Beware of unknown control unit error codes - 1999 Honda Accord EX-V6
 

I have a 1999 Accord EX-V6 and wanted to share my experience with the forum on troubleshooting unknown error codes returned from the control unit.

About 3 months ago my ABS light came on on the dash.. first intermittently and then full on... I took the car to two seperate Honda dealers to have a full diagnostic run.. the first dealer showed a code of 6666 returned from the control unit however this code does not appear in the Honda maintenance manuals... they traced all cabling to all ABS sensors and no problem.. the ABS 30A block fuse kept blowing so they removed it.. and proceeded to tell me that the ABS modulator pump was damaged and it would cost $1500Can to order plusinstallation.. a total bill of over $2000..
I took the car to a 2nd Honda dealer and was told the same thing.

Suspiscious as to why the 30A block fuse kept blowing I took the car to a 3rd independent car dealer.. they confirmed that indeed the ABS Modulator pump itself was actually not recieving any power from the relays... on further investigation it turned out that the control unit itself had malfunctioned and was returning incorrect error codes for the ABS system diagnostic...

In summary two seperate Honda service technicians missed the obvious lack of power to the ABS modulator and both indicated the modulator was damaged when in fact it was the control unit itself.. $300Can later the damaged control unit has been replaced with a used working unit and ABS is now working correctly again... the control unit was also intermittently switching power on/off to the ABS modulator pump (ABS light went on/off for a few days).. this is what was responsible for blowing the 30A block fuse.

Moral of this story is don't always believe what the Honda technicians tell you... in my experience they did a poor job in diagnosing the control unit problem.

I hope this helps any other Honda Accord oweners in the similiar predicement... if the diagnoistics return an unknown error code.. question if the control unit itself is damaged..

P.

RE: Beware of unknown control unit error codes - 1999 Honda Accord EX-V6
 

thanks for the post! I'm glad you got it fixed and this is a great thing to keep an eye out for!