died, no start, can't communicate with ECU

This is my daughters car and died whilke she was driving so have limited info other than it felt like it lost power/went into neutral and she pulled over. Dash lights all lit up, with little squares where the gear is. See the attached photo she took.

The car will not turn on, or even go into ready mode. When I press the start button with no foot on the brake, the center screen comes on, but the second press just shuts it off. The dash does not light up at all. The orange light on the start button flashes 8 times before stopping.

I initially did some troubleshooting but had to leave town for a few weeks and have forgotten exactly, but I believe the AM2 fuse was blown and I disconnected the white + white/black wired connector to the coolant pump near the fuse box and replaced the fuse, but no change. It's possible the coolant pump was the root cause - it's an aftermarket one I installed a few years ago.

The 12v battery is good (tested and have had a trickle charger on it since this happened), headlights, hazards, radio, brake lights work.

I have obd2 readers and techstream which I have used on the car in the past, but none work. Techstream can't communicate with the ECU (it can with a few), so I am guessing the ECU might have failed.

I need help troubleshooting from here. Any suggestions?

I am considering buying a used ECU to see if thats the problem, but want to make sure it doesn't need programming or there is a way to do program it myself with techstream. The car is not worth spending a ton of money on so don't wan't to go to the dealer. I see you can get used ECUs programmed for around $200 but would want to have a better idea that this is the actual problem before doing that.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,
charles

 

I certainly will if needed, but need to get ign-on first! If I can't get this to turn on, there is no point.

Thanks, I will re-check the fuses and see if I can identify power issues, but it feels a bit like [a blind guy] searching for a needle in a haystack .

Any idea if you can swap an ECU, or any info on that, in case I hit a dead end again?

 

I am both happy and feeling sheepish

@mr_guy_mann based on your recommendation i went and checked the fuses again. I had been doing a continuity test using the contacts exposed at the back of the fuses and all checked out. But i was checking voltage at each side and noticed AM2 behaved differently than the others (showed voltage across the contacts). I pulled the AM2 fuse which clearly had not been replaced and it was indeed bad. I can now access all ECUs in techstream and it fires right up with the fuse replaced (and pump unplugged).

@bisco now that I can read codes and run it, it does look like I need to replace the pump (blows the fuse if I plug it in), so I will indeed be replacing the pump

Thanks so much guys!