Airbag ECU Failure etc

[deleted79651]

Decided to change the [original 5.5 year old] vehicle battery [which was dropping to around 12v after 5 or 6 days] some 2-3 weeks ago to avoid the risk of an ECU failure. Unforunately, the new battery was faulty, and 6 days later, the ECU failed! Sod's Law ...

No ECUs available in UK, and Crashdata said Fault Code suggested the original ECU was damaged beyond repair. Managed to get an appointment at a local auto electrician for yesterday, to confirm that it was the ECU, and that it needed a replacement rather than repair. Electrician confirmed that new ECU was needed, BUT he managed to find one already in UK and he has fitted this morning, along with a [third] new vehicle battery, Yuasa 950 amp 5 year guarantee and has tested the charging system from nose to tail to ensure that there are no other problems lurking ... He did identify a continual drain on the vehicle battery that seems to stem from the Lithium Leisure Battery being at too high a cutoff [Winter] charging rate in Scotland to allow the Battery Master to obtain any spare energy from the Leisure Battery to keep the Vehicle Battery topped up. The Lithium Battery caused no problem in Summer with hours of high yield sunlight to keep both batteries happy.

I don't know whether the Lithium App can be switched around to a lower Charging Cut Off in Autumn/Winter and the returned to its default setting in Spring/Summer to limit the life shortening reduced charge supply for the Leisure Battery. Electrician keeping the Van for another night to check that his changes have removed the drain on the Vehicle Battery. I'll probably need to sell a kidney to pay the bill for ECU, Battery and Labour + VAT etc, but I can at least begin to think about rebooking last week's cancelled Ferry Crossing ...

Steve

 

[Diabalo]

It's about time this airbag problem was sorted out by the manufactures.

 

[pappajohn]

It's about time this airbag problem was sorted out by the manufactures.

They'll probably deny any knowledge like the reversing judder a few years ago.

 

[PG’s trips]

Did your electrician say the ECU problem was definitely caused by low battery, my auto electricians experience is that the ducato ECUs are just faulty and that a new starter battery is really not needed (apart from obvious low voltage issues)? Mine is 5.5 years old too and I replaced the ECU earlier this year after a frustrating search. I was happy to buy a new battery but he said it was a waste of money. Not sure what to do.

 

[barsteward]

Try these people I won't go into the full story but they probably will have one and providing you give them the correct details it will come back "plug and play* I am not impressed with Crashdata' but that's another story.
The downside is you will have to pay £50 import tax on top of the purchase price. but considering Crashdata will charge you £80 pounds just for the programing you will also have to buy a donor unit if you can find one and postage both ways which will amount to about £20.

One word of advice if you do decide to go down the above road, your package will be sent via UPS as soon as the option to pay the import tax comes on your tracking information, pay it online immediately.

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[deleted79651]

Did your electrician say the ECU problem was definitely caused by low battery, my auto electricians experience is that the ducato ECUs are just faulty and that a new starter battery is really not needed (apart from obvious low voltage issues)? Mine is 5.5 years old too and I replaced the ECU earlier this year after a frustrating search. I was happy to buy a new battery but he said it was a waste of money. Not sure what to do.

Definitely a low battery voltage cause. The electrician has been testing the whole charging system from start to finish [so that I don't end,up with another ECU failure, especially under current supply problems]; and the first replacement battery was fine for a 12 mile drive. 6 days later the Airbag failure triggered after about 250m of driving. Lastly, I measured the vehicle battery voltage each morning since the original new battery was changed, and the voltage was never above 12.6, and often down to 12.42 or thereabouts

I'll get the electrician's confirmation tomorrow, when I collect the M/Home, that the Lithium Battery charging cut off level was too high ina Scottish Autumn short daylight for the Battery Master to kick in and trickle feed the Vehicle Battery

Steve

 

[PG’s trips]

thanks Steve. I'm going to buy a meter today to monitor as a start, so what voltagr range is tolerable according to your research. I'm not very technical!

 

[pops]

Did your electrician say the ECU problem was definitely caused by low battery, my auto electricians experience is that the ducato ECUs are just faulty and that a new starter battery is really not needed (apart from obvious low voltage issues)? Mine is 5.5 years old too and I replaced the ECU earlier this year after a frustrating search. I was happy to buy a new battery but he said it was a waste of money. Not sure what to do.

I solved my airbag ecu problem by fitting a new battery. Crashdate said they could not communicate with it.
Kept the ecu in the house for a week refitted it with the new battery and has been ok for the last couple of months and we have only been doing day trips.

 

[zedman]

started mine up last weekend to go get some fuel and the airbag light stayed on, passenger air bag light was flashing too but thats stopped now, just the red air bag light still on .........does this mean my ecu's pooped

 

[PG’s trips]

Zedman ..out of interest how long was it sitting around for and how old is the battery?. If the passenger light has stopped flashing you might be ok

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[Phill D]

If you don't already do this , it does reduce the risk of airbag ecu problems.

