2001 Tacoma ECU Repair/Replacement HELP!

Trying to keep my dad's ride going! He has a 2001 Tacoma SR5, 2.4L with ~329k on the clock. He has recently had some issues with it bogging down, and now its to the point where it wont run at all, and is sitting at a shop.

It started to lose power on him while on the way to work one day. He exited off the highway, and limped into a gas station where it finally died. I went over during lunch to try to help out a bit, but no luck. Truck would start fine, idle and rev fine for 30 seconds, then would start bogging and would not rev out. He could keep it running for a few minutes, but it wasnt derivable. Any throttle seemed to choke it out. We tries some sea foam, and it actually ran fine while spraying in the throttle body, but as soon as the spray stopped, it would go back to bogging. Definitely seemed to be a fuel problem.

Tried cleaning and replacing MAF, no help. Fuel pump has been replaced, filter, plugs, and (I believe) coils. The shop he has it at now says the computer is now "shutting down" in a short time and he is not able to get a read off the ECU. He really is at a lost for diagnostics, so he said he cant really pinpoint what it is, but could be the ECU.

Loooong story short, my dad wants to try replacing the ECU, as maybe a last resort and eliminate that potential failure mode.

There are a couple places I've found that "repair" ECUs, but have mixed bag reviews. There is also AllComputerResources.com, that is pricier and says "re-manufactured" units. Again, very mixed bag of reviews from google and yelp.

We are not very knowledgeable on replacing these, but from my research we may need to have the ECU reprogrammed with his VIN and possibly mileage if we get a replacement unit? If repaired, it should be plug and play?

Any recommendations of experience with the above options?

 

The ecus are pretty specific. You want one from the same year, engine, transmission type, and emissions (Cali or federal). But if you find one I don't think you need to do any reprogramming. I believe the odometer is stored in the cluster and vin shouldn't matter.

 

Thank you. We are getting the PN off the existing unit. Is that enough to match? I've read some cars have a anti-theft that if the ECU VIN doesn't match the vehicle VIN (how does it know???) if will disable it. Maybe this is common on vehicles newer than '01 though.

 

That's probably only for newer rigs I would guess. It should say on the ecu all the info on the sticker. The guys that do the 3.4 swaps into the pretacomas are the ones to ask. They know all the ins and outs on these ecus. Try finding a site that offers harnesses/ ecus for swaps and they could probably tell you alot more than me.

 

I had good Luck with ECM Depot out of Texas been a few years