Hi,

 

How beneficial would it be to take a car I'm thinking of buying to Nissan to get them to check the ECU diagnostics?

you can do a ECU diagnostic yourself which is pretty straigt forward, only thing is it wont check the ABS system, but other than that i think it will tell you if all of the other important sensors are OK. wouldn't bother wasting your money going to nissan if i were you;)

 

good luck with the car, hope it turns out to be in good nick!:D

How would I do that then?

(Can you tell I'm a newbie?) :D

the ECU is in the passanger foot well, under a wooden board. pull the carpet up, held down with three bits of velcrow(however u spell that) and the wood is held down with 4 10mm bolts.

 

there is a screw on the left hand side of the ECU. put the ignition on but dont start the engine, and then you need to turn the screw all the way clockwise (i think), wait two atleast 2 seconds and turn it all the way anti clockwise. the engine warning light will flash to showwhich error codes there are. the long flashes add up to the first number and the short flashes add up to the second number.

 

to exitthe test, turn the screw fully clockwise and after at least 2 seconds turn it fully ant clock wise.

 

you can find the codes and the instructions on this link

 

http://www.ttzd.com/tech/diagnostic/diagnostic.html

 

do some searches on some other zx websites as they have buying guides which tell you some common faults to look out for!

It's much easier to do the piece of wire trick.

 

http://www.twinturbo.net/ttnetfaq/FAQpages/ECUdiagnostics.html