What do you do with a dead car?

My mum’s 2006 Nissan Micra has got a knackered ecu, replacement is £900 apparently… is the garage having a laugh or is it time to give up and if so what is a non functioning car worth?

Bury it.

Ring around some ecu reconditioners, part numbers at the ready…

Scrap yard, collection only or eBay same thing really.

My courtesy light did not work on my car Nissan wanted £400 to buy and fit some sort of relay box thingie.
Got one for £20 from a breakers yard via the t’internet.

Ask Nissan for the part number and have a look around.

http://www.eurocarparts.com/car-parts?gclid=CNGeu6Df38ECFYrjwgod1IIAvA
Or local scrap yard…

Fire stations always need scrap cars to practice on.

Spares or repairs cars go for quite good money on eBay. That said a ‘new’ used ecu shouldn’t be hard to find for a car like that.

Indeed – if the problem is diagnosed describe that and any other faults clearly and flog it on ebay. It’ll sell for more than you would get for it as scrap.

A new ecu would be about £900, plus a bit more as someone with the correct equipment needs to transfer your cars identity onto the new unit. But do a bit of research and see if you can get a reconditioned on. You probably shouldn’t just buy a second hand one off ebay – they have the car’s identity programmed into them and they won’t recognise things like the central locking/imobiliser/ignition. But there are little cottage industries repairing and reprogramming old units.

On my astra that meant just unplugging the edu – sticking it in a jiffy bag and posting it away, a reconditioned one with my edu settings cloned from my old one arrived back 48hrs later. Plugged it back in and sorted. £200.

mac has the best advice.

It’s almost sinful to scrap a car or any piece of consumer equipment for want of one spare part that can be got for small money from a recycler. Owning a Land Rover puts you in the mindset that buying a new part is madness when good used parts are so easy to source and fit.

(I’ve just visited a mahoosive Chrysler breaker in Oswaldtwistle and paid a small amount of cash for an inlet manifold, which I’m sending out to a bloke in South Africa who drives for me – he took his Grand Voyager in for a service and one of the mechanics sold his manifold to a scrap metal collector, rendering the car worthless. The GV is his work tool and most important asset so it would be criminal to allow it to fester away in the corner of the compound for want of one part.)

mac has the best advice.

always

I now advise you all to send me 1/3rd of your salaries by paypal gift

he took his Grand Voyager in for a service and one of the mechanics sold his manifold to a scrap metal collector, rendering the car worthless.

I realise things are done a bit differently in SA but that’s incredible!

Depends what the residual value of the car is likely to be.

Garage may not be having a laugh, try another garage.
However my (actually quite unsafe) Saab failed its MoT, the scrap value was £80; rather than flog on eBay (all set to do that, but likely sale – 4% ?) I flogged it to a mechanic at the garage for the same sum.

Headlights and wipers stopped working on daughters 04 Micra, taken it into local garage who think it may be the ecu unit. Just waiting for an update from them.
Will be interesting to see what they quote.

If you do scrap it, go to http://www.giveacar.co.uk/ and nominate the charity ‘UK Youth’ please, cheers

Ebay, non runner. Someone will buy it for parts or to break.

http://www.the-ecu-doctor.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

Rubbish website but drop them an email and check they can do you’re make and model. Looks like £140 if they can fix you up, free if they can’t.

Cheers guys, all very helpful.

bba-reman are also worth a call, had a lot of ecu and modules from them guys and all have been excellent.

Now that I’ve had a chance to talk properly to the mechanic his view is to get rid, as the ecu failure burnt out the ignition coils, and his concern going forward is that more damage may have been done.

So what car for a wee granny to dodge about in? Looking at leasing something under£130 pm any comments on the Hyundai i10?

Dump it on the pavement outside my neighbour’s house? Apparently they get really narked when people park on “their” bit of road (so the officious little note stuck to my car informed me).

Isn’t there a company that buys any, any, any car from 50 quid to a hundred grand. Or are they smallprint monkeys? Or have they gone bust? Failing that I second Flaperon’s recommendation on parking on someone else’s ‘bit’ of road.

There is a car charity which will take your car fix it up and sell it giving you half he money net of costs. My neighbour used them. If of interest I will get the name. I think they assess whether it’s worth fixing and if not they scrap it.

Headlights and wipers stopped working on daughters 04 Micra

Could be something as simple as a column stalk if they both operate from their.

Dirty contacts on electrical switches etc can cause all sorts of problems but can be relatively easy to fix, had a issue on the Fly by wire throttle on my Renault Modus which turned out to be dirty contacts.

Is it a diesel by any chance? A guy at work had a very similar experience with his Note, got it fixed and got rid ASAP. Apparantly it’s something to do with dodgy electrics but as it’s a Renault unit that couldn’t possibly be the case…

Scrap and spares/repair- why?

Have you checked ALL fuses first? Looked on all forums? Type search for nissan AND renault as I imagine some renaults use the same parts. A 06 Micra is worth good money to you. A new ECU? Mark your old one- see if its still in place after the ‘fix’..

Call round a few renault/nissan indies and describe the fault.

Never ever take the first diagnosis of a big bill.

Can you describe all the symptoms? My car was totally dead two weeks ago- I did 250miles the day before. Not a click/lights/totally dead- I checked all fuses then replaced the newish battery. Bingo. Anyone could have described that as big faults. It had no symptoms of a dodgy battery.

Is it a diesel by any chance?

I suspect not. 😉

…the ecu failure burnt out the ignition coils…

If you are closeish to and want rid- I need a learner car for mrshora

My cynicism about dealers and garages increased by 200% when my dealer tried to tell me my Passat needed new discs at 17,000 miles. I realised the receptionist was talking from a prepared script.

cars are circa 100 quid a tonne delivered to your local scrappy..

Hora – I took their word that the billowing smoke from the engine bay was a bit of sign that all was not well. The ECU is supposed to fire the coils at the right time, in this case they were just firing constantly hence the burning out.
I don’t fancy my mum running around over the winter in a car which the mechanic – who is not making any money out of this btw – has suggested is scrap. The car is in Glasgow – yours for £100.10p collection only 😀 .

Globalti you think thats good .

Pentland cupar tried to tell my parents they put half a bottle of 20quid screen wash in their car at the service.

My dad asked where they stuck it in the car and if they could show him

Out they went to the car and they showed him the screen wash tank.

My dad asked then if they could show him where the leak was that it needed a half bottle of this wonder fluid between him filling the screen wash last night and him driving it to cupar – having not used the screenwash at all.

Screenwash was struck from the bill.

As were the tires and brake disks they tried to sell him- benifits of large mainly open alloy wheels – you can see the pads …which he checked before he took it.

Sbh . The only time i would be overly sceptical at the mechanics comments is if he turns round and offers to buy it off you for a nominal fee or take it in lew of diagnosis….. Ie he knows its an easy fix/flip for profit. Otherwise hes probably telling the truth.

List it on ebay then – any mechanic would bid if you put up enough pics etc. Dont scrap it. Its worth more than £150

Damn, was too late and I missed that bit…