My son brought home an 05 Acura TL 125k miles. The person he bought it from told him that his mechanic said that the car has a “FUEL PUMP” issue so he had it towed cause it wouldn’t start.

When he finally brought it home the car looked like
it was slammed on a bunch of aftermarket parts which was okay to me but I just wondered if this would be an electrical issue more than anything else. So, I put my ear to the fuel pump and it does prime so I tried to crank and the car sounds like it is EXTREMELY SLOW at start. It won’t turn I’m guessing due to the slowness of it.

I know this is a process of elimination trying to figure this out. I put a computer on it which didn’t give me any faults on the ENGINE or TRANS but BODY ELECTRICAL came up with some faults. One of them said “ECM/PCM Function Malfunction”. Mind you my diagnostic computer normally finds the vin automatically but with this car I had to punch in the numbers manually. Attached I’ve placed a video of how it sounds at start up for some guidance.

 

I have no idea why but I'm always having issues with "hearing" stuff on those videos that are pretty obvious in person.

Record some more cranking time. Did starter hesitate at 0:13.5 in one moment or one cylinder is low on compression?

By the sound it seems to crank slowly. That can be caused mostly by:
- bad battery
- positive cable likes to corrode internally
- bad ground, either battery to body or body to engine, use jumper cable to put battery ground directly to the motor
- starter on its last legs

 

i will do this tomorrow brother. I thought it might of been the starter but I figured since I was getting crank it wasn’t. Tomorrow I’ll record a few more cranks. In my opinion I was thinking can it be possible that valves may have been bent? Like I said he just brought this home and there wasn’t much info the guy gave him other than he thought it was a FUEL PUMP.

 

How's the voltage readings?
if not voltage, I'd look at the starter.

 

Might be time to replace the fuel pump assembly. Mine finally needed replacing at 320K. Check rockauto for best deals. My starter is still original.
.
.

 

Okay this is where I am at. I replaced the starter and it’s doing the same sound upon cranking.

I then put the diagnostic computer to see if anything pops up and this is what I found. I am hoping that maybe someone can give me insight on the next move. The picture is what codes came up. Can it be that the MICU is bad and car won’t turn? Can the ECU be bad and not letting it turn over?

 

From the looks of those codes, you have power issues. I bet you have bad/corroded connections somewhere off of the battery or near the ECU. Check the positive and ground cables, clamps, terminations not only at the battery, but follow them along to the major distribution points. Pull the interior panels off to see the ECU and confirm it doesn't look like it has been wet.

 

i turned the AC on just to be sure it wasn’t leaking on the ECU to rule that out. It’s just extremely weird to have these codes pop up but all the shit actually works. The car won’t turn over but it cranks slowly. My next step is replacing MICU and then if that doesn’t help the ECU and finally I’ll just Engine swap to see if this engine may have skipped a tooth or bent a valve. I’m not 100% sure I am just speculating at this point.

 

timing, fuel, spark. you need all three. it is cranking but not firing. Do you have spark? does not sound like it at all.

 

checked for spark yesterday and there is spark. Checked also for fuel by pulling fuel line and its pumping fuel

 

So, here we are once again with this mystery shit 😂.

I’ve tried possibly anything you can imagine to get this car to turn over. I’ve changed the starter, MICU, new battery, it has SPARK, the fuel pump in working as I pulled the fuel line and cranked and gasoline splurged out. I’ve went to length of spraying starter fluid and even that didn’t turn it over.

what in the holy hell can it be???? 💀🤦🏽‍♂️ I’m almost tempted on swapping the engine just to see if I does the same with another engine. At this point I have no idea. The only thing I can possibly thing of is that the engine is out of TIMING, but my I’m a little hesitant because I’m assuming that when it snaps a belt or skips a tooth that possible valve bending can occur. My question ultimately is will a car turn over with bent valves?

 

It can even run with bent valves, just not too well. Do the compression test. Record how it cranks for ~10 seconds or so.

 

hey brother, I will do the compression test tomorrow being that I actually got the kit today for the testing. Also, I will most def record a longer video of the cranking.

 

Do you still have all of those power related codes?

