[mid_life_crisis]

Originally Posted by steve99

You should be fine even if they have overwritten ecu with a new rom just use the OFT to write over it ,as you will still be able to flash with oft as it just checks the vin matches your car its still the same car isn't it

It only when loading tunes into the OFT it checks the Revision matches ie A01C or B01C.

You will just lose what they have written. If you use the oft diagnostics it should read out the rom revision that in the ecu.

Interesting, this is what tech support at OpenFlash sent to me in response to my question.
"You have to be 100% sure that the dealership did not reprogram your ecu. Meaning when you took your car to the dealer you should have flash the car back to stock or do not authorize any sorts of reprogramming. If the dealer reprogrammed your ecu with a new software that will explain why your tablet is not connecting to the car. if this is the case it means that the tablet cannot retrieve the file that was originally in the car to match the VIN therefore it cannot communicate. "


Fortunately it is a moot point as I took the advice supplied by the friendly forum members (thank you!) and it actually connected this morning and rewrote the original file back to the car before going to work.
The car is now at the dealership so they can check out the diagnostic connection and see if that is working. I spoke with the shop foreman, who also drives a tuned FR-S, and explained everything that has been going on and he'll monitor the situation this time so we'll figure this out.


Meanwhile, the defroster worked as expected this morning. This brings up a new question. I'm not imagining that there is some sort of supplemental heating element in this thing, am I? It certainly feels that way when it fires up. Don't forget, I have the same HVAC as the top of the line BRZ.