Hey guys,
Well, its that time of year again... pulling the cars out of storage, and also time of the year for damaged PCM's and other oddities as a result of doing so. Hopefully, this post will save some of you a headache, or at least get you sorted out faster if you do have problems.
The number one cause of PCM damage is Jump Starting, Jump Boxes, and old school Battery Chargers. As the electronics age, they become increasingly sensitive to voltage surges and possible reverse polarity situations.
-NEVER use a transformer/rectifier based battery Charger, especially those with a "jump start" feature! They leak AC Ripple like it was in their design specifications.
-AVOID Jump Starting whenever possible unless its an emergency. And for the love of god, if you do, MAKE SURE THE CABLES ARE THE CORRECT POLARITY.
-Whenever possible, charge the battery with the KEY OFF, and remove the charger before attempting to crank and fire.
-DO use a microprocessor controlled "float charger" to keep your batteries charged. Once a battery goes dead ONE SINGLE TIME, it will never be the same and will degrade quickly.
If you suspect you have a PCM issue:
Turn key on.
If you have:
-No Fuel Pump Prime or constant fuel pump prime.
-No Check Engine Light Self-Test
-No Comms with a scan tool
And you *do* have power and ground at PCM connectors for both Constant 12V and Run/Start 12V...
...Your PCM is damaged.
In the case of Gen-1 cars, *ALWAYS* unplug suspected defective PCM's, as they can be a fire hazard even with the key out and power off.
Please contact us for assistance if you suspect you have PCM issues. We are the primary retail/wholesale PCM supplier and remanufacturer for the Viper [All] and Ram SRT-10 markets, and have been slowly heading into other portions of the market as well, with Gen-3/4/5 BCM remanufacturing, and hopefully soon Ram SRT-10 TIPM's.
And I cannot stress this enough: please consider the source for your parts, especially PCM's. While I plainly admit we are not the cheapest option, we are the best. Period. Full stop. The sheer number of butchered PCM's that come through my hands is staggering. The guy that claims to fix PCM's for 250 bucks on Ebay? Yeah, after he gets done destroying it and collecting his bogus Diag fee, I am the one who has to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. The quality of work is absolutely atrocious, as you would expect. The larger problem however, is the dwindling number of available cores. Every time these guys destroy a PCM, that is one less in circulation, and things are already relatively tight. To expand on that, having an invalid core is a VERY large cost difference when getting a replacement module. If I don't have access to a fixable core, I need to source it elsewhere, and you are the one that will end up absorbing that other guys diag fee, along with a core replacement or penalty for making my life exponentially more difficult. To add insult to injury, core theft is a VERY REAL thing right now. These clowns know what Viper PCM's are worth, and they have been disappearing left and right. I have heard about no less than a dozen core module thefts and "convenient losses" in the last 6 months alone.
Secondly, please understand... virtually none of these guys have the first clue what they are doing, fixing, or selling you. There are literally 15 different versions of Viper PCM hardware, and I know every single version of them. You cant "reflash" your way to a hardware change. To add to that, there are literally 50 distinctly different software versions, with a different version for every year + Export, Race, and specialized versions. Those guys selling controllers for the wrong year because they happen to look the same? I am sure the various sensors and actuators that changed nearly every model year would appreciate, you know, BEING PLUGGED INTO THE PROPER HARDWARE DESIGNED TO RUN THEM. Hard to believe that its even a "thing", but it is. It drives me insane, and I see it every day. When we supply controllers, you get the CORRECT VERSION, most recent software, pre-programmed to your car and Plug & Play, and optionally with custom tune files. We also have the ability to transfer unobtanium tune files in most cases, as well as recover many SCT device issues and PCM pairing problems.
Please, think of the Vipers, not the pennies.
Here's a few pictures of the trash I deal with. Not much comparison compared to our products. Can you tell which components were replaced on our controllers? No? THATS THE POINT. OEM quality, ALWAYS.
