I can't help you with your problem but I fear this will be an increasingly common issue with ageing vehicles, especially for those who put on relatively low mileage each year. The years pile up and the engine, transmission and body are still fine but gremlins start to appear in the electronics that make it all work.
I'm thinking that in 5 years we will see a great increase in the number of vehicles scrapped just because of wiring/connector and magic computer box (including the dashboard) failures that defy quick and economical troubleshooting. As spare working replacements eventually become unavailable, even swapping out the suspect part for a new one will no longer be an option.
Welcome to the brave new world of electronics obsolescence hitting you a lot harder in your wallet than just replacing an overpriced smart phone. If that weren't enough of a downer, what about all those folks building "smart houses" controlled by the Internet of Things? Sounds great up front but the day you come home to realize that nothing works in the house will be real downer. Dealing with a refrigerator that no longer auto-orders milk when you are low is one thing but not being able to turn on the lights or get hot water is a whole new level of inconvenience.
I'm not a pessimist, just a realist, having earned my living for decades designing and building computer-controlled systems. They all fail, eventually. When they are deeply embedded into the basic functionality of the equipment and you can't get replacement parts there is little option but to scrap and start over.
Think about how this will affect the collector's car market in the future. Ah, that 2020 Corvette is still beautiful to look at but in 2045 you can't drive it because the application-specific integrated circuits on the engine control module circuit board to fix it were obsoleted in 2030.
And what about that potential electric car in your future. Nothing in it runs at all without the electronics. How's that going to work out for those who tend to keep their vehicles for a long time? At least Granny Goose's Baker Electric can be brought back to life with a replacement battery (witness Jay Leno's restoration) but I'm betting not so much for a 25 year old Tesla.
A Colorado newspaper recently shut down their 40 year old multi-million dollar printing press because they couldn't get the circuit boards that run it repaired or replaced any more. They had local machinists create new mechanical parts when they wore out but the electronics were a different story.
So now they will sell off the parts of it that do work to those few publishers still running that model of press. The rest of the 180-ton hulk will remain enshrined in an abandoned building because it will cost too much to dismantle and scrap it in this world of financially strapped and disappearing newspapers.
"When it was installed, the Goss [printing press] was expected to last 50 years or more, Orbanek said. 'The grim reality is that the digital revolution has pretty much extinguished all the makers of spare press parts.” If spare parts were still available, the Goss and other presses like it could probably continue to operate.'"
For those of you who have no idea what kind of equipment it takes to print a big daily newspaper, here's a video showing a Goss Headliner printing plant. Just look at all of the embedded electronics in that mechanical monster. There are scores of motor drives and sensors, all connecting to a control system designed over 50 years ago.
