[Mr. Natural]

There’s actually ‘some’ truth to cars learning as they’re driven. The ECU is constantly monitoring sensors and saving adjustment values base on how the car runs. But honestly I’ve never noticed that much difference when the ECU has been reset on cars I’ve owned, including a Camry.

 

[insightfully]

There’s actually ‘some’ truth to cars learning as they’re driven. The ECU is constantly monitoring sensors and saving adjustment values base on how the car runs. But honestly I’ve never noticed that much difference when the ECU has been reset on cars I’ve owned, including a Camry.

It felt as thought the 2019 Camry was driving on gas fumes, lagging in response and not very strong take-off. Maybe the throttle would eventually adjust via ECU-learning (?), but it didn't feel sane to buy a car that drove poorly at the outset and hope it would 'learn' to drive better over time.

Regarding comment on reset - how does an ECU get reset? Can a driver/owner do that, or is that done by dealer?

 

[hasarad]

It felt as thought the 2019 Camry was driving on gas fumes, lagging in response and not very strong take-off. Maybe the throttle would eventually adjust via ECU-learning (?), but it didn't feel sane to buy a car that drove poorly at the outset and hope it would 'learn' to drive better over time.

Regarding comment on reset - how does an ECU get reset? Can a driver/owner do that, or is that done by dealer?

ECU can be reset via an ODBII connection. There are cheap Bluetooth modules you can get from eBay to do it. I use mine to clear problem codes in my other cars. My Insight is perfect, so I doubt I'll ever need to do a reset!

 

[insightfully]

ECU can be reset via an ODBII connection. There are cheap Bluetooth modules you can get from eBay to do it. I use mine to clear problem codes in my other cars. My Insight is perfect, so I doubt I'll ever need to do a reset!

Do you notice any improvement or change in driving response after resetting, aside form clearing problem codes?

 

[hasarad]

Do you notice any improvement or change in driving response after resetting, aside form clearing problem codes?

Not a thing in any car I've ever reset it in.

Also, in some cars, you can reset it by unhooking the battery for a period of time. I woul;dn't try that with the Insight though - it's a different animal. Before I got the Bluetooth ODBII reader, I would unhook the battery in my old Civic to clear the O2 sensor code after I screwed up and left it disconnected after an exhaust repair. Google is a wonderful thing. After that, I broke down and bought a cheap reader. It's nice to know what one is dealing with before visiting a repair shop.

 

[Verdier]

Do you notice any improvement or change in driving response after resetting, aside form clearing problem codes?

Not a thing in any car I've ever reset it in.

Also, in some cars, you can reset it by unhooking the battery for a period of time. I woul;dn't try that with the Insight though - it's a different animal. Before I got the Bluetooth ODBII reader, I would unhook the battery in my old Civic to clear the O2 sensor code after I screwed up and left it disconnected after an exhaust repair. Google is a wonderful thing. After that, I broke down and bought a cheap reader. It's nice to know what one is dealing with before visiting a repair shop.

If you unhook the battery the next time you start it a whole bunch of lights will come on the dash and the car will tell you to drive a little to reset the system. The first time this happened I was going to strangle the dude who worked on my Ruby since I thought he had screwed her up. I drove for maybe 2 minutes and all the lights went back to normal and Ruby purred like a kitten again. Just wanted to give fair warning for people who experience this. Don't panic.

 

[Mr. Natural]

It needs to have power to retain its memory, so a battery disconnect or fuse pull can reset it to the default values.