation other than end-off-the-world nuclear war/EMP attack I would take recent ECU-car compared to old carburator clunker. Better fuel economy, smooth running, reliable starts no matter hot or cold etc...

[Mechanical Menace]

do you rather like to own a car packed with electronics ( all sort of stuff , from driving assistance to multimedia and rubbish accessory)  or to have an old model car robust and reliable. Interested to know everyone opinion about this.

False dichotomy. My old school tuned up small block is nowhere near as reliable as a cheap, modern, electronically controlled engine. And trust me you don't want to be trying to fix a mechanical and/or pneumatic fuel injection system by the roadside. At least an ECU'd car will go into "limp home" mode.

But to answer your question I like both, but prefer the "modern" (they've only been the standard for 35 years) approach in day to day runners.

[hamdi.tn]

Car with electronics. Fuel economy and better ride. Worth the risk of having to shell out £400 for a new ECU if the old one fails, which is quite a rare event.

agree on fuel economy , and i can count up to six fail ECU from just my entourage, some of them are new cars and same brand car tend to have the same fault , so and here's the problem you can replace an ECU , but there is absolutely no guaranty that the new one will not be as venerable as the old one to whatever working condition that made the first one fail. So yeah i can spend 1000€ for some model , but you will never know if it's a single fault , that happen, or a a fault related to a design issue.

+2 ECU i have here in the lab , someone bring them " to be fixed ", am not talented at repairing things and those PCB are 6 layer with PGA, custom chip and stuff, with a hole in one pad of a connector and burned tracks everywhere, so something serious happened to those board , and am assuming designer will take measure to prevent that the ECU be cooked by an external fault  again you could replace those but you will never know that this fault will never happen again. and those things are not ever documented so i don't even know where to start. but this is an other story.

you don't want to be trying to fix a mechanical and/or pneumatic fuel injection system by the roadside. At least an ECU'd car will go into "limp home" mode.

well, i think  if it stop , you may have better chance to make it work again if there is no ECU locking everything.

don't get me wrong i like how automotive electronics  make driving a better experience, but the thing about a car is that it's essential to everyday life, so when it stop for whatever reason you will ask two question : how long will it take to be fixed and how much will it cost and for people who like to fix their own things you will ask if i can do it myself.
i think now electronics is so much complex in a car that it's a nightmare to figure out the fault cause, and it's too expensive compared to mechanical part, and no way in hell you can fix that yourself. so my own point of view is electronics in a car is good too much of it is not that good at all.

 

[tom66]

You obviously have had quite bad luck. I only know of one ECU failure, a friend's turbodiesel control ECU failed, which caused the car to go into a low power mode. 50mph on the M1.  But he was able to make it home, and it was covered by MFG's warranty.

[hamdi.tn]

Been there myself , the ECU fail i have no control on the speed the car just run about 20Km/h with some random acceleration it was like driving a wild horse thanks god i made home without hitting anyone.
It's not my bad luck it's other ppl bad luck  personally i have a 4 year old car with ECU , no problem so far but i don't trust it a bit like i trust a 20 years old car i use to have.

[BradC]

You obviously have had quite bad luck. I only know of one ECU failure,

There are a whole series of Bosch LH2.4 ECU's in european cars that fail routinely. They are all >20 years old and well out of warranty. On the other hand, my 32 year old mechanically injected petrol car is still running fine, and I can fix it with hand tools if it breaks.

Don't get me wrong, I have cars (and bikes) with ECU's as well, but there are plenty of examples of ECU failures across most manufacturers over the years, and limp home mode is only any good for a sensor failure. If the ECU fails, you are generally dead on the side of the road.

I'd take an electronically injected car over an old carb or mech injection any day of the week, but when I go up north or out bush my tool kit includes a pair of spare injection and ignition ECU's alongside the spare belts, hoses and sensors.

Mechanical diesels for the win though. Simple, efficient and will run on petrol or vodka if you are desperate.

[Mechanical Menace]

You obviously have had quite bad luck. I only know of one ECU failure,

There are a whole series of Bosch LH2.4 ECU's in european cars that fail routinely. They are all >20 years old and well out of warranty.