When you turn on the ignition wait and watch all lights except the obvious ( battery, oil etc) go out before proceeding to start.
If the airbag does not go out Switch off and check the voltage of the starter battery.

 

[deleted79651]

thanks Steve. I'm going to buy a meter today to monitor as a start, so what voltagr range is tolerable according to your research. I'm not very technical!

I'm spectacularly ill qualified to comment! It took me about 1/2 hour to work out how to check the vehicle battery voltage, but I did find an Australian 'Idiot's Guide' to voltages and approximate states of charge

Battery State of Charge Table

Initially I was using the Van Control Panel for both Batteries [and then cross checking the Leisure Battery SOC against the Victron and KS Energy Apps], and this suggested that the Control Panel vehicle battery reading was under reporting the battery voltages by about 1/4 volt. Over the last week or so the inaccuracy increased to around 3/4 volt , which I took as a warning of problems looming!

Steve

started mine up last weekend to go get some fuel and the airbag light stayed on, passenger air bag light was flashing too but thats stopped now, just the red air bag light still on .........does this mean my ecu's pooped

Sounds exactly what we had. Audible alarm, initially every 30 seconds but after the new battery was changed for a 2nd new battery, the alarm sounds just once at start up. Initial warning lights were seat belt tensioners and air bag, plus the dashboard mounted warning light [opposite the passenger seat] to the left of the hazard flashers illuminated but that corrected itself when the 2nd new battery was fitted.

Before the M/Home went to the auto electricians on Tuesday, we had Instrument Panel Airbag Warning Light on permanently, audible alarm sounding once on engine start, and the scrolling text on the digital dashboard 'Check handbook ...'

New ECU and a more powerful [3rd!] starter battery fitted has cured the above BUT, the auto electrician says there is an effective 'back feed' current flow of 100 milliamps from the Elektroblok EBL99 25amp Fuse Grundischt Trittstufe,suggesting something is being powered, but no clue what it might be ...

Steve

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

Are these Airbag ECU issues just on fiat or other base cab marques?

 

[deleted79651]

As far as I'm aware, it's just Fiat cabs.

Steve

 

[Mikeco]

Are these Airbag ECU issues just on fiat or other base cab marques?

Same on Peugeot Boxer or the Citroen, the unit on my Peugeot was a Fiat one.

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[Eggs]

The airbag ecu obviously isn't good but these are vans, they weren't designed to be sat about for a week or two on end, I've only read about this problem when vans have been stood about.

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

I don't think it's the standing it's when the starter battery gets low that seems to be the issue and then trying to jump start from a a higher charged source without bringing the starter battery up to charge slowly.
Unless someone advised otherwise

 

[zedman]

Zedman ..out of interest how long was it sitting around for and how old is the battery?. If the passenger light has stopped flashing you might be ok

about two weeks thats all, the battery's only about six months old.......went to it one morning and the battery was that dead it wouldn't even power up the central locking, was the original battery though to be fair...2016.
bought the big 125ah battery to replace it....wasn't cheap.....iv'e started to leave one of those battery optimiser chargers on the eng battery now when I'm parking it up for a while, don't know if its a good thing or not.
I'm off to Edinburgh tomorrow till tues in the van so will have a look at it then

 

[deleted79651]

Just back from auto electricians, all sorted and free guide on how to remove any liability I might have had to Inheritance Tax ... New ECU fitted and programmed; yet another new starter battery fitted [3rd one in about 5 weeks]; parasitic current drain had damaged the 2nd new battery, but the sparky traced the drain to the rats nest of electrical connections for the multimedia unit and camera and the 150ma drain has been reduced to 15ma. The multimedia unit had been losing its settings everyday since the airbage fault, and, going back to the date of purchase, it had corrupted the AVIC 160 satnav SD card reader attachment, that meant the Dealer supplied a Stand alone Garmin Camper 780.

Steve

PS auto electrician said not to leave vehicle for any longer than 3 weeks to avoid risk of battery voltage dropping too low, but, because he has realised that I do fret about such matters, he suggested in my case, I check the starter battery voltage every 2 weeks and charge as necessary, bearing in mind that today in Fife, with a heavy dark grey cloud cover, it never really became daylight, so solar output will be minimal in the extreme!

 

[the1andonly]

For the paranoid amongst you there are Bluetooth battery monitors out there

This is last week SB, solar charged via votronics duo mppt.
Thanks to Richard n Ann original discussions.

