Why not fix it yourself? Can't you just buy a new ECU and plug it in? Or are they not that simple anymore. I know they used to be. Buy a pre-14 Suburban because solid rear axle master race.
so glad my expedition isn't like that. We had to fix the heater core, (but it isn't fixed). Expeditions are tanks though. Suburbans are way to long though, unwieldy. Ford has it down pat. id say look for a new one, or Google how to fix it. YouTube has opened a new age of do-it-yourself-if-you-are-willing-to-risk-it.
fixed that for you we'll probably just buy a new one "We had to fix the heater core" heh, our chevy silverado needs a new heater radiator, when heater is used it leaks radiator fluid all over the passenger footwell
Even as far back as the 90s you can find cars where it isnt just that simple. By mid 2000's, drop in ECU replacement was a thing of the past. Its usually odometer and immobiliser issues. The immobiliser is often paired seperately to the ECU, spazzes out on a replacement ECU and refuses to start the car. Most ECUs also refuse to start when the odometer reads differently to the ECU, vehicles with a digital odometer tend to track the mileage both as part of the dashboard and as part of the ECU, dual reading, ECU goes into fault mode when there is a conflict (this proves problematic for STI instrument cluster swaps in the impreza for example, although there are workarounds). If you have a mechanical odometer and no immobiliser, then yeah you may be able to just drop in a new ECU, otherwise no. Even so. $7000 is a fucking laugh. It does not cost that much to replace all 3 seperate systems that may conflict and reflash them all to factory state. You could probably equip an aftermarket ECU for less than half of that. Actually. Lets have a look at a Haltech Elite 2500. That is a top of the range aftermarket ECU, you can't really buy anything better than that for a v8 (main limit of the 2500 is that it only supports 8 ignition and 8 injection outputs, otherwise, about as high end as they come). 2495 US dollars. Ok when switching to an aftermarket setup you do need more than just the ECU, but even so, for $7000 that garage should be buying and installing an Elite 2500. What a fucking joke. - - - Updated - - - Notably, Mighty Car Mods Gramps project car used an EZ36 (boxer 6) from a subaru tribeca with an Elite 2500 and turbocharged in a Subaru Legacy/Liberty.
our core leaked fluid on the engine so when we accelerate(d) it boils and makes this awesome but scary fuel injector sound/ bubbling fluids. and it caused steam so we could not see. what year is yours, ours is a *new* 98 green machine
Talking about heater cores, let's hope mine isn't completely shit outta luck, maybe a flush might fix it. Hopefully if I'm lucky, if not then a nice tearing apart of the whole dash to get to it and replace. :/ Anyway, today we are going to NAPA and getting 4 shifter bushings for it, then installing. They slide into place, heard it's rather easy. Then the shifter won't flop like a flaccid dick.
I can understand wanting IRS on cars, but trucks, or any vehicle that you're gonna be hauling a lot of weight and/or towing with, it's best to have the stability and durability of a solid rear axle. And about heater cores; I was afraid I was gonna have to put a new one in the crown vic, but the heater actually blows hot. It's not as hot as it could be, though. I'm sure a flushing wouldn't be a bad idea. One thing I'm kinda at a loss about is how to implement an aux port into that car. I don't like the look of aftermarket stereos, so I'd like to keep the extremely simple am/fm radio in there that it has now. You can wire up a switch in the wiring between the stereo and the amp, if it's externally amplified. It provides really clear audio quality but I think it's a bit too complicated for my skill level. It's pretty simple really, but I'm dumb when it comes to electronics. :| Also, the Corolla of Doom is awesome.
Rare for a car to be externally amplified from factory, not completely unheard of though. Audi for example do it. Ford to my knowledge have always been integral. There is sometimes an aux hidden on the back of the factory head unit though, or a pinout for one on the factory PCB (this will require soldering). Otherwise, without a total reverse engineering of the entire PCB (although difficult, it is possible to cut the traces for the integrated amplifier solder in a switched harness for AUX, this is a proper hack that I have seen done before but requires a very deft hand with a soldering iron and quite some electronics knowledge), all you can do is either use an FM transmitter or replace the headunit. FM transmitters are usually pretty terrible. But I have seen one in the flesh that worked extremely well simply because it was different to the usual ones that clip ontop of a phone or whatever. It was actually a small enclosure with an antenna connection on either side and an aux input. You were supposed to connect the cable for the factory antenna to this unit, then the unit connects to the headunit and the aux cable is just obvious. Instead of genuinely transmitting over FM, it would default to simply passing through the factory antenna to the car for normal radio operation, then upon input on the aux it would cut the antenna off from the radio entirely, convert the regular stereo input to an FM signal and transmit it over the antenna socket without any actual interference from other FM stations in the area. That device wasnt cheap though. Probably best off putting up with an aftermarket headunit, there are some that do look rather nice. Or if the car takes a cassette rather than CD, cassette to AUX adapters are damn cheap, can even get cassette to bluetooth adapters (dad has one with an attached mic so it even does handsfree calling)
Or you could own the 'Rolla and not have a radio. I also found that the head unit on my truck has support for an aux jack, as there's an "AUX" button. One of my friends installed a jack on his '03 Mitsubishi Eclipse, maybe I can get him to install one.
pull the headunit then, check for a socket on the back. Oh and one I forgot. See if you can pull a wiring diagram for your headunit. Sometimes the CD changer harness (if supported) or unused pins in the ISO harness may contain the input lines for AUX. I've also heard of a device that fakes AUX over the CD changer too, but once again I expect expensive and I would predict would be proprietary to certain headunits.
Ford did it with some of their radios up until the late 90s/early 2000s. I might end up doing that. I'd really like to keep the stock radio it. Its simple, uncluttered look matches the rest of the car. The radio is so simple that it doesn't even have a cassette player. :| Originally I wanted to buy one of the nicer radios that ford put into the panthers with a cassette deck and do just that, but I've heard that the quality of those cassette to AUX adaptors is spotty.
That is damn true. The FM transmitters are worse, although the hardwired one perhaps matched the cassette. What I've found is that its hard to trump a true AUX input or CD
My Grand Marq has two little electrical boxes next to the two rear dash speakers. (The ones I just put the Rockford-Fosgates in). Idk what they are. Also, got a cassette deck that works in my car. The one that works in the Ranger won't work in the GM.
I've still got the original LW/MW radio in my car, and then have a amplifier hidden with an aux input that I hook my phone up to. Plan is to buy a small cheap DAB radio with a USB connection and aux in that can be hidden under the dash. Means I keep the original look but have modern functionality.
if we were to tow something or haul something that weigh'd enough that an SRA would be a better choice, we'd just use the silverado not to mention we'd like to actually fit normal sized people in the 3rd row, which isn't happening with an SRA full-sized suv we'll still look at them of course, being that we need a new 8 seater vehicle by this saturday (going out of town, the vehicle we've been using while expedition was in shop is a 2013 volkswagen passat, which doesn't exactly fit 8 people and we'd prefer to not do 2 trips or use 2 vehicles)
I don't think I'd go that far to keep the look of the original radio. It's just a Crown vic when it comes down to it. I remember reading a few months ago that there was some guy that would put an aux port into these radios that they put into Police Interceptors for like 60 bucks. You just send it off to him and he sends it back in a few weeks. I guess I'll do that. Crownvic.net has been down for a week now so I can't get to that thread, though.
