Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 23 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure gets reported
Owners of the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox report control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure at a median of 70,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles, from 21 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 125,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 120,126 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
19% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6,919 miles | 47,859 miles | 67,760 miles | 118,000 miles | 127,045 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $700–$3,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 17 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2024, at a median of 100 miles, and latest on the 2020 at 145,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 48; the 2006 has 23. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
(1) on or about 10/27/06, alarm system deactivated itself, interior and exterior lights turned on, doors remained locked. (2) on 11/01/06, alarm system activated itself, doors locked themselves. (3) on 11/27/06, vehicle shuttered and went into 'limp' mode which may have caused damage to the transmission. Onstar and dealer retrieved the following error codes: (I) p1626 - theft deterrent fuel enable signal lost, (ii) c0276 - traction control not allowed (tcm / ABS), (iii) u0100 - lost communications with transmission control module (tcm), (iv) u2105 - lost communication with engine control module (ECM). Between 11/27/06 and 12/21/06, dealer supposedly replaced BCM three times and 3rd new BCM fixed problem. Each new BCM would go to zero (0) and the mileage could not be programmed. During that time the theft deterrent system was deactivated which was unknown to me. Current mileage is incorrect. I believe that the original faulty BCM may have been re-installed and the codes cleared when they were unable to fix the problem. I do not believe that the other none-BCM error codes have been addressed but the dealer forced me to take my…
(1) on or about 10/27/06, alarm system deactivated itself, interior and exterior lights turned on, doors remained locked. (2) on 11/01/06, alarm system activated itself, doors locked themselves. (3) on 11/27/06, vehicle shuttered and went into 'limp' mode which may have caused damage to the transmission. Onstar and dealer retrieved the following error codes: (I) p1626 - theft deterrent fuel enable signal lost, (ii) c0276 - traction control not allowed (tcm / ABS), (iii) u0100 - lost communications with transmission control module (tcm), (iv) u2105 - lost communication with engine control module (ECM). Between 11/27/06 and 12/21/06, dealer supposedly replaced BCM three times and 3rd new BCM fixed problem. Each new BCM would go to zero (0) and the mileage could not be programmed. During that time the theft deterrent system was deactivated which was unknown to me. Current mileage is incorrect. I believe that the original faulty BCM may have been re-installed and the codes cleared when they were unable to fix the problem. I do not believe that the other none-BCM error codes have been addressed but the dealer forced me to take my…
(1) on or about 10/27/06, alarm system deactivated itself, interior and exterior lights turned on, doors remained locked. (2) on 11/01/06, alarm system activated itself, doors locked themselves. (3) on 11/27/06, vehicle shuttered and went into 'limp' mode which may have caused damage to the transmission. Onstar and dealer retrieved the following error codes: (I) p1626 - theft deterrent fuel enable signal lost, (ii) c0276 - traction control not allowed (tcm / ABS), (iii) u0100 - lost communications with transmission control module (tcm), (iv) u2105 - lost communication with engine control module (ECM). Between 11/27/06 and 12/21/06, dealer supposedly replaced BCM three times and 3rd new BCM fixed problem. Each new BCM would go to zero (0) and the mileage could not be programmed. During that time the theft deterrent system was deactivated which was unknown to me. Current mileage is incorrect. I believe that the original faulty BCM may have been re-installed and the codes cleared when they were unable to fix the problem. I do not believe that the other none-BCM error codes have been addressed but the dealer forced me to take my…
Also reported on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox
Blower motor or climate control failure
Other visibility problem
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 23 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure happen on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox?
Across 21 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure on the 2006 Chevrolet Equinox?
23 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed