ECM | No Ignition

[h2odemon]

Hey there! Long time lurker first time poster.

Short story: I think we killed our Vibe

Background Info:

• 2005 Pontiac Vibe

• Base model, FWD, 1.8L

• WA State

Last week the Vibe died on the way to work. Girlfriend had it towed to a shop, they look and fix what they say is wrong (ignition coil and spark plug). She had it taken to a shop vs going home because she didn't want to bother my family with looking at her car.

This week she's just running an errand, car died again. She was able to get it restarted, drove it heading home, died again. Rinsed and repeated that a few times until it was limped home. So, better than last week when it needed a tow.

Anyway, since it was at home my dad said he'd look at it. He ran the codes on it and said it was throwing errors for all four ignition coils. He said that from what he looked up, that that meant it was the battery, ECM, or fuel pump. Okay cool, whatever let's go grab some of those things and check it out.

Now while my dad knows more than I do when it comes to cars, and I know a thing or two, most of our knowledge stems from older Mopars and Fords.

We get to our local Pick-n-Pull and get to work. One 2004 Vibe in the yard, no ECM, but has a fuel pump and a few other goodies we pulled off (blower motor, and rear windshield wiper assembly).

My dad wanted to try the ECM first since it was easier to access under the dash, so we check with the yard and they say they have two 2004 Toyota Matrixs in the yard which should work since they're the same power-wise. Cool makes sense to us. So we go out in the yard, find the Matrixs and pull the ECM out of one.

Get back home and he pops off the wires to the old ECM and plug them into the used one (note we didn't take the old one out, just plugged the wires into the used one and left it on the floor). Go to turn on the car and NOTHING.

Before it would turn over, or the radiator fans would come on, but nothing was happening. Just the lights in the cab.

Okay, well that's a bummer we thought, so we disconnect that and plug in the original one. Go to turn on the car and NOTHING still. Oh (removed).

We disconnected the battery and let it sit a while before reconnecting and trying the original again and nothing.

After some puzzlement we look and see ECMs mayyyy be a bit more complicated than expected...

Are we doomed? Any suggestions. We're kind of at a complete lost right now.