Topic: My new PCM came in today...

[Sine Deviance]

I swapped it in, and the alternator is charging properly. So it seems like it's fixed. The Joop actually idles properly now too, so I think the old PCM was on the edge of death for quite a while...

[Jeffy]

Congrats!  You might consider dissecting your old PCM and see if you can fix it.  Usually it's the capacitors that seem to fail.  No pictures but it describes the process.  http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/crash-course-brain-surgery-replacing-capacitors-ecu-492597/

[95yjman]

cool, glad you got it running back to normal again!

[Sine Deviance]

Congrats!  You might consider dissecting your old PCM and see if you can fix it.  Usually it's the capacitors that seem to fail.  No pictures but it describes the process.  http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/crash-course-brain-surgery-replacing-capacitors-ecu-492597/

Well, I did inspect all the capacitors and they check out visually. Usually if a capacitor is blown you get a bulging top or leaking fluid. I deal with those alot in the computer field. In any case, the meat of my issue seemed to be isolated to the onboard voltage regulator, not the PCM as a whole. The Jeep runs when it's plugged up, and won't crank up when it's not, which is unusual because lots of cars will run in limp-mode without the ECU plugged in. Even so, I guess some part of it is still working. I gotta ship the old one off for core charge anyways :(

cool, glad you got it running back to normal again!

Thanks!

[TrailsLessTaken]

Where did you order that from and how much was it if you dont mind sharing

[smashcoast]

What's the PCM?

[sharpxmen]

What's the PCM?

powertrain control module - it is the efi computer also known as the ECU

[Sine Deviance]

Where did you order that from and how much was it if you dont mind sharing

No problem!

I ordered it from National Parts LLC (http://www.searchparts.com/) and I paid $415 and some change for it. The one I got is rebuilt or remanufactured, but it looks BRAND-FRICKIN-NEW, so it was likely just an open-box return that was never installed. The actual price is $365 + a $50 core charge, which I'll get back after I ship the old one in. However...

The PCM I got has a sticker on it showing that it actually came from Automotive Computer Exchange. I went to their website (http://www.autocomputerexchange.com/) before I ever ordered it and they were quoting a price of $229.99, however the catch is that they take about three weeks to ship because you have to send your old core in FIRST, and then they rebuild it and ship it back. We couldn't afford to wait that long. Not only that, I did some googling about the company and I saw a lot of people saying they had paid for parts and shipped in their cores, but never received them back, so I didn't want to take a chance. You could save about $130 (with the core charge) by going through ACE provided nothing goes wrong, but it will take about three weeks to get it as opposed to a few days. I ordered my PCM Tuesday morning and it got here by noon this morning, so it got here in exactly three days. In my opinion it was money well spent and I would go through National Parts again.

[TrailsLessTaken]

Thanks I appreciate the info