That doesn't minimize the potential for previous, unknown damage. Not like its bullet proof.

If you knew where the used one came from, then there might be higher confidence in its operation. At least with a used one, you have some recourse with a company to support it.

One liners like that are completely silly fosho!

 

It's true. ESD is probably one of the biggest electronics killers but there are plenty other failure modes to beware of as well. Most consumer electronics will have some level of built in protection for various failure modes but that stuff is never perfect. The kicker with ESD failure is it can be spectacular and nearly instantaneously catastrophic but the more evil version is the iterative, death by a thousand cuts gradual downward spiral where tiny events slowly degrade a device over time causing flaky or even intermittent performance well before a full scale failure occurs.

In this case proper handling can go a really long way. I'm sure there are relatively few consumers who really have good ESD control processes in place and even fewer who understands what that even means.

 

It's just silly, it's like saying you wouldn't buy a used intake manifold, sure it could be damaged, but it's highly unlikely. Buy something used with paypal and it's broke, you'll get your money back anyways.

My $100 Mopar PCM was easily the biggest bang for the buck. But if you wanna pay 2-3x that for the same bang, go ahead.

I have a used wideband on my truck that's been flawless, the new one I had died in a week. The used MSD BTM, which was 1/5th the cost a of a new one, also works great.

When it comes to most engine internals however, I lean towards new.

 

I have never known anyone who wasn't a technical professional who had any ESD protection equipment at all. I've known many technical professionals who had none of any kind at home. Gee, my new video card was DOA!

 

I've never taken any special precautions when working on PCs. I also do a lot of board building and repair at work, I've never taken any special precautions and I've never damaged a board (with ESD), I've only ever damaged things by hooking up wires in the wrong places.

The PCB in the PCM on these trucks is encased entirely in a rubber/silicone type substance, you'd have to go prodding at the pins to possibly damage it.