ATM Chiptuning

[DieselFan]

Well for the sake of healthy debate as I understand it bench flash is only nesecairy when there are no tools to "crack" the ecu. So newer cars would not be able to be flashed via obd2. But by the time they're off motorplan tuners have already cracked them often even before.

 

[Ratslaaf]

See, and I'm only a newby to this affair, there's many older ECUs that still need to be cracked open.

The issue is that the flash can only be upgraded through the OBD port if you've got the RSA keys. Sometimes they leak out, but many times it's just easier to crack open the ECU. EDC16's aren't cracked, nor are EDC17's as far as I'm aware. And EDC16's came out in 2004 cars already.

Again, I won't claim to be an expert here, but this is what I've managed to glean from the real propeller heads over at MHHAuto.

 

[Ratslaaf]

I need to make a correction to the above. I believe Flashtech has now cracked the ECUs for EDC16 cars. For VAG they've also cracked EDC17's. They haven't cracked the EDC17's for BMWs though, and they are the first guys to crack these ECUs.

http://flashtec.ch

Flashtech tools are also the most expensive BTW. Point is, if Flashtech hasn't cracked it, it's pretty safe to say there's no one that can flash these ECUs using the OBD port.

Alientech hasn't cracked these yet, and they are the mostly used tools for flashing cars, because their clone hardware are easy to get hold of.

Soooo, to bring this debate full circle, I doubt some tuning shop in Welkom makes use of seriously expensive tools that can do OBD flash, in order to charge R2k for a tune. It then stands to reason that there's a very high risk with getting these guys to work on cars for R2k if there's no meat in there to fix bugger ups when they inevitably happen. All tuners say the risk is on the owner, but the more reputable guys will actually try and save their reputation rather than throwing their hands up in the air the moment disaster strikes. Just such a situation happened about 2 weeks ago and the tuner made good in the end.