Help With Nissan Almera 2001 N16

thepalace1

I have left messages on forums and boards everywhere but not attracted any help... Hopefully someone on MSE can help.


The car a Y reg 2001, 1.8 Automatic Nissan Almera broke down 2 weeks ago, AA towed to local garage, they replaced Idle COntrol Valve and Throttle Body costing £475, but then the garage stated it also needs a new ecu as it is burnt out (and you can smell it)

The car starts and drives, but the garage have recommended I dont as it could and most probably will fry the new Idle Control Valve and New Throttle Body, So I have sourced a second hand ECU, Ignition Barrell, Key + Chip, and Transponder, fuse box.

I have fit this correctly but the car wiull not start, the immobiliser light stays on on the dashboard as if the imobiliser is not seeing the chip in the key.

This is where I am stuck, I have changed the whole darn thing and the ecu will not start the car with the new transponder key and chip.

Please please help, the car is great its only done 33,000 genuing miles, not a scratch on it and has full mopt and tax, it is worth about £1000 which is far far far too much to go scrapping it.

s_b

are you sure there is only one ecu?
try undoing the radio as these are linked to the system too

other than that i suppose you need to get someone to be able to hook up to the car and interrogate it properly

thepalace1

s_b wrote: »

are you sure there is only one ecu?
try undoing the radio as these are linked to the system too

other than that i suppose you need to get someone to be able to hook up to the car and interrogate it properly

There is only one Engine ECU AFAIK, there is other ECU's for the auto gearbox for example...

I have a handheld DTC code reader, it brings up Fault Code P1610 which apparently is NISSAN NATS LOCK OUT (Nissan Anti Theft System)

captainawsome

The imobaliser may need realigning with the ecu. Ring a dealer or a good auto elec with decent software and see.

thepalace1

Update:

Called a good AutoElectrician, told him I changed ECU, Key, Transponder and he said I also needed to put the Body Control Module in, so I got it out of the same donor car as the rest of the system.

Still No Start, Immobiliser light still on

Called Nissan Dealer, he said I should have changed the radio as well at the same time as this was in the nats system.

Where do I go from here, Will getting the immobiliser system re-programmed at main dealer do the trick?

I already spent £700 on this problem, and can only afford more if I can get a guarenteed quote from a Auto Eleccy or Dealer, but they all say can't quote,, just per hour ,, dealer at £108 per hour, but I cant be going that route again thats why it cost £700 before, I need a quote for work, but everywhere I call want at least £100+ just to provide the quote.....

s_b

have you tried it with the radio thrown on the back seat as i suggested?
are you sure theres only one body controle module too? quite often theres vaerious ones in the car even down to one possibly being in the door for central locking or the kick panel etc

s_b

the obvious thing to do is buy a haynes for £15 from halfords and look for power control modules and their locations etc

myhooose

I had a new ECU fitted to my N16 almera by my local mechanics auto electrician. I don't know the full details but I know they had to take it to a Nissan Dealer for programming. Total cost for the whole job was about £600 a couple of years back.

The Almera was the most unreliable car I've had the misfortune of owning.

Tetley_the_Cat

I see you have also posted on the CAG forum which is full of landlocked sailors.

The reality is that you need to code the ecu to the keysetc which is relatively straight forward if you have the gear but what is also not generally known is that at times it can be that the level of ecu does not tie in with a chassis range. For example if you buy an early ecu for a late car it will not talk to other ecu's but a late will talk to an early one. It's known as backward compatibility and to the best of my knowledge newer ecus have to be backward compatible. By definition, old ecus cannot be forward compatible.

I'd be looking at this if I were you as what you seem to have done is reasonable.

However, it is very, very unusual to get an ECU burn out unless some one has been extreamly silly with trying to bypass systems to get the car going.

benham3160

With the above post, I find it unlikely that all of these components suddenly need replacing.

Sounds like a "plug in - brain off - swap out" diagnosis, without any proper component testing for fault finding. This makes me very angry, I never condemn a part until I can be sure (by applying electronics knowledge, common sense etc....) Too many people just plug a code reader in, see the fault code and change the part.... Makes me so cross, it's wasteful of money!

The idle control valve certainly can't "burn out", and if it was getting a constant incorrect signal you'd know as the car would ever stall or rev high. I guess by throttle body they found a fault with the throttle position sensor, which also could be a red-herring.

I've come across many cars diagnosed as faulty x and it's turned out to be just what the computer said and it's been cheap to rectify by cleaning/checking wiring/adjusting/fixing. I can honestly say I've only seen one ECU that has just spontaneously "failed", but I've seen many diagnosed.......

Regards,
Andy

atrixblue.-MFR-.

wow, your garage needs a slap in the face with a wet kipper, had the actaully removed the ECU (original) and sent it off for a fixed diagnosis, or were they just scratching heads and pointing at parts and hoping youd chuck cash at them?

http://www.the-ecu-doctor.co.uk/

http://www.ecutesting.com/

you can even send them back to their manufacturer for testing and fixing and codeing.

this reminds me when i was working in the motor factors, customer came in and said his new cat converter was faulty as it SMELL's to high heaven, giving the big gob off, as the converter was still on the car we went out to have agander, popped my head under neath, and fair enough its smelled to high heaven this car was a astra 1.4 16v, i dignosed the fault right away, the car had 2 cats and one was certainly fried and it wasnt the new one we supplied but the furry once stuck to it!!!