Is it true that disconnecting the positive battery cable and touching it to the negative battery terminal clears the computer memory at some deeper level that the reset button?

Also, I'm still screwing with a P0410. The vacuum tube which gets damaged by a leaking battery....is that actually under the battery? The tube I found is in front of the battery and is hard plastic instead of the usual rubber? Is the entire vacuum line hard plastic; I'm having difficulty following it to the air pump.
emj

 

I have a hard time understanding exactly what you mean but in short, DON'T DO THAT! Just disconnect the cables. Also be sure your radio does not have a LOC code setup before you cut the power.

 

Remove both cables from the battery before touching them together, leave them together for 30 sec. for the reset function.

+ to - only with no battery involved.

 

Thanks for the info

 

Well I gotta ask. Why would you need to reset the computer?

 

The P0410 vacuum tube is a black hard plastic tube approximately 1/8" or 3/16" diameter. It is inside a black plastic ribbed cable chase along with two wires. It is under the front side of the battery. The Service Manual recommended way to get to this area is to remove the right front wheel and then remove the rear wheelhouse closeout panel (rear side of the wheel well, directly in front of the battery, small panel, only a few screws). When you remove that panel, the vacuum tube inside the chase will be right there. It almost seems like they made that panel just to fix this problem. You will need to replace approximately 8 to 10 inches (it will be obvious. I used a slightly larger hard plastic tube that had the same ID as the vacuum tube OD. It was a tight fit to push it in, then just some electrical tape around each end. P0410 has never returned.

 

hmmm.. good info. I am getting the same P0410 error code. could this possibly be an O2 sensor as well?

 

The PCM monitors both the voltage from the heated oxygen sensors AND the fuel trim values to determine whether the sensors are bad or whether the check valve is the problem. If the sensors were bad, you'd get a different DTC code. Usually before you get P0410, you'll start getting either P1415 (driver's side check valve bad) or P1416 (passenger side check valve bad) because as the vacuum line under the battery begins to degrade, it won't allow the valve on the outlet of the air pump to open all the way, reducing the amount of air flowing through the check valves and into the headers. Whichever oxygen sensor happens to be a little more sensitive, will indicate to the PCM that the check valve has failed, even if that's not the real problem. It's also extremely common for the check valves to actually fail because they are only a short distance from the exhaust and the exhaust is very hot and quite easily degrades the rubber diaphram inside the check valves. If you're getting P0410, there are only a few ways that can happen (the system is pretty simple); either a) BOTH your check valves are bad, b) the vacuum line under the battery has degraded and wont let the valve on the outlet of the AIR pump open all the way, c) you had a hose between the outlet of the AIR pump and the T blow off or get cut, d) the solenoid that allows vacuum to suck on the vacuum line is faulty, or e) the AIR pump has gone bad. The vacuum line under the battery is the most likely cause.

 

Great info thanks