JET Programmable P.C.M.

[MikeB]

Please bear with me guys....I'm as far away from a mechanic/ car lingo guru / as you can get, I just like to drive fast cars. I hope I don't sound like a total idiot and that someone on here may be able to help. I recently purchased my 2000 TA. I had to take it back to the dealer to get the inspection updated....I knew this upon purchase as we discussed prior too. Keep in mind I have had no out of pocket expenses through this, its all gone through the dealer and his Mech at his cost, so I'm not out anything additonal here so my question is more to just gain knowledge.

Some Background:

The car would not pass emission testing due to bad O2 sensor as I understand (the one behind the Catalytic converter). So it was changed....still had SES light come on. Back to dealer.....this time they thought it was caused by the JET Programmable PCM so they removed it. once again SES comes back on.....still getting bad O2 sensor codes. (I do not know the codes this is just what they are telling me). Now tomorrow they are changing the O2 sensor that is infront ot the Catalytic converter. We will see it this works. I had the opportunity to drive the car after the JET was removed and noticed some deffinate change in performance....slower acceleration and shifting mainly.....you know the things we love with these cars....its still great but there seemed to be a difference.

Now to my Questions:

Do these Modules go bad?
Is there anyway to test them to see if they are still functioning properly?
Does the above problem sound legit or are these guys blowing smoke up my ass?
With both O2 sensors changed if the SES does not come back on I should be able to re-install the JET PCM?

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys....thanks.

[Wesman]

Some Background:

The car would not pass emission testing due to bad O2 sensor as I understand (the one behind the Catalytic converter). So it was changed....still had SES light come on. Back to dealer.....this time they thought it was caused by the JET Programmable PCM so they removed it. once again SES comes back on.....still getting bad O2 sensor codes. (I do not know the codes this is just what they are telling me). Now tomorrow they are changing the O2 sensor that is infront ot the Catalytic converter. We will see it this works. I had the opportunity to drive the car after the JET was removed and noticed some deffinate change in performance....slower acceleration and shifting mainly.....you know the things we love with these cars....its still great but there seemed to be a difference.

Sounds like they have no clue what they are doing. The PCM codes are specific to each sensor - it will be any combination of bank 1/bank 2 and sensor 1/sensor 2. So if the codes are for bank 1 & 2 secondary sensors, changing the primaries is not going to fix the problem.

It sounds to me like the catalytic converters on your car have gone bad. If you change the O2's and they still throw codes for "catalyst efficiency below threshhold", then the cats themselves are bad, not the sensors. The dealership is probably just trying to avoid having the replace the cats, as they are quite expensive.

Now to my Questions:

Do these Modules go bad?
Is there anyway to test them to see if they are still functioning properly?
Does the above problem sound legit or are these guys blowing smoke up my ass?

I'm sure the module is fine. If they removed the module and the CEL still came back, then its not the chip thats causing the problem.

With both O2 sensors changed if the SES does not come back on I should be able to re-install the JET PCM?

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys....thanks.

Yes, once the issue is resolved, you can reinstall the JET chip.

[MikeB]

Much appreciated....thank you. I kind of had a feeling not everything was being put on the table by the dealer. I think you hit it right on the head....they are trying to avoid any additional costs. Thanks again.

[Wesman]

Much appreciated....thank you. I kind of had a feeling not everything was being put on the table by the dealer. I think you hit it right on the head....they are trying to avoid any additional costs. Thanks again.

No prob.