EcuTek = no resale value?
 

Can someone clarify how this works? Had a customer who decided to pursue other avenues try and sell hiss EcuTek cable and tune, but being told he cant.

He paid 300 cable, 300 license, 300 tune. He has flashed the car to stock. So is he out this money?

In the domestic world, you buy a diablo or sct or whatever programmer. You get various tunes for one car. Costs $300 to $500 all in. If you flash your car to stock, it releases the 'license' and the unit is fully functional, tunes and all so you can use it on another vehicle, sell it etc.

Can someone clarify the EcuTek deal? Is he really out a small fortune?

He can sell the cable, the rest is not transferable.

Wow, that sucks. I hope by the time I tune my car some better options will be out there.

Wow. That sucks. So what's a used cable worth? $150? Too bad Diablo isn't in the game. They chose to develop the Genesis coupe instead. But they are great. 300 to $500 depending on model, comes with tunes, and if you flash to stock its fully functional, tunes available etc.

Unfortunately this is the case, but they're upfront about the "for life" tune. I wish they used the HPTuners method where you pay $600 for the gear/program and then $100/car in credits to license and tune. $900-$1350 is a sizable sum for not being able to tune or resell, but you're paying to have a master tuner provide for your car with updates for life. To many this is worth it. Just have to be positive you're making the right selection for yourself. Condolences to your customer though. :(

With the handheld programmers like cortex, diablo, etc, is there any manner of tune customization feasible? Or are they just premade off-the-shelf maps with only minor adjustments like shift points, etc.?

There's a piggy-back EMS called Unichip that you can recover most of your investment (pay for the hardware - maps are free).

I've seen some EcuTek cables selling for $250-280. He shouldn't have a problem getting that since a lot of tuners charge the $350 retail.

has anyone actually contacted sct or diablo? I was working with SCT directly when I had my turbo'd mustang. May be a good thing to look at.

BTW, I currently use the unichip system and it's worked well. I just cannot find a local tuner to tune it haha

Not sure how this is different from people sharing cables/dongles. I purchased an EcuTek cable along with some tunes. My buddy purchased an FR-S and ended up just purchasing the tune. When he needs to tune his car, he borrows my cable and dongle. The dongle ID had to be provided to the tuner but it works as-expected.

This really shouldn't be a surprise for anyone unless they didn't do any research at all before purchasing. Ecutek has been around for a while and it's always been the same. You pay for license and tune file. You can purchase the dongle and cable if you want or get a loaner/share.

You can't sell something you don't own. This is just yet another crucial downside to the ecutek model.

As always its great for vendors (can't buy used must buy new) and awful for customers. Par for the course for ecutek.

Its a surprise to anyone not familiar with ecutek. And it truly blows. Even greedy microsoft lets you transfer a windows license.

I guess im just spoiled by Diablo, SCT, efi live, brzedit, tunercat, nistune, hondata, binary editor, hp tuners and all the other companies that have a fair licensing and hardware model.

~500 percent markup on the cable AND a 300$ non transferable license AND 300 $ non trasferable tune?

It also protects tuners. I remember receiving my custom K-pro tune on my Honda and the tuner imploring me not to just give it out to people. I'm an honorable person so I did not toss the tune file around, but there was nothing stopping me from giving it out to anyone with the same setup. I don't have a problem with intellectual property being protected in this manner.

It blows my mind that people talk seriously about Unichip in 2013.

I've run both EcuTek and Unichip. For the value, Unichip is better. I think you get more out of EcuTek but it's also at least 2x as expensive and you can't recoup much of the investment. If EcuTek is the 95% solution, Unichip is 85-90%.

Try buying a professional copy of Photoshop, registering your license and then selling it....

'Hey, I bought windows 8, I installed it, but I am no longer going to use it, I am going to use Ubuntu. Who wants to buy my one use windows 8 dvd and license" *Oh wait, you can't.


When you are buying a software based good, you are simply buying a license to access that software, you do not get to sell your license. Also, was your "customer" ever given the assurance that ECUtek had resale value? was he ever told that he could resell it? If so, I guess there is a problem there with whomever sold him that product. I have NEVER seen any sort of claim that a person could sell their tune and license.

Everyone who is talking about COBB or Diablo do not understand what those products truly are. Those are physical products that contain canned tunes. If you remove the physical product from the car, you lose your tunes. That is much different tha something that flashes the tune "permanently" on the ECU.

Within households, not via reselling the software. That is not how their policy is written.

A popular honda/acura alternative Kpro is awesome because they don't sell tunes, they simply modify your ECU with a daughterboard, install a USB interface, and you download the reflashing/tune editing software for free.

When you sell your Kpro, you just sell the whole ECU.

Basemap tunes were free, and it was easy to create your own. From there you only pay a tuner to tune your basemap, or tune it yourself.

I personally really liked that setup..... when you purchased an FI kit, there was a corresponding basemap built into the software. If there wasn't, chances are someone else had a basemap for you to try. If you couldn't find a basemap for your particular mods, you simply loaded one that was close and tuned it yourself or payed someone to tune it over the net... I think e-tunes were less than 100 bucks

Not true. You buy a laptop with windows on it you can sell the laptop to anyone with the windows still on it.

You do no have to repurchase the license if you buy a used laptop.

BRZedit also requires you to purchase a one-off license as well.

Well he can sell the tuned car lmao

If selling ECUTEK setups were possible, I would imagine to properly transfer it you could sell the dongle/ECU as a bundle... because isn't that what is acutally "bound" to your license?

I think you should be able to sell a dongle/ECU as a set along with a small transfer fee because the tuner has to then supply updates to the new customer which may involve a completely different tune

So far the people I've seen selling Ecutek setups have worked out deals with their tuners to transfer things over to the new owner. I think at least FA20Club has been okay with doing that. It's completely at the discretion of the tuner however whether they want to generate a new license for that specific dongle.

