ECU Explained

Engine Control Unit

An ECU is a computer that runs the engine in all moderd day vehicles, Introduced in the early 1980s with the advent of electronic fuel injection systems, these early systems where very primitive they just monitored the revolution of the engine, air flow in to the engine and engine temperature. The ECU then used this information gathered from these sensors to inject the right amount of fuel at the right time. The advantages of fuel injection over a carburettured engine was the degree of control that a computer had over fuel delivery, 1000s of times more accurate than that of a carburetor.

In the present day an ECU is a very powerful control system capable of gathering hundreds of channels of information to control every aspect of the engine, even its own efficiency.
The worse place in the world that you could put a sophisticated piece of electronics is under the bonnet of a car due to massive vibration, constant heat variations and intense radio interference from the ignition system added to the fact that the manufacturers must produce on a huge scale, this causes so many problems and design flaws with modern day ECUs.

Alfa Romeo common ECU faults
Audi ECU failures
BMW ECU failures
Citroen ECU failures
Fiat ECU failures
Ford ECU failures
Honda ECU failures
Hyundai ECU failures
Jaguar ECU failures
Land Rover ECU failures
Mercedes ECU failures
Mitsubishi ECU failures
Nissan ECU failures
Peugeot ECU failures
Proton ECU failures
Renault ECU failures
Rover ECU failures
SAAB ECU failures
Seat ECU failures
Suzuki ECU failures
Toyota ECU failures
Vauxhall ECU failures
VW ECU failures
Volvo ECU failures