method for diagnosing an engine control unit conducts an analysis as to whether the signal values from the cylinder pressure sensors are faulty based on at least one characteristic value which is derived from an evaluation of signal values from the cylinder pressure sensors of the cylinders in a combustion engine in addition to this is described the engine control unit designed to execute the method also hereby disclosed is a method which based on symmetrical aspects determines a crankshaft angle for a cylinder pressure maximum during push mode operation of the combustion engine application_number US 24378205 A description with the aid of fig1 a method is exemplarily explained for the determination of a crankshaft angle at which a cylinder pressure maximum occurs and which operates by means of a parabola which is calculated from three cylinder pressure crankshaft angle pairs of variates in fig1 the crankshaft angle is represented on the x axis and the cylinder pressure is represented on the y axis in the case of the method a cylinder pressure crankshaft angle variate pair is determined within a range from u2212 20 u00b0 ca 20 u00b0 on the crankshaft before the top dead center of combustion to 80 u00b0 ca e g per 1 u00b0 ca for each degree of the crankshaft and.