New ECU for VW Polo

Tusky

Decided to make a new thread for this as my problem has changed somewhat.

I'm having an issue with my 05 VW Polo 1.2 (3 cylinder). I bought the car for €3,000 a year and a half ago and it has 70,000km on the clock.

Earlier this week the engine warning light came on. Then it started flashing, the car started chugging and felt like it was accelerating and slowing down at same time.

I called AA and the guy came out and did a Bluetooth diagnosis. He reckoned it was one of the three ignition coils.

We replaced one of the coils with a new one and the warning light went off and car seemed to be running normally. About 10 mins later the problem happened again.

Dropped it into the mechanic. He ruled out the coils, injector and plugs and is 90% sure it is the ECU.

He said it would cost between €700-1000+ to buy one second hand and then it would have to be programmed.

Alternatively, he said the ECU can be sent the UK to be repaired and this costs about €500. He wasn't sure about the repair route though.

Should I get a second opinion?

Would yea recommend buying a new ECU or sending current one to be repaired?

Thanks for help.

Stoolbend

Is it showing up fault codes?

If it's misfire fault codes the first port of call with that engine would be a compression test.

Tusky

Stoolbend wrote: »

Is it showing up fault codes?

If it's misfire fault codes the first port of call with that engine would be a compression test.

I believe it was showing a fault in one of the coils/cylinders. The mechanic said he was able to shut off the fault warning each time which suggests it is electrical rather than mechanical.

Id be bringing it to a VW specialist like George Dalton who posts on here before forking out 1/3 car price for a new ECU tbh.
I would have thought the ECU either works or doesnt work at all.

http://www.ecutesting.com/ecu_testing__exchange___repair.html

Neilw

ECU's can be repaired here, no need to ship them off.

I would guess that the ECU is fine and there is a problem elsewhere, I would be looking for a second opinion from someone who knows these cars well.

Tusky

Dominic Wide Boar wrote: »

Id be bringing it to a VW specialist like George Dalton who posts on here before forking out 1/3 car price for a new ECU tbh.
I would have thought the ECU either works or doesnt work at all.

http://www.ecutesting.com/ecu_testing__exchange___repair.html

Thanks, I've messaged him. Although I believe he's based in Laois so probably not possible. I'm in Dublin.

Neilw wrote: »

ECU's can be repaired here, no need to ship them off.

I would guess that the ECU is fine and there is a problem elsewhere, I would be looking for a second opinion from someone who knows these cars well.

Could you recommend someone? And also somewhere to get an ECU repaired here?

Tusky

Tusky wrote: »

Thanks, I've messaged him. Although I believe he's based in Laois so probably not possible. I'm in Dublin.



Could you recommend someone? And also somewhere to get an ECU repaired here?

Its probably not much help but on the link I mentioned they say they can send you an ecu with the immobilizer setting disabled which I imagine means you dont have to match it to your car, on a brand new car not a good idea but if it saves a ton of cash I would opt for that method on your polo considering the year. I think they say its 90 GBP once you send them yours

Neilw

Tusky wrote: »

Thanks, I've messaged him. Although I believe he's based in Laois so probably not possible. I'm in Dublin.



Could you recommend someone? And also somewhere to get an ECU repaired here?

George Dalton in Portlaoise to diagnose, Joe Power from chipped Ireland for ecu repair.

Tusky

Neilw wrote: »

George Dalton in Portlaoise to diagnose, Joe Power from chipped Ireland for ecu repair.

It can't be driven so it would mean getting it towed all the way to Portlaoise...

Dominic Wide Boar wrote: »

Its probably not much help but on the link I mentioned they say they can send you an ecu with the immobilizer setting disabled which I imagine means you dont have to match it to your car, on a brand new car not a good idea but if it saves a ton of cash I would opt for that method on your polo considering the year. I think they say its 90 GBP once you send them yours

Thanks for the suggestion. Could be an option. I'd like to get a second opinion before going down the ECU route though.

[edit] that website also offers to repair the ECU for about €250. Seems a good bit cheaper than what my mechanic quoted me.

Tusky

Tusky wrote: »

It can't be driven so it would mean getting it towed all the way to Portlaoise...



Thanks for the suggestion. Could be an option. I'd like to get a second opinion before going down the ECU route though.

[edit] that website also offers to repair the ECU for about €250. Seems a good bit cheaper than what my mechanic quoted me.

I have the same car and in Dublin so we are Polo brothers haha, if you want to use my diagnostics to double check just give me a pm no problem.

Special Circumstances

Stoolbend wrote: »

Is it showing up fault codes?

