No car, no car problems.
I wish I had car problems… I’m having wildfire problems.
I feel bad for you, son.
I’ve got 99 problems but a fire ain’t one
Seriously. The ECU in my partner’s truck decided that it was done with magic smoke and Marie Kondo’d that shit out, leaving her stranded. Her truck is an old 2002 Dodge Dakota that we’ve been nursing along while the used car market cools down (we want to get her something small and fuel efficient, but cars cost too damn much). Back in 2000 or 2001, some bean counter at Dodge decided that the company really had to cheap the fuck out with their ECUs for the 2002 model year. Because of this, any 2002 Dodge truck has either had its ECU replaced or is a ticking fucking time bomb.
What’s even better is that nobody makes these shit-ass ECUs anymore. The only replacements you can get are remanufactured units, and it’s highly likely that you’ll get at least one dud before you can find anything decent. We’ve been a tiiiiiiny bit less lucky than that, meaning we’re on our 13th ECU. Our mechanic has gone through everything else to make sure there’s not something external that’s exploding the ECUs, and he hasn’t found anything. Over the course of like 9 weeks, we’ve completely deleted the stock of these stupid things in Utah and all of the surrounding states. We’re now ordering one from Florida that’s been remanufactured by a different company which hopefully won’t grenade itself.
Fuck American car companies, and apologies to anyone who’s currently having a hard time sourcing an ECU for a 2002 Dodge Dakota. We screened all the bad ones out for you. The only good part about all of this for us is that our mechanic isn’t charging us for anything more than one ECU replacement. The damn truck has been in the shop for 9 weeks, and we’re only going to pay like $1000.
Are the ECUs actually remanufactered, or did they just pull them out of a dead truck, wipe them off, and call it a day?
I know the Ranger from that era has the classic leaky caps that kills it’s ECUs. You can easily buy a $20 soldering iron from harbor freight and $5 worth of caps and fix yours if it’s the same problem.
This right here, there’s not a whole lot on a PCB that can “explode” on their own, and caps is at the top of that short list. And early 2000s, 90s caps are notorious for this issue
Next ECU you get @Badabinski@kbin.social, check the caps or just replace them anyways. Even high quality ones are not very expensive
at this point your only reasonable choice is a programmable ecu.
you could maybe get a cheap one and a usable tune for that price? idk.
I need the truck to pass emissions, unfortunately :( Are there programmable ECUs that can pass emissions via OBDII tests? I was under the impression that there aren’t, although I’d love to find out I was misinformed.
they can pass emissions if properly configured. they can perform exactly like the original ECU if tuned well, if a tiny bit better.
they don’t do OBD2 tests in my country though, only the pipe emissions test, so im not sure about that. saving a working original just for these tests is an option.
Hopefully we’ll be able to find a working one soon :( our emissions here are exclusively OBD2 based for anything 1996 or newer. I’ll probably do what some other folks have recommended and try to “remanufacture” one myself.
EDIT: no idea why my client decided to post my comment twice.
For me it’s more kicking me while I’m down. I do not need a new windshield right now, life!
It’s funny to think of life as a board game or a role playing game being played on the “astral plane” or whatever by our “higher selves.” Car problems etc are just really unfortunate dice rolls.
If wasn’t Juscelino Kubitschek and the auto industry lobby, Brazil would be walkable and full of choo choos right now. I hate Kubitschek!
Boy, ain’t this the fuckin truth
Holy shit why is this so true LMAO
Slept through my alarm this morning and walked out to my car with a flat tire.
Not as bad as the lemmings that got it stolen today tho
This hits hard… I was just quoted 5000-8000€ repair for a sudden engine failure
I learned how to repair my own vehicles after I was quoted $2,600 to install a $40 part. I could’ve also had an entire rebuilt engine shipped and swapped it in myself for about half that, but I ultimately decided to go with the $40 + basic tools.
Your repair costs more than the car I bought factory new wtf
Literally me. Also, freaking AGM batteries… so expensive. To support the auto idle off feature that I despise I have to buy a more expensive battery.
I have never regretted retrofitting AGMs into cars that didn’t even call for it. Every time they’ve outlived the car.
AGMs are actually worth the squeeze even on a car that doesn’t necessarily require one, they’re genuinely good-ass batteries. Expensive, though. But they’ll blow the pants off a lead acid in a stress test.
Also lots of cars have an option to toggle the auto-off. Not all of them though. And some will reset it every time you turn the car on and off.
That’s good to hear, this is my first one and had a bit of sticker shock replacing it yesterday. Yeah, my car does have the auto idle off switch but you have to toggle it every start-up to disable it. I dont mind it when I’m in the city stopped at lights but when its shutting off at each stop sign its super annoying.
What’s your car make, model, and year? I just don’t believe that there’s no permanent disable and I volunteer to help you research a permanent toggle.
There’s always something.
There’s only been one time in my life where everything was going so good. That was a good month.
Been having teeth and car problems :)
Holy shit, me too! It’s almost more than I can handle.
Or vet bills 😩
My recently promoted boss just totaled his car.
He’s okay but YUP.
does that really count as a car problem, to me a car problem is when ur care breaks randomly, crashing feels like something else, something in a different category.
