How often do ALH computers go bad?

[faul713]

Sorry, I owe some apologies here. I've been away from the forum for a real long time and just realized I never got back to this post. I was updating my signature and found the old post section which criticized me, and rightly so, for not providing any closure.

I never found out what was wrong. The car is still parked and as soon as I find the key, it will be sold. I found a deal on a 2004 Jetta with 4K miles and bought it.

I am of the opinion the problem is with the injection pump but can't prove it. I had to reseal it multiple times and think it's just wore out. I pulled the ECM and looked inside but found nothing unusual. I have 17 years of electronic engineering experience in a test, development and manufacturing capacity and figured it was worth a shot.

 

[Tdijarhead]

I never found out what was wrong. The car is still parked and as soon as I find the key, it will be sold. I found a deal on a 2004 Jetta with 4K miles and bought it.

Is this a misprint ? A 2004 with 4 thousand miles? Pictures please, what kind of shape is it in? Where/how did you find such a diamond?

 

[PakProtector]

HA! even 40,000 miles is a rare bear. I thought in 2017 that 70k was rare enough...LOL
cheers,
Douglas

 

[Shenandoah]

Folks,

Not an ALH ECU, but a 2002 Jetta (2.0l gas, automatic). Earlier this year my daughter had transmission problems. I made an adapter to plug in to the transmission connector to check resistance on the solenoids. I had two that were out of range. Replaced them all along with the ribbon cable connector.

Car ran fine and transmission shifted correctly. About a month later it quit driving down the road. Scanned with VCDS but could not find the ecu. I checked all the fuses and relays, cleaned the grounds and still no ecu. I've got four parts cars, so I put in an ecu from a 1.8l Jetta, connected it to the 2002 2.0l and could see it through VCDS. Put the original ECU back in and could not see it with VCDS. Somehow it failed/fried?

Bought another ECU for the same model car and had the immobilizer turned off. I installed the ECU and again, the car ran fine. About two weeks later, same thing: ECU could not be scanned/found with VCDS.

Somewhere there is an electrical problem when under the right conditions, it fries the ECU.

Eric

 

[compu_85]

My no-evidence speculation is that one of the voltage regulators in the ECU is failing. This is what provides the 5v reference to various sensors, and to the chips inside the ECU. Basically, the internal power supply to the ECU.

-J

 

[burn_your_money]

On the gassers there is an issue with O2 sensors shorting out or something to that effect and it kills the ECU. It’s been a while since I’ve read about that so I may have some details mixed up.

 

[faul713]

That was a typo, the car had 64K miles on it. That car is now parked as well. It got rear-ended hard. It was crushed between a large work truck that had one of those bumpers with a vice bolted to it and a 65+ mph minivan with a distracted driver.