ECU problem on my 2016 berlingo van

[Plumbergonewrong]

Hi every one was liking my berlingo but not so much anymore. I went to Germany to work for 3 weeks came home and the battery was dead so I removed it and charged it up ok every thing seemed for a few weeks till 2 weeks ago battery was going dead over night . I tested it to see if there was a drain and there was a 1 amp drain on it but couldn't find the fuse were it was but during doing this as I removed my ecu well moved it out of the way to test the fuses located behind it I had my metr Leeds in my hands I think I shorted the ecu. When I put the key in the ignition stop light comes on and van wont try and start like the immobiliser has kicked in is there anyway to tell for sure if I need to buy a new ecu or can i reset it with out having the engine running any help could be greatly appreciated thanks

[Sol]

I take it you had the red meter lead in the amps socket? That makes the meter a dead short. Lots of my fellow sparkies have been caught out by that one. You forget to move lead back to the normal v/ohms socket and try to measure voltage...bang. We've all done it at some point.

Did you get a flash or sparks when you shorted something?

Anyway, if you're lucky you've blown a fuse. Take the top tray of fuses off the fusebox on the rhs engine bay, underneath the normal panel of fuses, are a lot of critical ones you cannot see, until the upper tray of normal ones are out of the way. May be riveted down believe it or not. Check every fuse on continuity on the meter and replace what's blown, then do a BSI reset to clear any remaining odd behaviour. You should do this any time you take the battery off and put it back on, in my own opinion. (BSI reset that is) - see below vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQwhzngHQw4

[Plumbergonewrong]

Reply thanks for advise I did get a spark it was of the ecu box and my multimeter leed hope your right and I haven't blown the the ecu not cant remember if I had it set right for milli volts or had left the lead in the 10 amp fuse I'll take the ecu u out of the way and check the fuses below fingers crossed

[Sol]

Ok, if you see the fuse box next to the battery, the top layer of fuses and relays can be unhooked and lifted up but it may be riveted to the lower section. Under it are several large fuses for main supplies. If you are lucky you will just have blown one or two. I'm still a bit confused as to how you could short the ECU with the meter though, what were you checking? The plugs on the ECU should not have accessable pins on the outside. Or did you have the ECU cover off? Testing on the actual PCB?

[Plumbergonewrong]

I was moving the ecu to get at the fuses to test the milli volts test to see if one of them was pulling power from the battery I think one of my Leeds hit the positive of the battery and the ecu box and there was I flash thought at the time well done genius I have checked the fuses from your advice earlier but no joy there all good things are not looking good I forgot to Manchin that the stop light is on, on the dash board thanks for your help but if you can think of anything I could try it would be much aspirated

[Sol]

So if you pulled the ECU up, and touched the casing onto the battery positive, which would be pretty hard to do actually, the worst you could do is blow a main battery fuse, did you check the heavy copper links under the battery red cover? Maybe one of those melted out. The ECU can't be actually lifted clear unless you cut the heads on the shear bolts?

See this video:

https://youtu.be/7-f5yYpCl5A

[Plumbergonewrong]

Sorry I never said as i had taken the battery out to charge it before and was trying to discover the problem i never put the battery cover box back in place so the battery terminals were exposed plus the ecu had been removed by other owner i think as the part in the video wasn't there so i could just slide it up and out of the way to access the lower fuses but this ment it went to the battery think i might be doomed to getting a new ecu but I'm going to be optimistic might get lucky

[Sol]

Ah ok, so you may have actually buckled or spot welded the ECU casing! It's worth pulling the ECU again and look for damage to the case, now I understand what happened, you most likely blew out an ECU earth connection. Check all the earth wires from the ECU for damage but critically check how the ECU PCB is connected to ground from the PCB to the casing or any earth tags etc. These could have got flashed off.

A car battery can fully weld steel so melting a connector or alloy cover earth tags would happen in an instant. I think you're looking for a melted or burned earth, not a fuse now.

Btw I don't think it's possible to fit a used ECU, you would need the immo box, ECU, keys, dash (instrument) pod etc unless I'm mistaken as you can't program another ECU to your van unless it's a brand new / virgin blank unit. You may be able to buy a reflashed one from somewhere that does remaps.

[Sol]

On another note, you can try this - run (connect) a temporary earth cable to the ECU casing using a jump lead or a wire on a screw etc, back to the main body earth point to the right of that fuse box where the ECU lives, directly from the ECU case, to earth and securely connected, then try to start the van, see what it does.

[Plumbergonewrong]

Sorry tried looking on the net for earth tags or pints on the ecu with no joy I had a quick look at the ecu to see if I would have a euricka moment but no couldn't see any Mark's at all on the body of the ecu not sure if I should open it but think that's something left to someone that's competent and not a hamfusted warrior like me if you could pint me to somewhere were I might get visual info of watch to look for or location of earths on the ecu would be great thanks for all your help and advice