U0145: Lost Communication With Body Control Module E
What to do
Expect some of the car's optional equipment to have stopped working — a panoramic roof, a powered tailgate, ambient lighting, seat memory, a towing socket, or similar.
A fifth body computer only exists on large or well-equipped cars, and it usually looks after exactly that sort of optional kit, so the missing functions are often ones you can live without for a few days.
One question is worth asking before any money is spent: does your car actually have that module? Cars are built on the same wiring across different specifications, and each computer is told what equipment the car has. If one has been told about a module your car never had — which happens after a second-hand part is fitted from a better-equipped car — this code appears permanently and there is nothing physically wrong at all.
And there is a useful signal here: if a thorough search finds nothing, that is itself the answer. A module that is fitted but unpowered can be found with a meter in minutes; one that was never fitted cannot be found at all. At that point the right step is to check the car's build data rather than keep looking.
Otherwise, as at U0141: fuses and relays nearest the dead area first, carpets second, module last.
What this code means
A body control module has stopped being heard from. See U0141 for the supply argument and U0446 for why a fifth body module usually carries the optional equipment.
The question to settle first is whether the module exists, and it is the same one as at U0446 with one addition specific to silence.
A vehicle body is built for several markets and specifications on a shared wiring loom, and configuration data tells each module what should be there. A module coded as present on a vehicle that never had it reports lost communication permanently, and no amount of testing finds a fault, because there is no hardware to test. That is a coding correction rather than a repair, and it follows a module replacement, a retrofit, or a used part fitted from a better-equipped car.
The addition is that silence is the easier case to be certain about. A module that is genuinely fitted and merely unpowered can be found with a meter in minutes. A module that was never fitted cannot be found at all — so an exhaustive search that turns up nothing is itself evidence, and the right response is to check the vehicle's build data rather than to keep looking.
Where the module does exist, everything at U0141 applies — its own fuse box first, the carpets second, the module last.
Likely causes
Start here
- Module not coded to the vehicle · specialist
- Retrofitted equipment not configured · specialist
- Blown fuse or failed supply · easy
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
Less common
- Water ingress into module · moderate
- Damaged data bus wiring · moderate
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
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