[EVOrange]

Last week, I was trying to flash a new TCU version (the TCU from 2011+ MR) for a friend’s 2010 SST MR, using MUT-3, but it failed with no reason. I’ve done the same thing many times, even to my own car, and this is quite popular here in the local community of EVO. But this is the first time I’ve ever had a failure. The car is almost stock, including ECU.

The worse thing is, the failure seems to cause a disconnection between ECU and TCU. Now the engine can start, idel, rev … you can change the gear nob, but no gear would go it. In other words, the ECU is fine, I can read/write with ECUFlash, but the TCU is kinda bricked I believe.

From MUT-3, the whole CAN-Bus looks no problem at all (see attached image), but when using any OBD interface, like MUT-3 or OP2.0+ EvoScan, it just keeps saying something like 'communication to SST control unit failed', or like ‘CAN connection time out’, or like ‘TC-SST time out’, etc. … You can clear these DTCs, but they will turn up again in seconds. This seems really weird to me, since if the CAN-Bus is all fine, there is no reason why the connection to the TCU cannot be established. But the symptom here seems to me that the CAN bus connection of the TC-SST (or the ASC) is totally down or blocked.

We’ve tried many ways, like upgrading MUT-3 to the latest version, cut-out the battery for 6hrs, etc., reflashing the ECU, or try to reflash the TCU again (of course it failed, again) But none of those would work.

The Mitsu dealer says that what they can do now is to just replace the whole SST. But I am thinking that it must be a software problem and can be fixed via software.

I know how to deal with a bricked ECU, but have never seen any discussion on bricked TCU after I’ve done lots of search on evom and evoxforum. I've also asked many masters here, but no one seems to have come across this issue before.

So ... anyone has any idea? Thanks heaps in advance!

-Bin

 

[Tweak]

Well thats a new one. Bricked tcu.
With only a hand full of TCU nerds around i think this will be a very interesting thread

 

[EVOrange]

Well thats a new one. Bricked tcu.
With only a hand full of TCU nerds around i think this will be a very interesting thread

other than those engineers who originally developed the tranny, i guess most (if not all) of the top SST experts around the world should be here ...

though there are just very few persons around the world who really understand the in-depth of our blessed&cursed SST .... :innocent:


figures crossed to myself, and that poor tcu-bricked MR :nerd:

any info, idea, comments, suggestions are really appreciated!

 

[EVOrange]

seems to be a really rare case :freak: :freak:

 

[Beeble]

Maybe "Modify" might know ... but from my limited experience with this problem, I haven't found a way around it yet either.
There is another guy who has a brand new mechatronic unit, he gets the same error. nothing will connect to the TCU. can't reflash, can't teach in. CANBUS diagnostic is all normal, but no connection to the TCU.
We have tried everything I can think of, and still nothing. Even recoded the ECU/ETACS and TCU together just in case.
And again, Mitsubishi says to get a new SST!
but it IS new new SST pretty much.


In this case - maybe the car's voltage dropped during the flash to a critical level? is it worth giving the battery a full charge and trying again, just in case voltage is the issue.
But is the MUT3 is not even seeing the TCU, you can't force flash it. There is no bench procedure yet that I am aware of.

The other thing to check is fuses. make sure every fuse is still intact. maybe a fuse fried during the reflash for some reason.
If you can't find anything electrical, I don't think there is good news for you




just BTW - and i'm not bagging you out at all for this - but why were you flashing the 2010 SST?
do you think there is a noticeable improvement? My results have been inconclusive, so any opinions I want to hear!!

best of luck sir. sorry I don't have much useful info for you.

 

[DsmDude]

Yikes.....gsr ftw lol.

 

[richardh]

Yikes.....gsr ftw lol.

Well, let's go visit a THX forum. Find someone troubleshooting their home cinema. Post up "Betamax ftw"...

:whipping:

Rich

 

[KickAss]

Subscribed to learn....even though I have a [STRIKE]Betamax[/STRIKE] GSR.

 

[EVOrange]

Maybe "Modify" might know ... but from my limited experience with this problem, I haven't found a way around it yet either.
There is another guy who has a brand new mechatronic unit, he gets the same error. nothing will connect to the TCU. can't reflash, can't teach in. CANBUS diagnostic is all normal, but no connection to the TCU.
We have tried everything I can think of, and still nothing. Even recoded the ECU/ETACS and TCU together just in case.
And again, Mitsubishi says to get a new SST!
but it IS new new SST pretty much.


In this case - maybe the car's voltage dropped during the flash to a critical level? is it worth giving the battery a full charge and trying again, just in case voltage is the issue.
But is the MUT3 is not even seeing the TCU, you can't force flash it. There is no bench procedure yet that I am aware of.

The other thing to check is fuses. make sure every fuse is still intact. maybe a fuse fried during the reflash for some reason.
If you can't find anything electrical, I don't think there is good news for you




just BTW - and i'm not bagging you out at all for this - but why were you flashing the 2010 SST?
do you think there is a noticeable improvement? My results have been inconclusive, so any opinions I want to hear!!

best of luck sir. sorry I don't have much useful info for you.

Thanks a lot Beeble anyway!

