This page is a collection of pages to document ECU damage and repair concerns. We often receive ECUs that have significant corrosion from caps leakage or have severely botched socket jobs. We want people to see these pictures so they can evaluate their own ECU before it's even sent to us. We're hoping this will reduce the shock factor later when the ECU arrives here and we have to break the bad news.
If you see that your ECU has problems, you can schedule an ECU service request here:
https://www.ecmtuning.com/product/servicerequest
Generally speaking, we have to get the ECU in here to do an estimate. Estimates by e-mail just aren't practical because there are too many little things we can't see and not everyone sends decipherable pictures anyway. So expect to have to box the ECU up and ship it in if you want us to provide an accurate estimate.
Often someone will try to do the socket work themselves either to save a buck or to reduce down time. But seriously, if you don't know what you're doing, you could very easily be increasing your costs and down time while compromising your own ECU's working condition all at the same time. It's just not a good idea.
Motto: Friends don't let friends (or incompetent shops for that matter) socket their ECUs.
Leaking capacitors and the resulting corrosion are the biggest problems the older ECUs face. This is a major concern for the 1990-1993 ECUs. This is less a concern for the 1994-1995 ECUs, but we've seen leaking caps on those too! It's far less common, but still something we have to check while the ECU is here.
Look at these examples to learn how to identify potential problems yourself.
Motto: Replace those caps and clean up the corrosive residue!
These are examples of various types of damage (or general problems) we see here. Use this to help get an idea of what might be wrong with your own ECU when you are experiencing difficulties.
Sometimes people will send us an ECU that some “other” shop has worked on before. Sometimes that's perfectly fine. Other times (more often), it's a miserable mess. Here's where you'll find examples of some miserable messes.