First post and I'm a Noob, but a fast learner.
About a month ago I knew nothing about the intricacies of VWs. Bought a nice 2000 New Beetle 1.8t manual for my daughter and she loves it (yes I made her learn how to drive on a manual-I'm that mean
) . Only one key however. Even though I warned her about locking the (only) key in the car and what it would cost her, she did it after only 2 weeks of driving solo. Shouldn't have expected more out of a 15-yo, but I tried. Cost her $70 (yes I made her pay). Determined to get a second key, I stumbled on your world and found it very interesting.
Her ecu is a 06A906032C with immo2 (at most), but you probably already knew that. It took me awhile, but I was able to successfully get the PIN, and program a new key to run the car and open the doors after I ordered a blank/FOB from ebay, had it cut for $15 at a local locksmith, and bought a generic Vagtacho cable and an ebay KKL cable (and registered version of vcds).
That was fun. In the process of learning this I also played around with reading the 95040 chip (no luck with OBD and ME7), but good success opening the ecu and putting a clip directly on the chip and using my new GQ4X programmer (you guys have all the fun). I acquired a spare ecu (032C) in case I screwed up.
Now to the story at hand. While reading profusely about the immo issue, I saw several instances where shorted O2 sensor wires kill the ECU, but only the throttle part. My local craigslist had such a vehicle (2000 1.8t automatic) for sale for parts at a good price and I though it would be good to have a parts car and even more fun to see if I could fix it (O2 sensor replace/ecu swap).
After talking to the mechanic who was working on it (and seeing his frustration), I mentioned how he could fix it. I ended up buying the car and he delivered it to my door. Typical problem, idled (although rough) but accelerator non-responsive.
I charged up the battery overnight (1.5 yo) and scanned it using vcds. Alot of short to ground errors and other things that made me believe O2 sensor short kill ecu.
I looked at the O2 sensor area under car and sure enough dangling wires, empty 6-pin female connector with 2 bare pins exposed, black box that should hold connectors gone, 4-pin O2 sensor where 6 pin sensor should be (in front of cat), hooked up to 4-pin female (also broken) with electrical tape wrapped around wires near O2 sensor. I carefully unplugged the 4-pin harness and plugged in my two ebay-acquired used OEM sensors. I started car and cleared codes. O2 sensor short code did not appear after a few minutes running the engine (only at idle). Felt confident that an ecu swap would solve the accelerator issue. This car has a 06A906032A ecu. I was able to get the PIN for this car also.
Didn't want to wait the week for my ebayed replacement ecu to arrive (still 10-days out), so I threw caution into the wind and swapped the 032A ecu with my spare 032C ecu and followed the VAGCOM instruction for swapping immo2 ecus. I knew I was taking a chance, but I was getting excited and have enough knowledge to be dangerous.
VIOLA! it worked. The accelerator pedal worked. I suspected that the ecu might not work perfectly to shift the transmission (i.e. now have a manual ecu in a automatic car), and that seemed to be the case. Really only put it in reverse and backed it up a few hundred feet and then put in drive and returned the car to its original spot. I didn't want to tempt fate and have the car die in the middle of the street. But I was very happy!
Now for the rest of the story. I purchased a used 06A906032PD ecu on ebay, but mostly for the ecu connectors to build a bench cable to get into bootmode and to have another ecu to fool around with. I started thinking that this ecu might work even better since it was for an automatic. I was feeling lucky so I went for it......
When I connected the 032PD ecu, and followed the same steps as before, the car went bonkers. Random clicking noises, flashing lights, couldn't connect well using vcds and the battery voltage dropped to 5V at the battery terminal. Battery would not charge even overnight. Car seemed to be bricked. I put the original 032A ecu back in and still absolutely nothing on ignition attempt. With all of the experimentation I had been doing, I had it coming, but I still was bummed.
Luckily, after I bought a new battery, I was able to get the car back to its original state with the old 032A ecu in there. It seems that either the battery up and died coincidently or somehow the 032PD ecu caused a huge short and killed the battery. And the low voltage gave rise to all of the lights/sounds/connectivity issues I was seeing.
Any thoughts?
Drew
