Locked ECU

[makkakm]

Hi All
Contacted my local garage that does performance tuning (SEDITAS CARS). He said that some of the late 09 plates ecu are locked.?. Do you know anything about this.?

 

[Poverty]

your leon isnt locked

 

[Adam R]

i would imagine its a new tri core ECU, these require the ecu to be removed and taken apart to enable the tuner to access the eprom to read / write

 

[vRSy]

the only way to know is to have thm check it. some of the 2010 cars have theirs locked yet others dont, which is strange.

most of the remappers have just resorted to the old way of removing the ECU and doing it out of the car instead.

 

[Adam R]

the only way to know is to have thm check it. some of the 2010 cars have theirs locked yet others dont, which is strange.

most of the remappers have just resorted to the old way of removing the ECU and doing it out of the car instead.

yup... its costly as the necassary equipment isnt cheap im still holding on to my trusty obdII stuff for as long as i can!

 

[Poverty]

no 2009 seats have a locked ecu, as as far as I know non of the seats are lockin the ecus yet either

 

[James_R]

is this refering to the fixed/rolling login code like some audis have?

 

[legs]

Hi, if it is any help I have contacted several tuning franchises about a remap on my 2010 build Fr Tsi and custom code stated that the ECU would be locked and they would need the car for 3 days.

No others mentioned any potential issue.

 

[chrisjgill]

I asked a tuner about this and they thought around 80% had on-board protection on the ECU.

However I was pleased to here that I wouldnt get charged any extra if the ECU required removal.

 

[Poverty]

Hi, if it is any help I have contacted several tuning franchises about a remap on my 2010 build Fr Tsi and custom code stated that the ECU would be locked and they would need the car for 3 days.

No others mentioned any potential issue.

As far as I know the Leons are not yet utilising locked ecu's only some audi models.

GIAC can still map anti tune ecu's via the obd port

 

[Al]

As can Revo according to Kev when I spoke to him recently. They have done a few Golf R20T's already too.

 

[vRSy]

Hi, if it is any help I have contacted several tuning franchises about a remap on my 2010 build Fr Tsi and custom code stated that the ECU would be locked and they would need the car for 3 days.

No others mentioned any potential issue.

3 days yet another reason why not to let custom code remap your car.

the golf R has the tfsi which hasnt got the ecu encryption. from what i gather off briskoda its the TSI engines that are predominently locked with a few tdi's as well

 

[Al]

Pretty clear why VAG would want to lock an ECU, but I would imagine there will be some easy way round that soon enough.

What is potentially interesting though is how much the price of a map will be without the easy plug in and map deal we have now. It will also be interesting to see how sales are affected with regard to people who want to buy a car and play with it. If VAG cars become hard to screw with, people may well move on to other ones that arent.

 

[vRSy]

vag build strong engines so thats always going to be a plus factor. shame ford engines ant so strong imo

 

[Adam R]

guys... these ECU's arnt 'locked' as such. they just require the tuner to gain access to the Eprom through the ecu board which is much more labour intensive.

before we could just access the Eprom from the OBDII port, but manufacturers are all too aware of this and have now started to block people from modifying the ecu via the OBD port.

it is now necassary to remove the ecu from the car, Remove the ECU Circuit board and place on a special jig, Wire in some jumpers and connect to a port on the board itself.
some ECU's even lack the connector port on the ECU board itself which means we have to temp solder one in.

 

[chrisjgill]

How do the stealers update the ecu software at service based on the above?

 

[vRSy]

How do the stealers update the ecu software at service based on the above?

they have developed the encryption, and therefore have access codes etc to get through the obdII port.. VCDS still works on them, it just wont allow tuners access to the ecu for remapping via the obd port

 

[Adam R]

Yes either they have the correct encryption OR they remove the ECU and go throught the main loom port

 

[Poverty]

Pretty clear why VAG would want to lock an ECU, but I would imagine there will be some easy way round that soon enough.

What is potentially interesting though is how much the price of a map will be without the easy plug in and map deal we have now. It will also be interesting to see how sales are affected with regard to people who want to buy a car and play with it. If VAG cars become hard to screw with, people may well move on to other ones that arent.

Yep If I cant tune my VAG I wouldnt want one.

Take the tuning of ouf the equation and place the Leon Cupra next to a Megane sport and I presume the decision of which one to have would be extremely easy for 90% of people.

Perhaps VAG either want ABT/MTM to have some sort of exclusivety as they expand into the tuning market, or they just want us to stump up more cash for tastier models to begin with.

 

[chrisjgill]

The annoying thing I guess (depending on how far you live away from the tuner) could be that if after a service the map is overwritten, you have to go back and have the ECU removed again and re-mapped

Or is it a case that once the encryption is bypassed, its no longer active?

Saying that, if the performance is that good compared to standard, once or twice a year visit is maybe not too bad