VOLVO 960 3.0ltr Auto

[javed]

Hi All

We have come across an issue where our Volvo 960 3.0 Auto has had an ECU
failure, unfortunately when the previous owner valeted the car it got water into the ECU and caused damage.

If anyone has a car breaking please could you get in touch on 07956939603.

The ECU is a BOSCH 0 261 203 854

We have a local breaker who is trying to sort something out but thought i would try here as well.
(Read View Garage - Hapton) Highly recommended by the way!

any help would be appreciated.

Regards


Javed

[Laird Scooby]

Can't help with the ECU but assuming the later models have the ECU in the same place as older models (drivers kick panel), i'd strongly suggest you find out just how the ECU got wet!

It's fairly well protected where it is and if water got into it, that suggests it has to come from above. In turn that suggests one or more from a badly sealed windscreen, serious corrosion around the screen, A-pillar/scuttle/bulkhead area, poorly done previous repairs (for example, it may have had a new wing at some point) or maybe somewhere else.

Good luck in your quest for a replacement ECU but i'd look at how it got wet before you commit to buying a replacement - you may find the repairs to make sure the new one stays dry exceed the value of the car!

[classicswede]

what year 960?

[Clan]

Originally Posted by javed

Hi All

We have come across an issue where our Volvo 960 3.0 Auto has had an ECU
failure, unfortunately when the previous owner valeted the car it got water into the ECU and caused damage.

If anyone has a car breaking please could you get in touch on 07956939603.

The ECU is a BOSCH 0 261 203 854

We have a local breaker who is trying to sort something out but thought i would try here as well.
(Read View Garage - Hapton) Highly recommended by the way!

any help would be appreciated.

Regards


Javed

Have you any picture of the ECU ? They are in waterproof , What leads someone to believe the ECU is faulty and what signals are incorrectly coming out?

[Laird Scooby]

What are the symptoms you're getting? I was thinking about this today and it's unusual for an ECU to just fail, even if it has got wet, usually it will still do something.

It's very common that a car will be put into a garage for some work to be done and for the garage person to talk the fault up to an £OUCH level where the owner is at the point where they will take an offer of scrap value just to get something back on it as the repairs are (allegedly) going to cost more than the car is worth.

The unscrupulous garage person (not necessarily the owner, sometimes the owners don't know this is happening) will make an offer of scrap value or just over, the unsuspecting victim hands over the keys and V5 and shuffles off to lick their financial (and sometimes emotional) wounds while the person who has just bought the car "for scrap" fixes a tuppence-ha'penny fault, slaps a new MoT on it, mops the bodywork and has it on ebay for £1000 more than it owes him.

[john.wigley]

Perhaps a cynical, but nonetheless all-too-frequently, true, view, "LS'!
Regards. John.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

Perhaps a cynical, but nonetheless all-too-frequently, true, view, "LS'!
Regards. John.

In the current issue of Practical Classics John, there's another example of this practice going on, concerning a 1998/9 Jag S Type where the unscrupulous tester handed the (now previous) owner an MoT failure sheet as long as the M1 - said (previous) owner listed it on fleabay for £175 as Spares or Repair, one of the mags contributors spotted the ad and took "a punt" on it, booked it in for an MoT at his local station so he could legally drive it home where it failed - on a blown side light bulb!

Replacing that bulb saw a Pass certificate issued.

In the past, i've had a couple of testers try the same trick, one was with a near immaculate Cortina 2.0 Ghia, the failure list from a certain well known "high st chain" of tyre, exhaust and MoT centres was like the puppys toilet roll - very, very long!

I knew there were certain failure points so in between whiles i did those and presented it at another MoT station where it once again failed - on both rear fog lights blowing at some point between when i dropped it off and being tested. A pair of bulbs saw a pass.

Another was my last SD1 V8 Rover, again a failure sheet as long as your arm, booked for test somewhere else where it passed with a clean sheet.

In recent years i've known several cars where the tester has tried it on, car presented for retest at a different garage and passed.

In fact i know of one garage who removed a headlamp bulb, put a greasy pawprint on it, refitted it in the wrong place and failed the car on headlamp aim. The pawprint revealed itself a couple of months later when the bulb blew but the bulb was still in the wrong place. That means they had charged for realigning the headlamp aim and done nothing as it was still skew-whiff afterwards.

