Re-programmed ECM on the I30t

[Jeff Williams]

Anybody heard of an ITB to re-program the ECM, for the 2000 I30?

I had a "Servcie Engine Soon" light on the wifey's car, while out of town, and had it checked out (First-ever trouble, in 46 months). No real trouble, because the car drove great, and got great mileage.

The repair was listed as "Replace both front and rear O2 sensors, and reprogram ECM, per ITB" (This confused me fro a while, until I remembered the I30 is FWD, and the exhasut manifolds are front & rear, not left & right. like my Q).

I did not see, or feel any performance improvements. It might be a standard thing, after an O2 sensor replacement. The guy that usually tells me this stuff, was not there, when I picked it up.

[jmatas]

I had mine in for service a couple weeks ago and they did not do this. I did have the check engine light come on around 25K miles, but I think it was a matter of reseting some emissions control something (in technical terms).

[autotech43]

Yes Jeff, I have reprogrammed numerous ECM's on the 2000 and 2001 I-30. Take note that they also have revised that tech bulletin 3 times from the original ITB. Most of the cases were the P0420 three way catalyst code, or one of the O2 sensor codes being stored. The first ITB was to just reprogram the ECM. To give you an idea on what they were doing in simpler terms.( Take a voltage reading in between 1 and 10, with 4, 5, and 6 being the paremeters of a normal condition). Anything outside of those middle numbers will illuminate a check engine or MIL/service engine soon light. First off they just expanded the number by (1), the reprogramming would change that parameter in the chip. The second change was to replace just (1) O2 sensor, reprogram, depending on the bank and the current ECM number. Now what we do is replace both O2 sensors along with the reprogram, and also, depending on what air flow sensor the vehicle has, will determine what the ECM gets changed too. Personally, I haven't seen any of the vehicles returned to our dealer after performing any of the above. You DID get the vehicle corrected and I wouldnt worry about any problems regarding the update, I know sometimes updates can make folks skeptical about things including myself, whether it be a personal computer or an automobile. Another note, I havent seen or heard of the first performance concern regarding that particular bulletin. I know alot of MIL (check lights) that I have researched lately are mostly regarding government (emission standards), comparing alot of the readings of various sensors, before and after reprogramming, I haven't seen such a difference that performance would be affected.

Another note, the rear O2 sensors will not affect engine performance, and they are just monitoring what the cats (converters) are doing, and is everything efficient before it is dispersed out the tailpipe. The functional check for the rear O2's is a different procedure from the front O2's. Cruise the vehicle several miles under light throttle, monitoring the mixture ratio with consult, pull the vehicle over and while at idle speed you run the injectors manually to the full rich condition, you should have an abrupt voltage increase on both rear O2's, then the voltage will decrease. I usually print out alot of graphs, that way I can go back to the dealer after the road testing and see exactly what is or what is not operating properly. Glad you got things taken care of!

[Jeff Williams]

Wow!, thanks for the info. I thought, maybe they were some modified engine control routines, for better emmissions, or performance. The car drives the same. I don't get to drive it much, since I drive the Q everyday.