anthonymsaad
Active Member
For those that recall many months ago, I had the boat with an ECM that wouldn't power down and kept resetting the odometer to the last saved value. This post is long, I'm sorry. Just really confused as to what is going on. Apparently no one at BRP, among their experts, ever saw an ECM unable to track hours, even after replacing the ECM like 5 times.
So long story short, boat has been worked for about 11 months now. BRP finally flew in some technical expert from Canada. In the like 10hrs he worked on my boat, he supposedly solved the issue that has plagued the dealer mechanics, and the BRP experts they called, that after over 11 MONTHS, with no progress to the cause or how to solve it, this guy solved it in under ~10 HOURS. Can't argue with that, but he said that my aftermarket Wet Sounds amplifier was the cause.
Background info, I have 2 batteries installed to handle the sound system and the radio head unit and remote were acting weird in that, at times, it wouldn't recognize button inputs. It'd turn on with power, play music, maybe allow you to change stations or volume, but most often, you couldn't change any of that. At one point, when powering up, it wouldn't get past the Jensen Logo for 30min, but playing the radio station fine. I figured that was an indication of it getting Low Voltage, especially since the Volt gauge would read ~12.5V, not the 14V it's supposed to be. In my head, was thinking that whatever was keeping the ECM power was causing that drop in voltage and diverting voltage from the radio unit. Not sure where the Volt gauge is wired in and what it's reading.
From what he told me, he spent the first day on my boat putting everything to stock, not sure what else besides the Amp and dual batteries and getting started diagnostics. Next morning, within the 30min the dealer opened, i get the call that he fixed my boat. He said that the Amp was tied to the ignition switch and was keeping my port ECM on (not the starboard ECM which was fine and tracking hours properly when i dropped it off). And now, my radio is fried, and somehow both my ECMs were fried and needed to be replaced, because of the amplifier. For anyone who can help, the boat was under warranty when it was dropped off and presumed warranty would cover this and don't want to be screwed with 11 months of labor, a bunch of parts, 2 new ECMs, and what not. If it was something aftermarket, i can suck it up. But when i asked for more reasons why he thought it was the amp of all things, kept telling me random things, like my starboard ECM is now suddenly fried even though I dropped it off with it fine, or explain how the amp could bypass a bunch of security protocols to prevent the port ECM to stop updating but not effect the starboard ECM. More oddly and confusing to me is that he said, with both ECMs fried, he could fire both engines up without the key.
With that said, if anyone reading this if familiar with installing sound systems and or amps, would REALLY really appreciate some help, either helping me understand how it caused such major issues or prove to BRP that it's BS an amp could do that. I have a few questions so if anyone could answer them, THANK YOU!
1) How should an amp be wired in to power on with the key position?
-The previous owner had the sound system installed (told professionally by an authorized Wet Sounds dealer and wired by them), but couldn't verify for myself.
2) If an amp was wired improperly with the ignition switch, guess with it turning on with the key in the off position and before the actual radio head unit turned on with the key in accessory mode, would that really cause a back feed or somehow interfere with the ECMs??
3) If the ignition switch is just the switch providing power to the amp, off a DC circuit, it would pull voltage away from the circuit, not direct it elsewhere? Essentially, looking at the ignition switch, powering the Amp would be able to direct or create a feedback into the system.
-If it did, aren't there fuses or something between the ignition switch and ECM alerting that or fuses and diodes preventing that?
4) Back to powering the Amp, the only voltage output I'm aware of is to the speakers, not anywhere else really. And if somehow it was, and somehow directly connected to powering the ECM, that Voltage would either fry the ECM or, with the fluctuating analog signal, ECM issue would be intermittent and not occur if no music was playing.
5) If the ECM is being powered on by the amp, why would it effect the odometer and prevent it from saving new hours from temp memory to permanent memory??
- if its hold it on, it will keep the ECM on, really both ECMs, but that is it. Not interrupt power down signals to convert memory. Issue really seems to be impacting whatever the ECM gets it's signal from to count hours.
Over the past 11 months, they've replaced everything from the gauge cluster, to the ECM, and everything in between. Besides finding out a new replacement engine harness doesn't exist even after a dealer orders it, and waiting 3 months and making calls to realize it, they've even cut up my engine harness to replace diodes in it. A lot more stuff occurred that I kinda gave up calling to find out. But the more peculiar issue was that when they swapped ECMs between each other, the issue followed with the ECM and the starboard ECM on the port engine works perfectly, while the port ECM on the starboard engine doesn't. BUT, when they got 2 brand new ECMs, didn't transfer data and set up the engines as brand new, the port ECM displayed issues but not the starboard. After having the ECM software looked at, thinking it was corrupted, and physically examined by somewhere and informed they're working fine and not damaged, non of this makes sense to say that an amp caused this.
So my biggest fear right now is that BRP is just trying to blame the issue on something rather irrelevant, thinking the owner wouldn't know any better to question it. And to somehow diagnose and fix the issue that fast seems too good to be true. Since the issue moves with the port ECM, and moving the starboard ECM is fine, I STRONGLY believe that they cloned the data from the starboard ECM onto another ECM, which they replaced the port ECM with. That way, the data is fine, hours are now matching, not more problems, or at least mask the issue.