They're >20 years old, keeping any vintage car running is hard work. Those EFI boards are easy to fix or make your own replacement for though so meh.

i can count up to six fail ECU from just my entourage,

What on earth are you doing to your cars? The only time I've seen an ECU fail is when someone has wired one up wrong. Most common case seems to be hooking the battery up to a sensor or actuator pin.

well, i think  if it stop , you may have better chance to make it work again if there is no ECU locking everything.

If the ECU won't even let you drive in limp home mode then driving the car will probably do serious damage. Most ECUs aren't that clever though and just let you destroy things. And I've never known a car "just stop" because of an ECU problem though.

so when it stop for whatever reason you will ask two question : how long will it take to be fixed and how much will it cost and for people who like to fix their own things you will ask if i can do it myself.

Most people can't even top up their oil or change a windscreen wiper themselves. And it's not like everyone could just fix a none ECU'd car anyhows, they were just happier to try. The states I've seen some carbs and dizzies set up in is unbelievable, to the point of ruining bores in the case of carbs. At least an ECU won't let idiots do more damage than good.
 

i think now electronics is so much complex in a car that it's a nightmare to figure out the fault cause,

And the same can be true without an ECU. I've seen people who really do know their way around a car not be able to get a spark at all for days because someone had wired it without a ballast resistor.

and it's too expensive compared to mechanical part,

Go buy a genuine part for a new car then say that. Say a diesel pump for one of the many diesel engines that still has mechanical injection. It would be cheaper to replace every computer, sensor, actuator, and the wiring loom on an electronically managed one.

and no way in hell you can fix that yourself. so my own point of view is electronics in a car is good too much of it is not that good at all.

Actually you can in the same way some people could fix ye olde fashioned cars, learn the skills relevant to the tech. It's really no harder or easier. If you're too lazy to that's your problem not the cars.

[XOIIO]

If you want a car without electronics you have to go back to steam, which would be pretty awesome lol

[BradC]

[
There are a whole series of Bosch LH2.4 ECU's in european cars that fail routinely. They are all >20 years old and well out of warranty.

They're >20 years old, keeping any vintage car running is hard work. Those EFI boards are easy to fix or make your own replacement for though so meh.

Vintage ?!? I dunno about where you live but here 20 years is pretty par for the course. 40-45 years is vetran and 50-55 years is vintage here. There are a _shitload_ of 20 year old cars on the road here. I have a 28 and a 32 year old car in my driveway, neither of which require more than a routine service and oil change to maintain. Now the 1965 Triumph is a bit more fussy, but still pretty simple and easy to keep running.

The LH2.4 is not overly complex, but it's not a particularly simple ECU either. You could certainly replace it with a Megasquirt, but nobody who has done so has ever got it to run as well across all conditions as the factory unit. If it is so simple for you, why not take advantage of the plethora of Lamborghini and Porsche owners who suffer from the LH2.4 failures?

[hamdi.tn]

You obviously have had quite bad luck. I only know of one ECU failure,

There are a whole series of Bosch LH2.4 ECU's in european cars that fail routinely. They are all >20 years old and well out of warranty. On the other hand, my 32 year old mechanically injected petrol car is still running fine, and I can fix it with hand tools if it breaks.

the 2 ECU i have here are bosch too  but not 20 years old just 6 years. and the guy who bring them to me have more of them.

What on earth are you doing to your cars?

Actually you can in the same way some people could fix ye olde fashioned cars, learn the skills relevant to the tech. It's really no harder or easier. If you're too lazy to that's your problem not the cars.

again am not talking about myself or my cars, i have simple technical training about mechanical stuff and the basic knowledge of everyone who own a car. am not repairing specialist. but even specialist hardly figure out the problem when it come to electronics ,man even an official agent garage have problem with ECU, and they simply say you have to replace the damn thing, and don't have to be shy about saying i can't be cool when paying 1000$ or whatever cost just cause an ECU is irreparable, money don't grow on tree you know. but this is not the question and it's not about me, am not looking for an answer to a problem, am just curious about EE opinion concerning electronics in cars, thank you. 

[hamdi.tn]

If you want a car without electronics you have to go back to steam, which would be pretty awesome lol

yeah it will be pretty cool 

[Kevman]

I've only seen one ECU failure- on a 1994 F-250 Power Stroke. $1400 for a new replacement (they can't be found in junkyards- I think it must have been a thing for early Power Strokes.) But diesel stuff is more expensive than gas.