They didn't need to touch the bulb at all as both bulbs were brand new and had been cleaned with meths and alignment checked before it went for test. They also charged the owner for Cataclean to get it through the emissions and a "road test" to get the Cataclean to work - more cowshed confetti as the miles hadn't gone up commensurate with said road test.

It's scary just how much of it goes on and it seems to be getting more common.

[john.wigley]

As vehicles become increasingly complex, with more items subject to test, so the number of potential fail points will also increase, 'LS'. Unscrupulous testers may exploit this as it can be difficult for 'Joe Public' to gainsay their findings without recourse to another tester. I think this, and the fact that some younger testers have no experience of older vehicles - which frequently had vague steering and barely adequate brakes even when new - is why we now have the 40 year rolling test exemption.

It is the same with bikes. I used to take my '60s mopeds to a classic friendly tester for their MOTs. It took him only a few minutes to do the test (no indicators, brake lights, ABS, etc., etc.). Start engine, check lights, brakes wheels, tyres, horn, that was about it! The remainder of the time, until the system allowed him to print out the certificate, was spent putting the world to rights over a brew!

Regards, John.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

I think the fact that some younger testers have no experience of older vehicles - which frequently had vague steering and barely adequate brakes even when new - is why we now have the 40 year rolling test exemption.

It is the same with bikes. I used to take my '60s mopeds to a classic friendly tester for their MOTs. It took him only a few minutes to do the test (no indicators, brake lights, ABS, etc., etc.). Start engine, check lights, brakes wheels, tyres, horn, that was about it! The remainder of the time, until the system allowed him to print out the certificate, was spent putting the world to rights over a brew!

Regards, John.

You may have hit the nail on the head John, we had an example of this recently in a thread titled "Failed MoT on emissions" or something very similar.

The car in question was a 1993 740 with a B200F engine. As far as i've always been aware, the 740 was discontinued in 1992 so a 93 reg'd car would suggest an older car that had sat in a showroom for some time before being registered.

That aside for a moment, because it had the B200F (and hence a cat) the tester was testing it as if it would meet all cat emissions, i.e. max CO of 0.3% at idle. I did some digging online and found the car is eligible for the BET - Basic Emissions Test - of 3.5%CO and 1200ppm HC at idle because it wasn't capable of passing the stricter test, even when new. The actual figure it had on test (when it failed) was 0.6% CO so wasn't that far out of the cat test criteria.

The OP from that thread printed out the relevant pages from the government pdf i found online, submitted for retest with that proof and a pass certificate was duly issued.

It also transpired it had recently had a cam belt change and besides having the wrong belt (square teeth when they should have been round) the timing was in fact out. This no doubt caused an increase in the CO levels but it was still within limits for the BET, hence the pass.

From what i understand, it was a younger tester so had rarely, if ever, seen anything "borderline" and probably wasn't aware such vehicles existed in the "transition period" where despite being registered and/or produced after the "cat watershed" were exempt from the full cat test due to the technology used when they were built.

All's well that ends well though as he now has an MoT and a replacement cam belt and will change it and correct the timing very soon.

[Ian21401]

My 1992 940 with B200F falls into the BET category. For a few years after I first bought it back in 2005 I had it MOT’d at a local garage run by an older guy who had trained on Volvos. Never a problem. He eventually retired.
I moved to a different tester who again was an older guy with his own garage and passed the car without any problems. I moved from him when some of his staff were involved in some less than honest dealings.
Later, I guy moved into a new house near us and I eventually found out that he owned a small garage in the next town specialising in custom made exhausts, window tinting and ECU tweaking but did also do MOT’s so I took my car there. The qualified MOT tester was again an older guy. Initially he failed my car on emissions but before issuing a Fail he did some research and passed it on quote, “non cat” emissions. I didn’t know then that this was the BET, nor did I know about the “transition period”. (Thanks to you I now do know.) That tester subsequently passed my car year after year. He eventually retired and was replaced by a much younger guy who had only recently qualified. At the first test he did the car failed emissions. He reported this to me and his boss, (my neighbour). Boss referred him to the previous retired tester who advised him accordingly and the car passed the BET.
So, was BET part of the new tester’s training and he had simply forgotten, or was it not included in the training at all?