Replacing burnt ecm transistor

[cjd82187]

Hi, this is my first post here, but this seems like the proper section for this.... So my girlfriends 2001 a4 1.8t quattro automatic has had a CEL for a while. The codes are for system too rich, system too lean, and main relay short to ground. She took it to her local audi dealer and they did a few things, replaced a vac line and the MAF and said that the relay was fine, but there was a burnt transistor on the ECM and that it needed to be replaced which is going to cost almost $1000, which is less than ideal.

Here's a scan from the report they gave her:




The car right now is slow as hell, it has barely any response no matter how much I press on the throttle. In tiptronic mode, flooring it, it takes about 5-10 seconds to get to redine in 1st gear and another 5-10 to get to redline in 2nd and so on.... on the highway if i want to go over 60, I need to go to redline in 3rd gear till im at about 85, in 4th or 5th, I get almost no accelration at all, somtimes it will occasionally get a blip of power, but thats rare.

Its come down to getting the ECM replaced as the next course of action, because it seems that will fix the problem of the car not knowing what to do it seems.

Now, I know some electrical engineers, and I was wondering if simply replacing the burnt transistor would fix the problem and if that would even be recommended, since that would probably be only a few bucks for the transistor and one of my friends would do it for free. If anyone has done this before or would have any idea of how hard it is to get to these transistors (I have not pulled the ECM yet, so my engineer friends do not know how hard it is to get to the transistor and exactly what kind it is to get a replacement), any info would be appreciated.

[maxspeed]

just buy a used ECU in the classifieds im sure one can be had for under 200

[cjd82187]

just buy a used ECU in the classifieds im sure one can be had for under 200

I was thinking about that, but I'm a little uninformed about exactly what ecu I need. All I know is that there are a lot of different ones depending on when the car was made, would the VIN number of the car be of any help into figuring out which ECU I need?

[ghost6303]

open up the black box under the hood, its on the drivers side basicly as close to the windshield as you can get. should be like 5 bolts. inside is a silver box, thats the ECU. there should be a sticker with a bunch of numbers on it. as long as you buy an ECU with the same numbers, it will work.

the numbers you need are in the red rectangle here....