Get the Best Priced Jeep Grand Cherokee Electronic Control Unit

Without going into the history of transistors, microcircuits, and computer programming, it is easy to say when computers came onboard the average vehicle - 1939! The vehicles were airplanes, and BMW used some advanced circuitry to control its aviation engine that year. What you may be thinking of is the arrival of the electronic control module in passenger cars. This occurred simultaneously in several makes and models during the 1980, as manufacturers realized that this whole computer thing might be worth something. The arrival of these modules advanced and became common in the 1990's, and many of these modules are now considered to be part of the Powertrain Control Module, which is another label for an ECU that controls the powertrain. If an ECU or PCM are adequately protected by their plastic and metal housings, they can be expected to last for the lifetime of the car. However, the potential for overheating has been known to do damage to these parts, and this kind of damage can't be fixed with a quick push of the Jeep PCM reset button.

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While it is possible to actually take apart a PCM and reprogram it, the cost involved makes it much less trouble to simply remove the part for the car and put a new one in. This can be a hard dose of medicine: the PCM is not cheap. For example, the 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee PCM is hard to reach, and the sharp edged metal box itself seems to fight as you maneuver it out of its position. Once you have removed the PCM, getting the package open is extremely difficult to do without permanently destroying the contents, and the housing will not be closed without using welding that will probably fry the wiring inside. This part can't actually be taken out, fixed or reprogrammed, and then put back in. You will have to perform a replacement and forget about a Jeep PCM repair.

To Plug and Play or Not to Plug and Play

When you need a new ECU or PCM for your Grand, remember that this will require software skills. This doesn't mean that you have to learn COBOL programming language to solve your old 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee PCM problems, but rather that you'll be logging in a lot of data to get the part initiated. You may want to consider your driving habits before beginning the replacement process, because putting the new PCM in will mean that you will be doing some programming, if only to ensure that the wires are getting power to the module. There are PCM's in the market that claim to have "Plug and Play" capabilities, but they charge extra for this quality. You can probably get an excellent deal on a good PCM at an online parts dealer like PartsGeek.com, where you can expect to pay about $65 to $144 for a new PCM. The "Plug and Play" options we saw topped out at $135 to $160.

Minor Issues With Problem Detection

In 2000, the Jeep Grand Cherokee had to deal with a recall from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The problem was with the Grand's PCM, which the report said, "repeatedly failed to detect actual problems with the Grand's catalytic converter." The PCM's affected were from a group of "...certain 1996 model year Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee vehicles equipped with a 4.0 liter engine...." The Jeep Grand Cherokee PCM recall was handled with reasonable dispatch by the automaker, and Jeep issued the necessary documents to its customers to fix the problem. You can learn more about the issue here: http://www.jeep.com/webselfservice/pdf/E22.pdf