Has anyone used The ECU Doctor?

Hi all. I've been trying to sort an Astra SRi problem. I know, I know, the main problem is its a vauxhall!
It's had a management light on intermittently. I took it to the local Vauxhall garage, where they tried lots of things but no luck. The next step is ecu replacement but the mechanic said I could try an online ecu specialist.

He is a mate and said he could install it if I send it away for repair. So, is ECU Doctor reputable? Or anyone got a recommendation.

Try looking on astraownersnetwork.co.uk, loads of useful stuff. What year is it?

It's a 52plate 1.8 SRi. Apparently it's a fairly common fault on this particular engine in various models. The ecu is bolted to the manifold and gets all the crap of the day on it. It then sends various fault codes around the system whick makes it look like other sensors are faulty when they aren't.

I'll have a look on the website you suggest too. Thanks Andy.

[Wideboy]

i used to have the link saved but lost it all now........

you can get the ECU light to flash out morse code, you short out the plug thats under the gear sick and it will flash out the error code, then you match it up your code to the error code list, it can all be found on the astra network, im pretty sure that where i got it

if you took it to the vauxhall garage then they've not done the job properly. ECU faults are logged into the cars memory regardless if the light goes out. all error logs can all be easily viewed by plugging it into the diag machine which they should have done.

also sometimes its cheaper to buy the code reader off ebay than take it to the garage and pay their labour charges

My 2001 1.6 16v had exactly the same problem, was saying throttle position sensor 1, replaced throttle body, still there, then said tp sensor 1 and 2 so replaced accelerator pedal, still there... auto electrician then had a look and diagnosed and said no faults with the wiring so likely to be the ECU, took it to a vauxhall dealer who replaced the ECU and the problem was gone forever, cost me about £600 for the ecu and about £200 quid for the other parts and labour.

I was also told that its difficult to get those ecu's repaired due to how they pack it all together

OK, a quick history of the problem.

Bought Aug last year, 70K.

The management light would come on now and again but not affect driving. Switch off, on again, all ok.

Car not used much for a couple of months up to Jan, proved very difficult to start/idle. Decided to get this sorted before putting up for sale and tried to get it started. Dead battery. Charged up, then after many attempts at starting it, it caught and dies again a dozen times, very erratic idle.

Limped the 10miles to the garage @ 15mph mostly in 2nd gear, took an hour+ (and many, many stop-offs to let traffic past, lol), would not rev above 3k-ish, and all the power of a snail on flat/uphill bits.

The car isn't mine (mum's) so dont want to spend cash on fault readers for a one-off as it's going up for sale as soon as this is sorted. Also, the car is at the garage now so won't be able to do work on it myself now.

The garage got the faults off the ECU, but because the ECU itself seems to be the problem then it's giving off faulty codes. EG: It was saying engine temp was 50C when the car hadn't been run for 24hrs, so that affected fueling for injection system. They swapped the temp sensor, no change. Same process for other faults.

The mechanic was going to work early to have a muck about in his own time, so don't think they're trying to rip me off or anything. From reading that owners forum, ECU, EGR and TPS are comon problems.

I'll give the ECU Doctor peeps a ring in the morning and see what they say about it. Just wondered if anyone here had used this type of service before.

We sent an ASTRA ecu with the exact same faults. Repaired in 4 days and still working. Guaranteed as well

£230 INC VAT.

These guys are in Plymouth to be sure that its the same one.

[NTECUK]

Don't live and die by fault codes.
The codes that get recorded can often be wrong.
So poor Mr garage man problem did read the codes.
And as is well reported the ecm lies like a cheap watch .