Carbs can be a royal pain- really. But what's worse is the massive web of vacuum lines and pumps and injectors and valves that pollution equipment that carbed engines have to have in order to not spew pollutants everywhere. Not to mention the kickdown cables, complex cruise control boxes, heat risers, chokes that get stuck...  I've also never heard of a float getting stuck on an ECU.

My 2007 Milan is far simpler underneath the hood than my dad's 79 Corvette... And oh man, chasing the vacuum leaks...

That whole "everything is completely tied together" thing seems to be a hallmark of European cars- I know BMWs battery replacements are expensive for this reason. I've also heard that volvo's power steering pumps are coded to the car!  None of the GMs or Fords I've seen are like that.

I just replaced the battery on an Acadia. The battery sits in a little well just behind the front passenger seat. The only odd thing I could see is that there's a current sensor loop around the positive cable. I wonder what its for.

[Mechanical Menace]

[
There are a whole series of Bosch LH2.4 ECU's in european cars that fail routinely. They are all >20 years old and well out of warranty.

They're >20 years old, keeping any vintage car running is hard work. Those EFI boards are easy to fix or make your own replacement for though so meh.

Vintage ?!? I dunno about where you live but here 20 years is pretty par for the course. 40-45 years is vetran and 50-55 years is vintage here. There are a _shitload_ of 20 year old cars on the road here. I have a 28 and a 32 year old car in my driveway, neither of which require more than a routine service and oil change to maintain. Now the 1965 Triumph is a bit more fussy, but still pretty simple and easy to keep running.

Anything over 15 years old is defined a "classic" or "historic" car for tax purposes here. Over 25 it's antique

The LH2.4 is not overly complex, but it's not a particularly simple ECU either. You could certainly replace it with a Megasquirt, but nobody who has done so has ever got it to run as well across all conditions as the factory unit.

Oh gods I remember looking up the Megasquirt when helping my friend build his EFI'd Capri drag car, it doesn't seem like anyone has got it working properly at all on anything. We ended up using a dedicated laptop with an RT Linux install and a custom adapter to get it working before making the map and burning an eeprom. The laptop is still controlling the ignition timing and NOS though but we're planning on replacing all that with something custom when he tries to get it under 7 seconds.

If it is so simple for you, why not take advantage of the plethora of Lamborghini and Porsche owners who suffer from the LH2.4 failures?

I didn't know it's a common issue. Around here you're more likely to see a Veyron than such an old Porsche or Lambo.

[free_electron]

how about the engine itself ? made from hundreds of parts , hundreds of moving parts, needs oil , belts , spark plugs. Transmission : same thing.

Why not ditch it for a simple induction motor ? 1 moving part.
fixed reduction gearbox : 2 gears
differential : 4 parts.

Just ditch that newfangled petrol burning crap.

The first cars were electric. It wasn't until some dude discovered oil that he though: hey, if i can convince car makers to use this i can make a whole industry become dependent on it and i will have repeat customers for life. I'll be filthy rich ! que the evil laugh : Bwahahaaaa

As that fishhead from Star wars once said : It's a trap !

Let's go back to electric ! it's just better.

[CatalinaWOW]

Put me in the ECU camp, although I have had two failures.  Pricing on ECUs is incomprehensible.  Both were on cars which were of the vintage that used RCA 1802 based controllers.  One was $200US, the other well over $2000US.  Cost of manufacture on both was probably about $100US, mostly because of the expensive heat sink and enclosure.  The ELX probably under $20.

Overall the ECU reliability is acceptable-the two failures were distributed over more than a dozen vehicles, with combined mileages well over a million miles.  Sure beats points, floats, jets and all of the fiddly little stuff required to keep the older cars working as best they can.  Which isn't as good as the ECU controlled vehicles.

I an not nearly as convinced about all of the integrated navigation/entertainment/comm systems on the last round of cars.  Poor value initially, much higher probability of failure, and far, far higher probability of obsolescence.

I haven't run into any of the coded to vehicle problems.  Not sure whether that is an anti-theft feature or a maximize profit feature.  Either way doesn't sound like something I would like.

