You can actually read and write ME7 ECUs with a cheap vagcom cable, not that I would recommend it. Hell even a legit rosstech hex-can cable will work, you just need the right software. Personally I wouldn't get into something like this unless you have a good knowledge of of low-level software and hardware that goes into this, blindly following guides is a fast track to a bricked ECU. That being said I'm going to be doing this sometime soon and even with a bit of experience with hex editors and flashing I'm nervous about it.

And to answer the first question, sure it's very possible but not easy. Even though tuners can't encrypt the file, they take all sorts of measures to prevent these things. If you can find a file somewhere that you know with 100% certainty that it'll work with your ECU then you can flash it and all will be good, otherwise you'll have a hell of a time.

 

i've never seen it done before but it's theoretically capable with a vag com cable. but you can buy a tune flasher and download tunes that people have written. you'll never be able to download an APR, GIAC, etc tune and flash it yourself unless you are an authorized dealer

 

Year and a half old thread bump just to say this

 

Haha, I saw the topic thought it looked familiar.

 

Hey, he was agreeing with a genius... and a scholar. True wisdom never gets old!

 

Pretty sure it's more difficult to jailbreak a new smartphone than it is to bypass whatever measures OEM and tuners might use to stop people from doing the same thing to their car.

It shouldn't be too hard to copy a tune from an ECU and write it back again to another (same type) ECU. I guess it's only a matter of time before this becomes mainstream. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

I hope tuners see this coming and realize that they'll need to make their money off of parts and give people the programs to go with it for free.

 

Tuning In the future will be as simple as updating your computer today.

 

zombie thread! it just won't die!

 

I can kill it........ .

but wheres the fun in that. Tuning will never be east as updating your computer, as tech advances, the code and difficulty of hackign becomes a lot lot harder. Essentially, tuning is "hacking" your just modifying what is there. Look at the new Iphone 5 jailbreak, they said it was the most challenging jailbreak ever, and it showed because it took forever. It was all because apple wrote the code to prevent jailbreaking. Don't you think luxury car makers make their cars like apple makes their phones? Toyota is even working to make cars 100 maintenance free. you wont have to touch the oil or coolant, imagine trying to tune an engine you can't change the oil on because its sealed because it "never needs changing". Its going to get harder, not easier.

 

Fair point but that works both ways. As tech advances to secure things so do the methods in hacking them and in my personal opinion, hacking is advancing a lot faster than trying to secure things from being hacked, no doubt about this. The evidence is everywhere, games/software. When they first introduced DRM for PC games, they thought it would be secure but was hacked the first day after release. Clearly when it comes to ECU's it is harder but I believe tuning in a few years can be done by the average Joe, just my thoughts.