If it's misfire fault codes the first port of call with that engine would be a compression test.

I agree with stoolbend. Be a shame to spend a lot of money on ecu to find out you also need valve replacement work.

I am not a mechanic.

my3cents

What has me interested is that the car ran for a bit after putting in a new coil pack?

So lets say the new coil pack registered with the ECU as working where as the old one had registered a fail, so does replacing a component do a (partial?) reset of the ECU.

So what happens if you disconnect the battery for a few minutes which afaik resets the ECU and then try again. Does the car run for a few minutes before exhibiting the original problem?

my3cents

What has me interested is that the car ran for a bit after putting in a new coil pack?

So lets say the new coil pack registered with the ECU as working where as the old one had registered a fail, so does replacing a component do a (partial?) reset of the ECU.

So what happens if you disconnect the battery for a few minutes which afaik resets the ECU and then try again. Does the car run for a few minutes before exhibiting the original problem?

Tusky

Dominic Wide Boar wrote: »

I have the same car and in Dublin so we are Polo brothers haha, if you want to use my diagnostics to double check just give me a pm no problem.

Ahh that's very sound of you. Cheers. Where are you based? I know nothing about cars though so wouldn't really know what to do with the diagnosis!

my3cents wrote: »

What has me interested is that the car ran for a bit after putting in a new coil pack?

So lets say the new coil pack registered with the ECU as working where as the old one had registered a fail, so does replacing a component do a (partial?) reset of the ECU.

So what happens if you disconnect the battery for a few minutes which afaik resets the ECU and then try again. Does the car run for a few minutes before exhibiting the original problem?

The mechanic was saying that he is able to erase the fault using his computer, but it comes back again after 10 mins. He was saying this suggests the problem is electrical rather than mechanical.

Does anyone know a VW/POLO expert in Dublin who I could go to for a second opinion?

kerten

I wouldn't jump on ECU fix route until a compression test done as suggested in all cylinders as this engine has a design issue causing valves melting on a particular cylinder leading to symptoms you are having.

Any decent mechanic should be able to do it cheap enough.

kerten

Tusky wrote: »

The mechanic was saying that he is able to erase the fault using his computer, but it comes back again after 10 mins. He was saying this suggests the problem is electrical rather than mechanical.

And change your mechanic if this is his view on handling faults logged by ecu.

George Dalton

OP do you know if your Polo is 1.2 6 valve or 1.2 12 valve?

The 6 valve engine is more prone to valve issues. A compression test should give a good indication.

We had a 12 valve Polo at the beginning of the year with similar symptoms to yours and the problem turned out to be an injector.

Either way I'd be amazed if it was an ECU problem.

Special Circumstances

If you look at your vlc, logbook whatever you want to call it, it will probably have the engine code listed somewhere.

It was AWY on the fecked polo I was looking at. AWY is a 6valve engine.


Slightly amusing... If you put "vw polo awy" into Google one of the top suggestions is "vw polo awy zylinderkopf"... which is German for cylinder head. Not sure what the german for bollixed is.

Edit btw George not sure if I responded in my own thread, thanks for your input. I'm nearly 3hours drive from that particular polo so definitely someone else's problem right now.

greengone

If the ECU is the reason there does exist on the market open source ECU solutions

The kit versions can be few hundred but you need to solder them together

The complete ECU can be pricy close to 1000 but can go to the next few cars and last twenty years or so

Its not so tricky as people think says the forums I cant say but the speeelll says hook in the laptop and tune it .
Standard tuning is easy eneough looking the youtubes .
Remapping for complex tuning is more difficult but can be done on the fly with co driver to drive and passenger to tune as you drive

here is one type fromthe web but others exist
"http://" "pi-innovo.com/"

Special Circumstances

greengone wrote: »

If the ECU is the reason there does exist on the market open source ECU solutions

The kit versions can be few hundred but you need to solder them together

The complete ECU can be pricy close to 1000 but can go to the next few cars and last twenty years or so

Its not so tricky as people think says the forums I cant say but the speeelll says hook in the laptop and tune it .
Standard tuning is easy eneough looking the youtubes .
Remapping for complex tuning is more difficult but can be done on the fly with co driver to drive and passenger to tune as you drive

here is one type fromthe web but others exist
"http://" "pi-innovo.com/"

This is not the ecu you are looking for OP.

winnie the schtink

i had one with similar prob ,AZQ. engine code and the timing chain had slipped

Tusky

George Dalton wrote: »

OP do you know if your Polo is 1.2 6 valve or 1.2 12 valve?

