Ph1 172 blowing ecu's?

[Joe f]

Hi there, been lurking for a while but finally bought a Clio sport about a month ago, now I just wanna kill it! Only reason it's still outside and not in bits on eBay is because its so damn fun when it's running!

now after I bought the car it drove faultlessly, started on the button, no misfires or anything, all good I thought! But after driving it for 4 days it began to dislike starting in the morning, got gradually worse (taking longer to start each day) until I came home from work on the 7th day, went to turn round and it cut out and wouldn't start again, plugged my dads code reader in and it was something along the lines of 'ecu power supply short' (can't remember the exact description), checked most of the wires in the bay and it seemed to lead to the ecu not giving the signals it should. All Relays were bridged for good measure.

So after this I bought an ecu off eBay (for £50 with an immobiliser bypass - too cheap to be any good?) and the car ran again, for 4 days this time, then just didn't want to start, it had a slight intermittent misfire at about 2k revs which it never had done before.
Now the ecu is giving no codes, but is allowing the code reader to fire up, and nothing bar voltage is showing on a live read (no rpm signal or anything)


So my main question is, is there anything I should check before spending £180 on a refurbed and tested ecu? I don't want to fry it! Has anyone had an issue with their loom that causes cooked ecu's?

Any help will be greatly appreciated by me, my wallet, and my little French misbehaving car outside.
Cheers, Joe.

 

[Joe f]

Also worth noting it now has a brand new tdc sensor, there's me hoping £20 would solve it.

 

[MicKPM]

I would seek professional help with this one. Where are you based as I'd be very suprised if the ecu is dead.

 

[Joe f]

I'm located near gatwick.
should have said, my dads a mechanic and has been for the past 30 odd years, but he's not too hot on French cars, and my neighbour is an AA guy, been through all the signals ecu should be giving and there's nothing, yet the ecu is live.
Also it's the same symptoms as last time, and the second hand ecu sorted it (for a short period of time).

​any ideas on what else we could check? Everything seems to be pointing at the ecu?

 

[MicKPM]

Not without getting balls deep in it I'm afraid. I assume all earths have been checked so It's one of those that you really need to see.

 

[Joe f]

That's what I was afraid of!
Yep, all earths checked and double checked, then checked for continuity, all good.

​so was I wrong in thinking that ecu's are a common problem on these?

 

[Chip-mk1]

ECU's basically never go wrong on these cars.

Loom faults are relatively common though.

Weird thing in your case is the way a new ECU seemed to cure it, although I guess if its a loom fault in the connector that goes onto the ECU then disturbing it may have helped.

 

[MicKPM]

As above, genuine ecu faults are rare but that being said they do crop up from time to time. If you can communicate with it then that kinda says its okay but you could have an issue with the loom, UCH or one of the main latching relays.

Really needs seeing by someone that understands how the cars are wired and work though as its not as simple as it could be.