wormwood

WP0AB29919S721022
Clean Carfax

Doug H

I will pull it here in a bit. More about timing and location. Carfax can answer a couple of questions such as: How long has the dealer had this car? Could it have had flood damage immediately prior to trade in and it just has not shown up? Did this car go through an auction? Where was car located prior to trade in or auction? Was this an area that got flooded and etc. Its a long shot, but you never know.

Evidence of water damage can be remedied quickly if not too, too bad. The problem is lingering after effects on electrical? Then again, the car could be perfect and just a weird ECU or battery issue.

docdrs

I would ask what specifically happened, what codes. I would want a printout before moving forward. It must be throwing codes for a reason. I do remember when my HPFP went it was driving fine and then wham, reduced engine power and it ran like crap, maybe it’s something simple like that. Good luck

wormwood

They took it in on a trade from a known owner. Texas based (Dallas) with four owners.

PV997

First off, I'd like to know what they noticed in the first place. Did the dashboard display show an error and if so what was it? Did they try to fix something in response to this?

If there was no dashboard notification, why were they monkeying around with the ECU in the first place? They would never known the ECU was "alerting some codes" (not sure what that means) unless they were trying to read them. So why were they reading the ECU, did they suspect something was wrong? It's very common for the ECU to have stored error codes due to dead battery faults particularly after sitting on a dealer lot for a while. So did they see old stored faults or was something faulting right then and there?

As to the ECU "locking up" what do they mean by that? It's not like when you put in the wrong password and your account gets locked out. What exactly were they doing, why were they doing it, and what specifically happened to the ECU? Was everything else still functioning? Were they just not able to talk to the ECU or is it DOA? Would the car start once this happened? What made them think they had to remove the ECU? Are they replacing the unit, reprogramming it, or maybe just resetting it? The last two could have been done with the ECU in the car.

Perhaps something is being lost in translation but I would be very concerned by the vague description you are getting. I'd want to know exactly everything that happened, the records from the ECU reads, and a specific explanation for everything they have done up to this point.

wormwood

They were prepping the car for delivery and getting the state inspection when they saw the codes. They have a computer in house, but we’re unable to reset the codes so they need to send it out to someone else that has a different computer to flash it “as if it rolled right out of the factory”. They say it’s happened before, but is rare (twice in the last 100 cars).

I drove the car multiple times and there were no warning lights and no issues at all and it’s in pristine condition. They did have to jump the battery, because it had been sitting in inventory for some time. I’ve asked for the codes.

The team at the dealership has been great to work with it, not pushy at all and professional.

Doug H

Dead or weak battery can cause unusual codes.

wormwood

They didn’t get a screen grab, but were all random for different sensors. Not pertinent to anything wrong with the vehicle, just random codes that the computer was reading incorrectly.

Doug H

Probably a lot of can bus codes. May be totally cool. They inability to erase could be just difficulty communicating with ECU depending upon why disagnoostic tool they are using. Dealer should have no problems. This could all be for not.

PV997

It absolutely can, through it shouldn't require the ECU to be reprogrammed. Hopefully it's just one of those glitches and not something more serious. If the car doesn't come with a warranty you might want to push for a free sixty day warranty (or something like that) in case there is actually an intermittent issue with the ECU hardware itself. A new ECU is $1100 from Sunset.

https://www.sunsetporscheparts.com/o...g2LWdhcw%3D%3D

wormwood

11

Petza914

Before reading through all the responses, I was thinking this could simply be a weak or dead battery.

​​Proceed cautiously.

eddieb4

WALK ...

wormwood

Thank you for the feedback. I walked on the car. Probably saved me massive headaches. I found a clean car in Florida and I’m going to pick it up and drive it back with my son this weekend. Better result all around. You guys are great!

ccdoggy

Great Decision. Have a great trip and enjoy the drive back!