[nctnico]

You obviously have had quite bad luck. I only know of one ECU failure, a friend's turbodiesel control ECU failed, which caused the car to go into a low power mode. 50mph on the M1.  But he was able to make it home, and it was covered by MFG's warranty.

Same here. On my previous car the diesel injection control unit had a pair of bad electrolytics but that was easy to fix.

[Wilksey]

I have no problem at all with electronic control, but it does present the opportunity for manufacturers to make some truly loathesome design decisions.

Shortly after I bought my current car, I tried to clean the LCD navigation screen, and scratched it. I was annoyed, of course, but managed to find a 'like new' replacement screen at a very reasonable price on Ebay. I had a local garage install it, and it worked fine - except that it was stuck at full brightness all the time, even at night. Turns out it's coded to the car in which it's first installed, and so can only be replaced with a brand new unit at a cost of over £2000.

Apparently there's another little ECU that controls the heating and air con, and if that's not coded properly to the car, you can't even adjust the a/c 

A while later I sent the car in for a few paint chip repairs. When it came back, there was a fault code on the dash indicating a problem with the battery, so I booked it into a dealer to be checked out. Apparently the battery is - yes, you've guessed it - coded to the car, and if it's disconnected for some reason, its little ECU has to be reprogrammed.

Now I hear there are security vulnerabilities in the 'connected drive' feature, whatever the heck that is. Something else I don't want, don't use, and didn't ask for.

The car itself is great when it's working... unbelievably smooth and powerful for a diesel vehicle, and that wouldn't be possible without sophisticated electronic controllers. But it could stand to lose a dozen other ECUs and would be a much better car for it.

Wasn't a Ford was it?

[Flump]

short version
I would prefer not to have any ECU's in my car


long version
i think it all comes down to what you were brought up with, if you like working on cars
and what kind of systems you are most comfortable working on,
money comes in to this too if you have to pay for repairs.

when i was growing up it was mechanical fuel pumps, carbs, points and condensers all the way, i had all the usual old cars
like vivas escorts granadas and the rest and there was nothing i couldnt fix and if something wouldn't start
i could tell you within 10 mins why, electrical problems were easy to fix because they had basic wiring looms,
if a fuel pump wouldnt run back then it was either a fuse, relay, wiring or the pump itself (most were mechanical)
and you could diagnose all of them with a bit of wire and 12v bulb,
now days if a fuel pump wont run there could be loads reasons why as they are tied in to different circuits and sensors.
and parts were in abundance in scrap yards, anything you wanted you could go to the scrapy and get,
my local ones were open on a sunday too and i used to love pulling bits of motors on the top of a pile,
i used to come out of there each time with a pocket full of bulbs, fuses and nuts & bolts 

[Mechanical Menace]

The first cars were electric.

Steam actually, by a little over 100 years. The first internal combustion cars came about 75 years before Trouvé's electric 3 wheeler.

[ConKbot]

short version
I would prefer not to have any ECU's in my car


long version
i think it all comes down to what you were brought up with, if you like working on cars
and what kind of systems you are most comfortable working on,
money comes in to this too if you have to pay for repairs.

when i was growing up it was mechanical fuel pumps, carbs, points and condensers all the way, i had all the usual old cars
like vivas escorts granadas and the rest and there was nothing i couldnt fix and if something wouldn't start
i could tell you within 10 mins why, electrical problems were easy to fix because they had basic wiring looms,
if a fuel pump wouldnt run back then it was either a fuse, relay, wiring or the pump itself (most were mechanical)
and you could diagnose all of them with a bit of wire and 12v bulb,
now days if a fuel pump wont run there could be loads reasons why as they are tied in to different circuits and sensors.
and parts were in abundance in scrap yards, anything you wanted you could go to the scrapy and get,
my local ones were open on a sunday too and i used to love pulling bits of motors on the top of a pile,
i used to come out of there each time with a pocket full of bulbs, fuses and nuts & bolts 

Replace bulb with OBDII scanner, and thats how most stuff is today.  OBDII scan, and popping the codes into google, read a couple forum links, and you have your answer as to the most likely cause.  Even without popping the hood. 

[AndyC_772]

Wasn't a Ford was it?

Nope, BMW.