The 6 valve engine is more prone to valve issues. A compression test should give a good indication.

We had a 12 valve Polo at the beginning of the year with similar symptoms to yours and the problem turned out to be an injector.

Either way I'd be amazed if it was an ECU problem.

Special Circumstances wrote: »

If you look at your vlc, logbook whatever you want to call it, it will probably have the engine code listed somewhere.

It was AWY on the fecked polo I was looking at. AWY is a 6valve engine.

.

Engine code in the booklet is BMD. A quick Google seems to indicate that it's 6 cylinder.

Special Circumstances

Tusky wrote: »

Engine code in the booklet is BMD. A quick Google seems to indicate that it's 6 cylinder.

3 cylinder, 6 valves. 2 per cylinder, one inlet, one exhaust. The exhaust valve in cylinder 3 can give trouble I think and a compression test should rule it in or out.

Tusky

Special Circumstances wrote: »

3 cylinder, 6 valves. 2 per cylinder, one inlet, one exhaust. The exhaust valve in cylinder 3 can give trouble I think and a compression test should rule it in or out.

Sorry, meant to say 6 valve. I'm heading down to the mechanic now. I'll ask if he did a compression test. If he hadn't, not sure whether to ask him to do one or just take it elsewhere...

Special Circumstances

You could say you just want to be sure of the health of a VW 6valve engine before you decide to go for the ECU or cut your losses.

Tusky

Special Circumstances wrote: »

You could say you just want to be sure of the health of a VW 6valve engine before you decide to go for the ECU or cut your losses.

Just picked the car up. He said he did a compression test and it was fine. Said he was aware of issues with the valves in these engines but "everything points towards the ECU". He said it looked like the cap had been lifted off before, suggesting that the previous owner had an issue with the valves but got it fixed.

Error code is PO303 - misfire in cylinder 3.

I was able to drive it home without any engine errors. I assume it would have started acting up after another few minutes of driving.

I'm gonna get a second opinion anyway before looking into an ECU repair. Are AUTOKEY in Clondalkin good?

Special Circumstances

In one way, if the results of the compression test were bad at least you would have a smoking gun.
Vague sensor/electronic stuff can turn into spending a lot of money on red herrings.
George would have a better idea of how often ECUs give trouble with these. I suspect it's not common.

You could buy a yoke for €15 from China that would read a P0303 code - the full on legitimate scanners cost serious bucks but can reveal a lot more detail. I scanned a Passat recently and it was able to tell me the front passenger treble speaker was disconnected.

In other words - I think a second opinion is a good idea, but go to a place with high level diagnostics kit if you can find one.

Tusky

Special Circumstances wrote: »

In one way, if the results of the compression test were bad at least you would have a smoking gun.
Vague sensor/electronic stuff can turn into spending a lot of money on red herrings.
George would have a better idea of how often ECUs give trouble with these. I suspect it's not common.

You could buy a yoke for €15 from China that would read a P0303 code - the full on legitimate scanners cost serious bucks but can reveal a lot more detail. I scanned a Passat recently and it was able to tell me the front passenger treble speaker was disconnected.

In other words - I think a second opinion is a good idea, but go to a place with high level diagnostics kit if you can find one.

Cheers. Any opinion on AUTOKEY in Clondalkin? I'm in D3 but they seem reasonably highly rated.

Tusky

I've dropped it into another mechanic. He had a quick look and said it could be a burnt out exhaust valve, despite the fact that the compression test was okay. I'll let yea know how it goes later anyway.

Tusky

The second mechanic reckons it's a burnt out engine valve.

He said compression tests don't always show up valve issues on Polos.

He said it's not the ECU as the problem is temperature based.

He said it's a big job to fix as the engine needs to be taken apart - quoted me €800.

Does that sound right?

Special Circumstances

I'm not a mechanic... but I would have assumed if there's good compression then the valves are sealing properly when closed. As far as I was aware a burned valve had deformed in some way that did not alloy a proper seal, so bad compression and poor running especially at low rpm.

In other words, I'm as confused as you are here - hopefully one of the mechanics that swing by the motors forum might have some input!

Tusky

Special Circumstances wrote: »

I'm not a mechanic... but I would have assumed if there's good compression then the valves are sealing properly when closed. As far as I was aware a burned valve had deformed in some way that did not alloy a proper seal, so bad compression and poor running especially at low rpm.

In other words, I'm as confused as you are here - hopefully one of the mechanics that swing by the motors forum might have some input!

Yeah it's a headache. Would appreciate some more input before I decide. Can you have a burnt valve without bad compression reading?