So long story short, boat has been worked for about 11 months now. BRP finally flew in some technical expert from Canada. In the like 10hrs he worked on my boat, he supposedly solved the issue that has plagued the dealer mechanics, and the BRP experts they called, that after over 11 MONTHS, with no progress to the cause or how to solve it, this guy solved it in under ~10 HOURS. Can't argue with that, but he said that my aftermarket Wet Sounds amplifier was the cause.
Background info, I have 2 batteries installed to handle the sound system and the radio head unit and remote were acting weird in that, at times, it wouldn't recognize button inputs. It'd turn on with power, play music, maybe allow you to change stations or volume, but most often, you couldn't change any of that. At one point, when powering up, it wouldn't get past the Jensen Logo for 30min, but playing the radio station fine. I figured that was an indication of it getting Low Voltage, especially since the Volt gauge would read ~12.5V, not the 14V it's supposed to be. In my head, was thinking that whatever was keeping the ECM power was causing that drop in voltage and diverting voltage from the radio unit. Not sure where the Volt gauge is wired in and what it's reading.
From what he told me, he spent the first day on my boat putting everything to stock, not sure what else besides the Amp and dual batteries and getting started diagnostics. Next morning, within the 30min the dealer opened, i get the call that he fixed my boat. He said that the Amp was tied to the ignition switch and was keeping my port ECM on (not the starboard ECM which was fine and tracking hours properly when i dropped it off). And now, my radio is fried, and somehow both my ECMs were fried and needed to be replaced, because of the amplifier. For anyone who can help, the boat was under warranty when it was dropped off and presumed warranty would cover this and don't want to be screwed with 11 months of labor, a bunch of parts, 2 new ECMs, and what not. If it was something aftermarket, i can suck it up. But when i asked for more reasons why he thought it was the amp of all things, kept telling me random things, like my starboard ECM is now suddenly fried even though I dropped it off with it fine, or explain how the amp could bypass a bunch of security protocols to prevent the port ECM to stop updating but not effect the starboard ECM. More oddly and confusing to me is that he said, with both ECMs fried, he could fire both engines up without the key.
With that said, if anyone reading this if familiar with installing sound systems and or amps, would REALLY really appreciate some help, either helping me understand how it caused such major issues or prove to BRP that it's BS an amp could do that. I have a few questions so if anyone could answer them, THANK YOU!
1) How should an amp be wired in to power on with the key position?
-The previous owner had the sound system installed (told professionally by an authorized Wet Sounds dealer and wired by them), but couldn't verify for myself.
2) If an amp was wired improperly with the ignition switch, guess with it turning on with the key in the off position and before the actual radio head unit turned on with the key in accessory mode, would that really cause a back feed or somehow interfere with the ECMs??
3) If the ignition switch is just the switch providing power to the amp, off a DC circuit, it would pull voltage away from the circuit, not direct it elsewhere? Essentially, looking at the ignition switch, powering the Amp would be able to direct or create a feedback into the system.
-If it did, aren't there fuses or something between the ignition switch and ECM alerting that or fuses and diodes preventing that?
4) Back to powering the Amp, the only voltage output I'm aware of is to the speakers, not anywhere else really. And if somehow it was, and somehow directly connected to powering the ECM, that Voltage would either fry the ECM or, with the fluctuating analog signal, ECM issue would be intermittent and not occur if no music was playing.
5) If the ECM is being powered on by the amp, why would it effect the odometer and prevent it from saving new hours from temp memory to permanent memory??
- if its hold it on, it will keep the ECM on, really both ECMs, but that is it. Not interrupt power down signals to convert memory. Issue really seems to be impacting whatever the ECM gets it's signal from to count hours.
Over the past 11 months, they've replaced everything from the gauge cluster, to the ECM, and everything in between. Besides finding out a new replacement engine harness doesn't exist even after a dealer orders it, and waiting 3 months and making calls to realize it, they've even cut up my engine harness to replace diodes in it. A lot more stuff occurred that I kinda gave up calling to find out. But the more peculiar issue was that when they swapped ECMs between each other, the issue followed with the ECM and the starboard ECM on the port engine works perfectly, while the port ECM on the starboard engine doesn't. BUT, when they got 2 brand new ECMs, didn't transfer data and set up the engines as brand new, the port ECM displayed issues but not the starboard. After having the ECM software looked at, thinking it was corrupted, and physically examined by somewhere and informed they're working fine and not damaged, non of this makes sense to say that an amp caused this.
So my biggest fear right now is that BRP is just trying to blame the issue on something rather irrelevant, thinking the owner wouldn't know any better to question it. And to somehow diagnose and fix the issue that fast seems too good to be true. Since the issue moves with the port ECM, and moving the starboard ECM is fine, I STRONGLY believe that they cloned the data from the starboard ECM onto another ECM, which they replaced the port ECM with. That way, the data is fine, hours are now matching, not more problems, or at least mask the issue.
