I thought I'd share our recent experience that went sour when the ECM in our 1990 Mitsubishi Mighty Max went dead last February.

Originally, it went dead over 5 years ago, and my knowledgeable husband removed it and sent it to ecm-to-go in Houston, Texas. They repaired it, tested it in a junker Mitsubishi, and sent it to us in working order. It worked fine until this past February when it went dead again. We found another company we sent it to, Atlantic Auto Technologies aka Atlantic Automotive Industries in Jacksonville, Florida and within about two weeks, we received it back, saying it had been tested and repaired. My husband installed it, and the truck would not start. He pulled out his scope meter, and after 4 days of testing and looking over schematics, and checking connections, he finally came to the conclusion that the brain box was dead, and had not been repaired. So, while it was under AAT's warranty, we sent it back, receiving a return authorization number with return. They received it in early March. We never heard from them either by e-mail or by telephone and in two weeks, my husband phoned and asked what was up. The fellow taking care of our problem (Charles Ratliff) said that our unit was deemed non-remanufacturable and that they would send him a tracking number via e-mail when they shipped it back. They require a $89.95 diagnostic fee, but they still did not refund him back the $299.95. We waited, no returned ECM. He e-mailed them, no response. He phoned, "Charlie is out" or "Charlie" would not answer his extension #114, and other excuses were given, like, "we take care of credit card refunds on Friday's", or, "we're having problems with our shipping department". We got the run around for another couple of weeks with these same excuses, and no one would talk to us, nor refund us our $299.95. Husband finally submitted a dispute with his Visa credit card and it will take 60 to 90 days for our credit card company to resolve this. The frustrating thing is that they have kidnapped our ECM, holding it hostage, leaving us without a core to send off to another company repair it. I am without a vehicle while I wait for my husband to return from business matters in two weeks, when I can then make another run to the grocery store. As husband put it, we don't need this extra aggravation.

I suggest anyone doing business with sending in their ECM or PCU to first check the company out with the better business bureau. This company can be found there under the name of Atlantic Automotive Industries LLC, where you will find they have changed their name several times. You will also notice several other names they go by. They have an F rating.