first post here...

[gr8t1hex]

Damn I have to vent. My car went dead on me. $1500 on the wiring harness now it still won't work. My tech says the bad harness screwed up the ecu. Not only is the ecu expensive but it could take as long as a month to import from germany. Mbusa says there are no ecu's for my car in stock in this continent. If anyone has a lead on a used one let me know.

[Renn 208]

Originally posted by gr8t1hex
Damn I have to vent. My car went dead on me. $1500 on the wiring harness now it still won't work. My tech says the bad harness screwed up the ecu. Not only is the ecu expensive but it could take as long as a month to import from germany. Mbusa says there are no ecu's for my car in stock in this continent. If anyone has a lead on a used one let me know.

Ouch, sorry to hear that and welcome! BTW, have you checked any salvage yards for ECUs?

[gr8t1hex]

Thanks for the welcome. I called a few of the national part finders but no dice. I guess they're no junked c36s in the U.S.

[gr8t1hex]

I was just about to spend some cash on some more mods and this happens. I have one of those extended warranties but it didn't cover my wiring harness. I sure hope it covers this ecu. What really bothers me is my car sitting out at the dealership for a month...getting dirty...exposed to all the elements.... this sucks...

[gr8t1hex]

the freaking ecm costs $3500.00 plus labor. Now the warranty company is trying to weasel out of footing up the bill. I'm gonna start getting angry, they would'nt like it when i'm angry :bored:

[kameraguy]

DAMN!!! Sorry to hear this man. To be honest it's almost impossible to find a used ECU for a C36. JIrwan was looking for a couple of years so he could send his to Powerchip for reprogramming...but no luck so far

The wiring harness scares the bejesus out of me too. I know they are hella expensive.

Will your extended warranty at least cover the ECU???

How many miles do you have on your car?

[Rocky]

What exactly is wrong with your car?

[gr8t1hex]

My car has 70,000 miles and the problem happened while i was driving. It just went on limp mode and then stalled. It would still crank but would'nt turn on. So far the crank position sensor and wiring harness were replaced. Now waiting for the ecu issue to be solved.

[Rocky]

Hmm..I pride myself in knowing ALOT of M104 engine issues. All I do at work is read about all the possible things that can happen to a M104 engine.

I have never came across anyone who needed an ECU replaced. How exactly did you come to the conclusion that you need a new ecu?

Have you checked for vacuum leaks?

OVP relay? (these are quite common failures on older M104's)

Fuel filter clogged?

Was it a dealer who installed the harness? Is everything plugged up right?

This is a long shot but are you using one of those flip keys? maybe when you disconnected the battery to do the harness the security chip is not recognizing the key hence it won't start?

Fuel Pump? Air in the fuel line?


Like I asked, how did you come to tbe conclusion that you need a new ecu cause it looks like your heading down an expensive italian tune up.

I'm guessing OVP relay, no way the ECU is the problem. It's fairly cheap and takes like 5-10 min to install.

I believe the bad OVP # is 000-540-52-45 and the the replacement good OVP # is 000-540-67-45.

[CKlasse]

Without going into the details of diagnostic, I remember someone had almost the same problem. They checked everything but the simplest thing. The problem was 'wrong sparkplugs' installed by the factory.

[gr8t1hex]

Well i did see the old wiring harness and it was totally ruined. When the tech put it on and tried to turn it on said that the coils aren't getting ground signal from ecu. He said the bad harness shorted and send positive voltage thru a ground wire. and damaged the ecu.

[CKlasse]

Originally posted by gr8t1hex
He said the bad harness shorted and send positive voltage thru a ground wire. and damaged the ecu.

Ouch..that does it.

[Rocky]

Originally posted by gr8t1hex
Well i did see the old wiring harness and it was totally ruined. When the tech put it on and tried to turn it on said that the coils aren't getting ground signal from ecu. He said the bad harness shorted and send positive voltage thru a ground wire. and damaged the ecu.

I'm still reluctant on the ECU. everyone who has had thier harness replaced that's i've read has never had an ECU problem.

Could a C280 ECU be used just to test the ECU theory out?

[gr8t1hex]

I just picked up the car from the dealership. It did turn out to be the wiring harness and ecu gone bad. It's running better than ever now. The tech who did the work is cool with me so he did a tranny service and changed the belt for me too. The warranty company covered $3000.00 of the cost and I paid $967.00. While It was being repaired I thought about selling it as soon as it was fixed but it's running awesome now so i'm thinking of keeping it. I would appreciate some opinions from the wise men here. I'll post some pics soon.

[CKlasse]

Good to hear that! Can't wait for the pictures!

[Eurosport]

thing is the more $ you put in your car, then you better keep it for a long time and absorb the costs in the long run, dumping lot of $ in it then selling it won't help you much
high performance car does need to have lot of maintenance which does scare away a lot of people, but when it runs like a champ it's well worth it

[SLK Boy]

Glad to hear the warranty covered most of it...

in case anyone's looking for used parts, try www.car-part.com