Corrupted ECM flash

[restwzeasy]

I'm a recent owner of a Cummins ISC 350 (attached to a Fleetwood Revolution ) and am having some strange odometer readings. I've been dealing with Freightliner and Cummins who confirmed that there is something not right. Right now the RV is in a Cummins shop where they were able to confirm that the odometer is off by 2 decimal places. The previous owner mentioned that he recently had the RV in a Cummins shop where they did an ECM flash/adjustment and Freightliner suspects that is when the problem started. The Cummins service told me that it took them hours to read the ECM. In specific, that a specific read request for codes or such would take them minutes to respond from the time they made the request and that if they tried to hurry it, the extract would simply crash on them again.

They have made an extract of my configurations and are sending them to Cummins for a patch as they said that they are locked out of the odometer adjustment section which I can understand - protection from cheating the odometer.

Does this slowness sound normal? Am I looking at a new ECM and if so how bad will it hurt?

[Skip426]

Hopefully, if the odometer read out is the only problem, the ECM is salvagable. It's a matter of a computer tech at Cummins finding the glitch, and writing a patch program for it . If yours is a one off problem that could take a while. Was the engine running OK ?

[EngineerMike]

Sounds like a hardware error causing a software problem. Software load should have been accompanied by a checksum or similar process to verify the load (I believe). Wild possibility the J1939 buss could be damaged in a way to pollute comms. In any case, a new mileage calculation has to compare properly to prior calculation results for the computer to accept it, which means to get the type of error you are seeing, memory had to join in the error somehow. Please let us know how it comes out, and what the fix is.

[dieselbeaver]

Every time an ECM is plugged into there is ALWAYS a chance for something bad to happen. It can be a problem on either end- someone flips a switch on the dash, laptop battery dies or cord partially unplugs. It doesn't take much. Even the laptop (most shops use laptops) screen saver coming on. And on that note - I've noticed alot of RV's aren't always wired for the faster datalink. So you are stuck taking longer anyway.

To the best of my knowledge there is no "patching" a factory ECM. Either the ECM is reflashed or replaced to the tune of $$$ ($1000 ball park). Cross your fingers and hope a reflash will straighten it out.

[restwzeasy]

We drove the coach for about 1000 miles and everything else seems to be running fine. The odometer appears to be the only thing. The Cummins shop did a download of the ECM data and sent it off to Cummins to review and provide feedback.

The shop thinks that somehow the odometer got shifted 2 decimal places to the left during the ECM flash that was done by the previous owner's shop. All things seem to be pointing to that even as the engine running hours also appear to have been reset at about that time. I have a printout from the Cummins shop that did the flash (prior to them doing the flash) and the odometer and engine hours look normal.

The shop also had another suggestion where they said that since they are not allowed to roll-back the odometer to a distance slightly higher than calculations (instead of about 44k they would go to 45k or 50k), that they could try to reset it and just record that it was done at 44k. Thoughts?

Finding the actual odometer value is also getting complicated since when they shifted the odometer value to left by 2 decimal places, all the traveled miles have been getting added to the wrong digits and simply shifting the odometer value to the right by 2 decimal digits would not be true value either.

I'm getting little concerned on this and will probably have a discussion with Cummins once they respond. If the odometer is suppose to be protected from tampering, how could something like shifting it left by 2 decimal digits happen? If it turns out that it was a Cummins update screw-up, what's the chance they would take on the expenses to fix it?

[Perry White]

Just read the work order from the Incite ECM reading and it should have the mileage,fuel, and hours on the engine if it is the original ECM.

[restwzeasy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perry White Just read the work order from the Incite ECM reading and it should have the mileage,fuel, and hours on the engine if it is the original ECM.

I have the printout, but the mileage, and hours, and the fuel appear to be messed up since then. By messed up I mean: the odometer is shifted to the left by 2 digits, the hours are reading about 45, and the fuel is saying around 300 gallons. The hours and fuel appear to have been reset by that flash. I checked with the shop today and apparently Cummins is still analyzing the ECM dump and trying to provide a new flash. This of course is what the shop is telling me so it could be a pile of bs, but I don`t have too much choice anyway. Before taking it to the shop I checked the values with my recently obtained VMSpc and it agreed with the strange readings. The other thing the shop mentioned was that the gear ration settings were a little strange. Not sure what their definition of `strange`is.

[Perry White]

You can't change any info for mileage, hrs, of fuel usage with the upgrade flash using the Insite program. It stays the same from the start. Did the read out give you the build date of the engine? Someone might had pulled the ECM and exchanged it. What is the model and s/n of the ecm? Does the model and serial of the engine match the engine its sitting on? Ask them if they are using the Insite program or if they are using the Calterm software.

[Perry White]

You have to set the top gear range for the trans so the speedo is right. Usually like-.74- It should show what it is set at on the read out. Also tire size is set at rev/mile something like 480. Also should show axle ratio.

[restwzeasy]

I spoke to the mechanic yesterday and got an update. He said that they heard back from the programmer/analyst and that the problem with the strange readings was introduced by a wrong offset that the previous owner's shop used when they did the flash in the summer. He said readjusting the offset and putting a comment inside the ECM explaining the readjustment should correct the problem. He's expecting about 1.5 hours worth of work. I have it scheduled to go back next week so I'll see if that is true. I'll also ask them about the software they are using.

Perry White, I'll mention the gear ratio to the shop, but honestly it is gibberish to me.

Thanks all, I'll post an update soon.

[restwzeasy]

Couple weeks ago I went to the shop to have the ECM looked at as mentioned earlier. I was standing with the mechanic while he had his laptop connected to the ECM with his Insite program. It looks like when the last shop (previous owner) flashed an update/adjustment in the summer, they reset few of the parameters. I'm not sure why, but the 'all trip' distance was set equal to the engine distance and both of them were shifted 2 digits to the left so showing 4,300,000 miles instead of 43,000.00 miles. In addition, the total fuel used and I believe the all trip hours were reset to 0.

The shop didn't touch the engine distance and set the 'all trip' distance to roughly 3500 miles - value they calculated by taking the offset 'all trip' distance with the previously known value - on printout from the last shop prior to them flashing it. I'm happy the previous owner passed that info on.

The shop verified and the ECM serial #s and bunch of the info seem identical so they don't suspect an ECM switch, but they do think that for what ever reason the previous shop reflashed the ECM - I think the profile name was changed too.

Anyway, the odometer is fine now and appears to be measuring distance correctly so I'm happy. I've added a little sticker to the odometer to indicate that I have to add about 43000 miles to the current value to get the actual travelled distance.

I guess not bad to have an 04 MH with less than 4,000 miles on it. Offers anyone?