Or for less than the price of Ecutek you can get an unlimited license.

The Pro version is $1500, and that's the only one that allows unlimited licenses. The Personal tuning version is $499.00, and so far is probably the only reasonable flash software in terms of cost for somebody that wants to tune their own vehicle. The Personal version, however, is one license per vin as well. Add in the cost of the tactrix 2.0 cable as well.

http://brzedit.com/index.php/2013-01-22-04-55-54

Sounds like you have no experience with a Cobb Accessport, or similar.

The AP is just an interface to be able to flash your ECU, similar to the ECUTek cable. The AP must be "married" to your ECU to be able to flash that ECU. Once married, you can't use it to tune any other ECU, unless you "unmarry" from the original ECU. Unmarrying consists of reflashing back to stock, and then being free from the pairing. The AP is then free to be used on ANY other ECU, after being married to that new ECU.

Anyone who thinks buying mods for a car, be it physical or software, and thinking they are going to get a good return on their "investment" is going to have a bad time.

Come on @Toma, you've made your point many times over. You don't appreciate the Ecutek product model. Build a bridge and get over it.

This

Please. I just had no idea it was essentially worthless. Most any other part you can get 50 to 60 percent on your dollar. Hell... unmarried diablo or sct or evem cobb will bring 70 percent

And seems NO ONE likes the model. But some will make excuses and rationalize it.... or put up with it for lack of better options.

People need to know this, and the louder we voice our opinions, the better chance we'll have of more competition or EcuTek fixing an unfair model

A better option would be free tuning. Being realistic, many of us paid the extra sum of money for the expertise of Visconti, FA20Club, etc. Those that didn't like the model or wanted to tune for themselves went with BRZedit. I like not having to drive to a different state to get retuned when I throw a new part at the car, and the extra money was worth it to continue getting free updates/support from talented people.

Will another option become dominant 5 years down the road? Statistically that's been the case. However, EcuTEK isn't going to drastically change their model, even with the bashing being brought into a half-dozen threads. Don't take offense, I wholly see your point, I just think the market has spoken and the argument does nothing to better/advance the community.

I like it.

Maybe you could try putting some of this effort into furthering brzedit instead of trying to drag euctek through the mud. Ecutek being the biggest competitor of the product you use, this doesn't make you look like a reputable tuner at all. Notice how the successful vendors don't bash each other? This is a big part of why they're successful. I like to call it integrity.

Im not bashing any vendors tuners.

Just had a guy that bought the ecutek and didnt know it would be worthless.

Seems an important point to stress.

Keep this on topic. This is not about me.

So move along, you too have made your point repeatedly.

I thought the documentation was very clear as far as the license being consumed after purchase. Did he not read the FAQ or any of the threads on the forum? It even alerts you, again, before you flash the car. You're phrasing it like they're intentionally screwing people. If I pay $100 to go to a concert, and I don't enjoy the concert or have to leave early, that doesn't mean the concert was inherently worthless. Just means I made a poor call.

I do know how they work, many of my friends with WRXs and STIs swear by them. But what I said was not untrue, you take away the access port, you take away the tune, effectively making it good for only that one car

The device is only good for one car *at a time*. You can use it on any other car if you choose to do so.

It's like a set of wheels... you can only have them on one car at a time...

People need to realize that ecutek is no cobb accessport or Diablo..

EcuTek doesn't want their licenses to be resold and i really don't want my tunes resold.

I think it's funny how quickly people forget how lucky we all are a company like EcuTek is supporting this platform. If EcuTek didn't spend the time and money working on these cars this platform would be completely different !

It's not like EcuTek did simple ecu support and bailed on all of us after. They continue to update their product and stay on top of their game even when they have no real competition. Brzedit isn't competition .. That product is at a entirely different level, similar to the unichip, IMO of course lol .

John

Apparently not. Once it's unmarried from one car, it can be married to another car and upload the tune to the new car immediately. It's only good for one car at a time, but it is absolutely transferable.

I don't see why people think the tune should be re-sellable. You buy the tune they spend time looking at your logs fixing your car up. Some give free updates some dont. Say you sell your tune for 200 do you really think the tuner should start all over with another car with the resold tune. And not get anymore money? I don't that's fucked up. That's like paying one shop to install coil overs and you sell them and expect them to do the reinstall for the price you already paid on another car.

When people take there cars and standalone management to a dyno they don't resell the dyno tune they sell the hardware. If there is a map on it and the other car runs then so be it. But there is no guarantee since each car is different.

Just be glad they hacked the ecu. My last car had a Toyota ecu and it could not be hacked. Tuning for that starts at 2k you need hardware that runs more then ekutek cable and a license price does. Then you need a tuner and dyno time. Easy another 500 bucks.

You can resell the ecutek cable for 200 to 250. You can charge people around your area to use the cable and recoup your cost over time.

But since the license is only to use the software you can't sell that. And the tune since its configured for your car will only hurt someone else's car unless its the same car same mods.

We have a brz edit vs ecutek thread already so let's keep that out of this.

x2 here

:bonk: Does "IMO of course lol" mean "what I said was totally absurd but I am relinquishing any responsibility for saying it" ?

brzedit is an ecu flash
unichip is a piggyback
ecutek is an ecu flash

Which two are more alike? I mean, seriously, that is the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. And I've been on these forums like a half hour already. Honestly, I 100% believe you said that the way you did 1) because people that didn't know better would believe it and 2) because it gave you an "out" when someone called you on saying something so ridiculous.

x 100
I think he was drunk when he wrote that lol. Flash tunes. Better logger. All the same tuning parameters are there. But brzedit is missing a couple useless gimmicks.... like your tach displaying flash progress lmao!