femmeDSM
15+ Year Contributor
- 980
- 68
- Oct 31, 2004
-
D/FW,
Texas
I've been having problems with my ECT. At first, I found a loose wire (yellow one) which I soldered and re-connected. This seemed to fix the problem for a couple weeks. Then, the other day, my car became excessively hard to start when cold, and shortly thereafter (lo and behold) my car threw the dreaded Coolant Temp Sensor CEL again.
I checked the wiring, it was good. I also checked the voltage at the little plug, and it was within specs. I figured the problem might be with the sensor itself, so I went to check the resistance, following the FSM's instructions of "measuring resistance between the two terminals". Well....I got down there and found that one of the "terminals" was...er...gone.
I assume (haha) that this means that I will need a new sensor (
). I will order one this week...
My weird problem is this, though:
I tried unplugging the ECT completely, and starting the car (just to see what would happen, for curiosity's sake). My guess was that the car wouldn't start at all, since the engine was cold, and the car hadn't been started in over 24 hours. Not so.....The car ran better than it has ever run - idle was smooth, no random stalling, drove and boosted perfectly, just like nothing was wrong. WTF ???
I thought a bad ECT made the car run like crap (or not run at all). Why would unplugging this make my car super happy?
Just curious. Maybe someone has some insight on this. I'm quite puzzled.
I checked the wiring, it was good. I also checked the voltage at the little plug, and it was within specs. I figured the problem might be with the sensor itself, so I went to check the resistance, following the FSM's instructions of "measuring resistance between the two terminals". Well....I got down there and found that one of the "terminals" was...er...gone.
I assume (haha) that this means that I will need a new sensor (
). I will order one this week...My weird problem is this, though:
I tried unplugging the ECT completely, and starting the car (just to see what would happen, for curiosity's sake). My guess was that the car wouldn't start at all, since the engine was cold, and the car hadn't been started in over 24 hours. Not so.....The car ran better than it has ever run - idle was smooth, no random stalling, drove and boosted perfectly, just like nothing was wrong. WTF ???
I thought a bad ECT made the car run like crap (or not run at all). Why would unplugging this make my car super happy?
Just curious. Maybe someone has some insight on this. I'm quite puzzled.
No more persistent CEL, no more hard starts. Finally I have a driveable DSM, after many many months of "one thing after another" type problems. woohoooo.