 

I do but at this point my last step is going to attempt to check the timing on it.

 

This this this


why the hell are you looking at everything else instead of focusing on the power issues. A bad battery or corroded cables can cause a bunch of weird downstream issues.. Charge up the battery, ensure it doesn't have dead cells, check for corrosion on the positive cable rather than start digging into timing and bent valves.. Timing won't throw power ECM/PCM codes...

 

read what I wrote, BRAND NEW BATTERY, BRAND NEW STARTER, BRAND NEW ALTERNATOR as well, BRAND NEW MICU, no corrosion or dead cell on anything. What will throw ECM/PCM codes? Everything that’s listed on that diagnosis is operational.

 

Whoops I missed that post. was the 61-1 error code there prior to the new battery or after? If everything has been replaced and that battery is indeed fully charged (aka not a low voltage situation), then the ECU may be truly bad.

 

mita all good brother shit happens we are all human. Yes that code was there before the battery was replaced. I went and replaced everything after seeing all those codes and they still popped up and the car did not turn over. I’m left with ECU or TIMING problem.

 

So, I put a compression test and only did it on 4-5-6. Here are my findings

on number 4 when I first did it I had 157 PSI then when I moved on to 5-6 and went back I now have 50psi.

there was no compression on 5 and minimal compression in 6.

what does this mean now?

 

My point is that until you solve for the voltage issues, there is little to no point in chasing timing issues. There are cables, clamps, ground connections, connectors, etc that all can play a part outside of what you have already changed/replaced.

Or....the ECU is fried.

As for your last post on compression....not my realm here...but guessing valves are dorked somehow? Pull the plugs and look at condition of plug. Not sure what else you can do without tearing it apart.

 

yep with this answer Lmaoo I’ll just swap out the motor and call it quits lmao it’s much easier for me at least than running blind. I’m hoping the motor is the issue and not any of those codes cause thos
codes are all functioning correctly. After checking everything with the computer.

 

So I’m coming on here to update the thread after finding out what it was. Well, I decided to let me check the timing on the car and as I’m pulling the covers off I can see bits and pieces of belt. YEP! Belt snap I guess on previous owner and never cared to look. Long story short I tested the motor by putting a new belt on it putting everything on it and the car TURNED OVER normal speed but then died. Determined it was a bad valve by a mechanic so had to swap out the engine. That’s what was done and car is up and running.

One problem though the car now has a P0685 code and it says ECM Relay Malfunction. I’m stuck here

 

Everything plugged in?

Check the PGM-FI Main Relay 1, for example by switching it with other similar relay, and checking if code moves / car does something different.




Also check under-hood fuse #8 (15A).

From the description, ECM gets powered when key is in on position, but when key out it keeps itself powered for some time with that #1 relay.

If power to ECM disappears as soon as key is turned off, then either ECM is internally bad, or there is problem with that additional power circuit, but that's when it sets that code.

 

hey Pete, thanks for the response, I’m going to pull that relay and replace it and see if it moves, if it does then I know it’s the relay. I believe everything is plugged in. Which one is FUSE #8? (trust I know this is a stupid question lol being the one under the dash has numbers) never realized the numbers on the ones under the hood.

 

By looking what gets powered by under-hood #8 there is basically no chance car can run without that fuse. so it most likely is fine.

 

Yea, the car is running I drove it and all but that check engine light is on with that code. I also noticed that the signals are not working as well. No hazard signals and no regular signals. I checked the 15amp fuse for the hazard but it was fine.

 

hey brother RIGHT ON THE MONEY!!! Swapped out the relay and everything went back to normal. Relay PGM-FI erased everything. Now the finally thing left is TPMS light is on and it keeps flashing on dash saying “CHECK TPMS SYSTEM”. My thing is I put air in all the tires thinking it should disappear but nothing. Both triangle with exclamation point and TPMS lights are on. Any suggestions?

 

Regarding TPMS. That's not a 2005 Acura TL. TPMS was introduced in the 2006 models.

It could be all the sensors in the tires are dead and it's not getting a reading from them. However, it could be an issue with the receiver as well.