Well, its that time of year again... pulling the cars out of storage, and also time of the year for damaged PCM's and other oddities as a result of doing so. Hopefully, this post will save some of you a headache, or at least get you sorted out faster if you do have problems.
The number one cause of PCM damage is Jump Starting, Jump Boxes, and old school Battery Chargers. As the electronics age, they become increasingly sensitive to voltage surges and possible reverse polarity situations.
-NEVER use a transformer/rectifier based battery Charger, especially those with a "jump start" feature! They leak AC Ripple like it was in their design specifications.
-AVOID Jump Starting whenever possible unless its an emergency. And for the love of god, if you do, MAKE SURE THE CABLES ARE THE CORRECT POLARITY.
-Whenever possible, charge the battery with the KEY OFF, and remove the charger before attempting to crank and fire.
-DO use a microprocessor controlled "float charger" to keep your batteries charged. Once a battery goes dead ONE SINGLE TIME, it will never be the same and will degrade quickly.
If you suspect you have a PCM issue:
Turn key on.
If you have:
-No Fuel Pump Prime or constant fuel pump prime.
-No Check Engine Light Self-Test
-No Comms with a scan tool
And you *do* have power and ground at PCM connectors for both Constant 12V and Run/Start 12V...
...Your PCM is damaged.
In the case of Gen-1 cars, *ALWAYS* unplug suspected defective PCM's, as they can be a fire hazard even with the key out and power off.
Please contact us for assistance if you suspect you have PCM issues. We are the primary retail/wholesale PCM supplier and remanufacturer for the Viper [All] and Ram SRT-10 markets, and have been slowly heading into other portions of the market as well, with Gen-3/4/5 BCM remanufacturing, and hopefully soon Ram SRT-10 TIPM's.
And I cannot stress this enough: please consider the source for your parts, especially PCM's. While I plainly admit we are not the cheapest option, we are the best. Period. Full stop. The sheer number of butchered PCM's that come through my hands is staggering. The guy that claims to fix PCM's for 250 bucks on Ebay? Yeah, after he gets done destroying it and collecting his bogus Diag fee, I am the one who has to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. The quality of work is absolutely atrocious, as you would expect. The larger problem however, is the dwindling number of available cores. Every time these guys destroy a PCM, that is one less in circulation, and things are already relatively tight. To expand on that, having an invalid core is a VERY large cost difference when getting a replacement module. If I don't have access to a fixable core, I need to source it elsewhere, and you are the one that will end up absorbing that other guys diag fee, along with a core replacement or penalty for making my life exponentially more difficult. To add insult to injury, core theft is a VERY REAL thing right now. These clowns know what Viper PCM's are worth, and they have been disappearing left and right. I have heard about no less than a dozen core module thefts and "convenient losses" in the last 6 months alone.
Secondly, please understand... virtually none of these guys have the first clue what they are doing, fixing, or selling you. There are literally 15 different versions of Viper PCM hardware, and I know every single version of them. You cant "reflash" your way to a hardware change. To add to that, there are literally 50 distinctly different software versions, with a different version for every year + Export, Race, and specialized versions. Those guys selling controllers for the wrong year because they happen to look the same? I am sure the various sensors and actuators that changed nearly every model year would appreciate, you know, BEING PLUGGED INTO THE PROPER HARDWARE DESIGNED TO RUN THEM. Hard to believe that its even a "thing", but it is. It drives me insane, and I see it every day. When we supply controllers, you get the CORRECT VERSION, most recent software, pre-programmed to your car and Plug & Play, and optionally with custom tune files. We also have the ability to transfer unobtanium tune files in most cases, as well as recover many SCT device issues and PCM pairing problems.
Please, think of the Vipers, not the pennies.
Here's a few pictures of the trash I deal with. Not much comparison compared to our products. Can you tell which components were replaced on our controllers? No? THATS THE POINT. OEM quality, ALWAYS.
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