What's the pirce to repalce a BMW 325 ECU (vehicle, tuning, replacement)

[topher5150]

I was talking to a guy that my wife works with, he's a dealer supplier, about a 2001 BMW 325i that I saw for sale. He said that he plugged it into his scanner and that the ECU was on its way out. What worried me is that he said that it would cost $3,000?? and that it would have to be programmed by BMW. Is this an accurate, or is he just full of B.S.

[NJGOAT]

Originally Posted by topher5150

I was talking to a guy that my wife works with, he's a dealer supplier, about a 2001 BMW 325i that I saw for sale. He said that he plugged it into his scanner and that the ECU was on its way out. What worried me is that he said that it would cost $3,000?? and that it would have to be programmed by BMW. Is this an accurate, or is he just full of B.S.

An ECU replacement on a 2001 325i takes all of 10 minutes and you can get the part for $200-$300 new and around $50-$150 used. You will also hear a lot about "DME" being the root cause of issues instead of the actual ECU. This is also a very straight forward fix and an even cheaper part. No programming should be required as they are "plug and play".

So, yes. He was full of it.

[iTsLiKeAnEgG]

Originally Posted by NJGOAT

An ECU replacement on a 2001 325i takes all of 10 minutes and you can get the part for $200-$300 new and around $50-$150 used. You will also hear a lot about "DME" being the root cause of issues instead of the actual ECU. This is also a very straight forward fix and an even cheaper part. No programming should be required as they are "plug and play".

So, yes. He was full of it.

I don't know if older BMW's had this feature but I know that my car comes with an immobilizer on higher trims which requires vehicle specific ECU encoding. I'm more familiar with this issue on the ECU tuning end where non immobilizer equipped cars allow for ECU flashes without issue while immobilizer equipped cars need the new ECU flash to contain some data specific to the vehicle which normally requires that the tuner read the original ECU.

[delmioquartiere]

I think It's funny he can tell that the ECU is on the way out. I wonder just how exactly that is unless he's physic!

[kbeefy]

No kidding. My scanner won't tell me that.

[minos16]

Originally Posted by delmioquartiere

I think It's funny he can tell that the ECU is on the way out. I wonder just how exactly that is unless he's physic!

I second this....ECU failure? What error code is that?

[topher5150]

He said something about a short in the ECU...but when im ready to get another car and its still there i was going to have it checked out

[GregW]

Avoid this "mechanic" in the future.

[need4speed2012]

He said that he plugged it into his scanner and that the ECU was on its way out.

If that's the case then he's the only one that I know of that can say this, its either bad or good !!!!

These don't go bad like they did many years ago, in fact many technicians will read the the output of their scanner incorrectly.

The most common one is "NO COMMUNICATION" and they assume that its bad.

Have someone with automotive knowledge recheck the vehicle correctly.

[topher5150]

I bet he bought, and just told me that to scare me off.