Ok new on this chat and I will tell you a story of two Aston Martin Volante DB9 from 2009.

One got wet, the other, well got kicked in the butt!

I joined this chat looking for help with some programming issues involving the crystal keys.

So first, here is what I posted:

I will get to the story afterwards and Hopefully you will enjoy it!

Hello fellows,

Just joined this chat and found this thread of significant interest to me.

To make a short story long, I purchased 2 2009, crystal key Aston Martin DB9's, one is a heavy rear end smash and the other a submarine.

I have transferred all electronics from "kick in the butt" to Captain Nemo.

With the rear-end damaged car, I was able to turn the engine over but It would not start. The submarine had systems working like windows and roof, trunk release, etc... but it would not turn over.

My present situation is that with all electronics gone form rear-end damaged car onto submarine, I get all systems working except it doesn't turn over. I get the red light on the shroud around the key, signal that ignition is engaged but nothing happens.

After discussing with a key expert over in England, he seems to think the issue is with the CEM in interface with the DIM.

I have both CEM's and DIM's twice with 3 keys, 2 crystal one valet.

The one crystal key coming from the damaged car is the one giving me the red light signal upon trying to start the engine. I am not getting that with the two keys from the submarine car.

So I am throughly baffled with what to do to get the engine to turn-over and eventually start.

I do have both matching CEM numbers: 31254903 like the one you show in the thread.

One more thing, the damaged car has 29 000 miles and the flooded car only 16 000 miles.

My British contact told me of a risk of ending up with 45 000 miles if the process is not done properly.

Can anyone help me sort this out?

A step by step process would help me a lot!

Thanks in advance,

Francis in Switzerland

Here are some pictures of the two cars.


Nice parts car!

Sad state of the interior of the flooded car

Copart's way of destroying cars...

 

Brave! Lots of work, best of luck!

 

Could it be something mechanical in the flooded car? Worst case, hydrolocked engine? Best case, a burnt out starter motor?

 

I got the engine to turn over by using a ratchet to the crank pully.
A burnt starter motor is a possibility but I have not yet put current directly to it.
I am looking at programming issues for the moment as the keys don't even unlock the doors.

Francis

 

Just did a few things today and here are the results:

Went under the car to put direct power to the starter motor. I don't know if I did this right but I put power to the positive and negative and got the starter motor to crank but it did not engage the 12 cylinder engine...

Did I do this right by just putting a power red from a battery to both pins if the starter motor?

I also permuted both CEM and DIM's and the results are interesting.

DIM from flooded car paired to damages car's CEM and I get the same result as with DIM from damaged car and CEM from damaged car. I get power to the car, it lights up but won't crank the motor.

DIM from flooded car paired to CEM from flooded car and I get a "key detected" message with the damaged car's key!!! Not with the flooded keys...

In bonus, the cd player and the radio both now work. That was probably a bad connection with the CEM before. The radio and cd did not work prior to that on either cars. So some progress but no crank yet.

DIM from the flooded car with 16 731 miles

DIM from damaged car with 29 790 miles on it.

 

From what I understand about the mileage from Volvo cars (the Aston is basically a Volvo when it comes to the CEM) you should be able to swap in a lower mileage or virgin DIM and when the car is driven the CEM will update the mileage to the DIM. If the mileage from the CEM is higher than the DIM, the DIM will update to reflect the correct mileage. If the DIM is higher than the CEM, the DIM will add its local milage to the CEM milage resulting in 46,521 in your case. The DIM can never "roll back" on its own. I was faced with a similar situation when I bought a low mileage DIM to replace my 59K mile DIM that had a damaged LCD screen. I chickened out and ended up performing surgery to transplant the good LCD into my old DIM so I can't say for sure what will actually happen.

The keys are paired to the CEM and the PCM(s) so they have to match. The VIN is also programmed into the CEM and both PCMs. If you swap them without reprogramming the module VINs will never match the chassis. I don't think anything but an AMDS can do this and you'll definitely need an AMDS to pull the car config from the flooded car's CEM to flash to the new CEM. You might be able to send both cars' PCMs and CEMs out to be cloned, but the flooded CEM needs to be recoverable.

 

Thanks for your enlighten message. Over the weekend I got I. Touch with a guy who helped me do a step by step diagnostic of my issues.

The result, at this point is that the key from the damaged car works with the CEM and DIM from the flooded car, so it pairs with another module and I managed to have the starter to turn-over, start the engine for 2 or so secondes before it stopped. After some step by step further diagnosis, it turns out the starter motor is fried. Probably due to salt water exposure.

I am now at that step, removing the starter motor, inspecting it, fix it if possible or replace it. But that will have to wait a week or two before I can get some time on a lift not to work cluttered underneath the car on my back.

I'll keep you guys posted!

Over and out!

Francis

 

You are a brave man!

The above sounds like the starter's solenoid is not closing, which means the starters pinion gear is not pushed into interaction with the crank.
Thus the starter spins, but not the engine.
Maybe the solenoid has a seperate supply wire?

Before starting the submarined engine, I would recommend pulling the ignition plugs first and have a look inside for water&rust...

Greetings from Switzerland,
Thomas