The dealer has diagnosed that the PCM on the 2002 Ford Explorer must be replaced. Can I replace this with a JET Performance Chip PCM. Which is an aftermarket PCM and says it boosts HP. Will the new PCM stand alone or does it have to have the factory PCM also?
http://www…7A0A0.aspx
Is there any other choice than to pay through the nose for the factory PCM?
looking at your link it appears that is only a ‘chip’, not the PCM assembly.
If your diag truly needs a PCM, then you still need a PCM.
And it sounds from your reply, that the dealer is the only place to get the PCM, or if I’m fortunate, perhaps a junk yard where the model just cam in.
Thanks for the immediate reply. I understand what I must do. Pleasant doing business with you.
A PCM can also be ordered through some parts houses like ; CarQuest, AutoZone, O’Reilly-Checker etc.
What about the Federal 8yrs 80K warranty on the PCM,do you qualify?
Thanks for thinking of the Federal warranty.
Unless there is some allowance to just over 100K miles,
I don’t think I can get in under it.
I’ll consider the third parties. but I’m not sure, there appears to be a programming task associated with putting in the new PCM, as opposed to just plug and go. That could be more to mess up since I don’t program these everyday. It seems a little daunting for me.
It looks
Believe it or not…it’s VERY RARE for the computer chip to break…99.999% of the time it’s something wired to chip on the board or a sensor. But chips rarely ever malfunction.
For others’ benefit, I question the value of the chips sold on that web site. They’ll sell you a chip for just about any car, which makes me doubt that they could possibly spend the time needed to understand how to actually improve the performance for that many different cars.
If the new chip doesn’t make it work, that’s the dealers misdiagnosis, eh?
I believe you that it’s not really the chip, but what else can I do?
I recommend the Ford PCM. The 2002 models of everything seem to have lots of power that I never use anyway. An Explorer is heavy enough to ignore a little extra power. My 1984 (bad year for power) pickup truck wouldn’t go faster uphill when I pushed the pedal down; it would just make more noise. When I installed a real carburetor, it made a difference. Too bad it’s not that easy these days. $75.
The Jet Chip is just a piggyback chip that attaches to an existing ECU. It’s not a standalone unit. Anyway if you were looking to adjust the ECU parameters, it would make more sense to use a hand-held tuner since your car is OBD II compliant. I have Diablosport Predator tuner for my car. In addition to changing “tunes” in the ECU, it also functions as an OBD-II scanner and a data logger.
But to replace the computer you’ll pay handsomely for it.