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[MR. FUSION]

Hi all, I have this problem, after the prolonged lockdown of 2020 when my van was in storage, I managed to fix it for about 18 months by resetting the ecu with my icarsoft unit but now the module error is B0102-00 which crashdata have said is terminal.. Still no new ECU'S as far as I can tell, (anybody found any???) which I am sure is a disaster for people not getting an MOT. I managed to get a second hand one one off the guy in Poland off Ebay. He says it is programmed already without seeing my original ECU because I gave him the details of 2 Air bags 2 seatbelt pre tensioners & the part number is identical. I assumed I had that configuration........(the van is in storage so I can't check it) because there is a plastic Shroud on the passenger side saying "airbag" then I had a slight meltdown & thought I have always assumed there is a passenger airbag because it says so on the dashboard, but possibly the only sure way to check is paging through the mode screen on the dashboard for disable passenger Airbag ??? So now I am second guessing myself until I get it out in March/April.... Does anyone know if I did get the configuration wrong if Crashdata can reprogram it once it has been programmed to the above configuration?? Does the word "airbag" on the cover of the passenger side dashboard really mean there is one in there, because sometimes manufacturers just keep the same console & not fit it ??
What I do know is that when I come to fit the replacement, I should leave the battery disconnected for at least 30 minutes before touching anything, to make sure any residual electricity has dissipated, I am very aware of what happened on the USS Forrestal when an F4 lauched a Zuni rocket into another F4 because they had not follwed residual electricity dissipation procedures correctly
Any help appreciated, so I can stop second guessing myself & sleep soundly at night, thanks!!!

 

[Phill D]

Of the 2 x250 fiat motorhomes we have had 1 did not have and the current 1 does have a passenger airbag.
The one without had a plain dash no airbag indication on the dash.
I would believe that you have a passenger Air bag.
If you do have one you should have a warning light for it in the instrument cluster.

 

[MR. FUSION]

Of the 2 x250 fiat motorhomes we have had 1 did not have and the current 1 does have a passenger airbag.
The one without had a plain dash no airbag indication on the dash.
I would believe that you have a passenger Air bag.
If you do have one you should have a warning light for it in the instrument cluster.

Thanks for the reply

 

[cyberyacht]

These things are supposed to be voltage sensitive. Since when cranking an engine the battery voltage can drop to around 10v or so, what is the voltage that the airbag ECU fails at?

 

[MR. FUSION]

These things are supposed to be voltage sensitive. Since when cranking an engine the battery voltage can drop to around 10v or so, what is the voltage that the airbag ECU fails at?

I believe mine was jump started, so it happened after that , from what I have read it seems both over or under voltage can cause this issue. I bought a replacement cab battery that is not supposed to go below 12.5 volts, not sure if that will protect the replacement ECU, when it is in.

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[cyberyacht]

Can you elaborate on this battery of yours? My wet LA one is OK at the moment but may require replacement in the not too distant future.

 

[Christy]

I have had to send mine to crashdata twice in one year, both times to get it through MOT. Each time i have been told my voltage was over 14,4 and thats what caused it. Battery is never flat as it is pretty much on charge all the time. I called crash data and the women who answered the phone saying "ELLO" was very unhelpful bordering on rude. I just wanted to speak to the guy who reset it to pick his brains for a couple of mins. Get the impression it is not a big outfit. Maybe husband and wife team. Nothing wrong with that but they could treat their customers a little warmer.

Anyway got the ecu back and in immediately went for MOT and all good. A week later the airbag light is back on.

I just wish someone would sell a reasonably priced product that resets these things rather than having to send it off every year to get it through the MOT.

Heres a thought - perhaps we could crowdfund some geek to make a device!

 

[cyberyacht]

Getting Fiat/Peugeot/Citroen to make a decent ECU that wasn't so flaky would help. Given the ubiquity of this issue, perhaps a class action against the manufacturers might focus the mind.

 

[Phill D]

I have had to send mine to crashdata twice in one year, both times to get it through MOT. Each time i have been told my voltage was over 14,4 and thats what caused it. Battery is never flat as it is pretty much on charge all the time. I called crash data and the women who answered the phone saying "ELLO" was very unhelpful bordering on rude. I just wanted to speak to the guy who reset it to pick his brains for a couple of mins. Get the impression it is not a big outfit. Maybe husband and wife team. Nothing wrong with that but they could treat their customers a little warmer.

Anyway got the ecu back and in immediately went for MOT and all good. A week later the airbag light is back on.

I just wish someone would sell a reasonably priced product that resets these things rather than having to send it off every year to get it through the MOT.

Heres a thought - perhaps we could crowdfund some geek to make a device!

i bought this software a few years back and it has long paid for itself... https://www.gendan.co.uk/product_FESPKG.html its on my laptop but i think you can get it for ios and android

 

[MR. FUSION]

Can you elaborate on this battery of yours? My wet LA one is OK at the moment but may require replacement in the not too distant future.

It is a Bosch powerframe technology, which is supposed to last up to 6 months without charge to give an adequate crank (3 months interim charge recommended). I can't find anything on the net about a minimum charge being held. My MH is in storage so I can't actually look at the battery. I am sure I do remember seeing this on the battery itself & thinking why was it not on the blurb anywhere. My memory is not the best though so now I am not sure if it actually meant that, so until I can revisit the battery take it with a pinch if salt The powerframe technology is supposed to be good for batteries in storage though, so would recommend buying a battery with that technology.

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