We did charged the battery to 14v and it was not helping. And didn't see any fried fuse either ... :wallbash:

the last thing i probably can do is to replace the mechatronic unit, which costs about $3.5k :wallbash::wallbash: but better than a whole SST for about $15k


for the BTW, I reflashed my 08 MR with the 2011 TCU, and it was obvious evidence showing that there is difference and there is benefit. Though i have no logging for evidence, the 2011 TCU does have a much smarter control over the throttle when changing gears. When you are going slow and soft in say a city traffic, during down shift, the rev does NOT drop as sharp as in 08 MR which causes shaky feel. the 2011 TCU sort of holds the rev a bit before the gear engages and it feels much smoother... For other stuff in sporty driving, it's a bit hard to explain though, but gear engagement seems to be a bit stronger/swifter in S and SS mode.

I was also told by some expert that, the 2011 TCU has a new clutch wearing function (curve) that Mistubishi learned by studying tons of broken SSTs since 2008 to 2010 ... no evidence though ...

 

[EVOrange]

Well, let's go visit a THX forum. Find someone troubleshooting their home cinema. Post up "Betamax ftw"...

:whipping:

Rich

accidently ... i work for Dolby .... :yay::yay:

 

[Evodon84]

Oh man this is so scary. I was so nervous just reading my rom on my MR when I first got my tactrix cable. I hadn't read anywhere that the fans where going to start and a bunch of messages started popping up on the driver info screen. I hope you can get this sorted.

I take it that when you are flashing and upgraded, tuned, rom, it only flashes to the ECU and not the TCU on the MR.

Best of luck OP.

 

[EVOrange]

Oh man this is so scary. I was so nervous just reading my rom on my MR when I first got my tactrix cable. I hadn't read anywhere that the fans where going to start and a bunch of messages started popping up on the driver info screen. I hope you can get this sorted.

I take it that when you are flashing and upgraded, tuned, rom, it only flashes to the ECU and not the TCU on the MR.

Best of luck OP.

you don't have any worries here, reading the ECU with tactrix OP2.0 is safe, will always turn the fans on, throw warnings on the screen and leave a few DTC codes on the car. Just clear those DTC codes and you are fine. And this has nothing to do with the TCU.

even if you brick your ECU, you can bench it and recover it, no problem at all ... :amen:

 

[DsmDude]

Well, let's go visit a THX forum. Find someone troubleshooting their home cinema. Post up "Betamax ftw"...

:whipping:

Rich

Lol.

 

[McCoy]

Wow...

Not sure why you'd do this to someones car when you openly say you have no evidence that reprogramming the TCU would be good (apart from what you've felt why driving) and you say you havent logged either, mate it's pretty expensive stuff your playing with not to know what you are doing, and just going by feel rather than real data.

When you get to this stage:

You must use the correct path, as in the correct domestic model with the correct options. If you don't, well things will go bad. You need to know your model codes, you need to know how to break down a VIN number. For instance, and these are just examples:

JMFSNCZ4A9U000260 - AUDM Evo X 5 speed MY08-09
JMFSMCZ4A9U000260 - AUDM Evo X SST MY08-09

Something as simple as an M or an N in the VIN dictates the trans.

JMFSNCZ4A9U000260 - AUDM Evo X 5 speed MY08 and 09
JMFSNCZ4AAU000260 - AUDM Evo X 5 speed MY10

Pretty self explanitory on that one, same car spec, just different year. Anyways, the MUT3 is very much a powerful tool, and if you tell it to do something for you, it'll do it... no questions ask, even if you are asking it to do something that is detrimental, it'll just do it anyway.

Variant coding is youe next and only step, apart from buying a new TCU that is. Sorry mate, but that's just how it is.

 

[Bombers Nemesis]

^:nerd:

This is frightening to read indeed. Best of luck to you. I'll also be keeping an eye on this to see how it turns out.

 

[geezespeed]

^ Tell me about it :\

At many times, I love the EVO specifically the SST. I can only learn to love it more if I get rid of it and move on to a GTR :\

I want to make more power like yours but will probably end up selling it.

 

[ak47m203]

To OP your the one asking for the GTR tranny oil? The dealer is useless and they want a new tranny. Ty to email Jacks transmission(maybe).

 

[EVOrange]

To OP your the one asking for the GTR tranny oil? The dealer is useless and they want a new tranny. Ty to email Jacks transmission(maybe).

it's about different cars.

the tranny oil question is for my own car. and this is for a friend's car which i helped to tune.

anyway, this problem is solved, thank god. the dealer found a technician who actually did a tcu bench flash ...

this confirms that one IS able to bench flash a bricked TCU, but i was not there on the site, so didn't figure out how ...

 

[McCoy]

Really? The TCU lives inside the gearbox. If they did 'bench' it they would have needed to first remove the gearbox, remove the TCU then bench it, re-install the TCU and re-install the gearbox.

If this is the case then its the only dealer I've ever heard of doing it, plus dealers dont have the facility to bench the TCU unless they made something up, again I'd love to know what exactly.

Chances are they just re-programmed the TCU insdie the car with the MUT3. Seems muce more logical.

 

[richardh]

Ah, but maybe they put the whole CAR on the bench!

Rich