warranty issues with tuning?

[Basket Case]

I haven't seen an answer to this yet. If the ECU is flashed, does it keep a record? You could always flash it back to stock if need be. I know on my buell, when I flash the ecu it shows the date of the software, not the date it was flashed necessarily.

My only concern is getting either my fuel pump replaced, or the DI seals fixed if something ever happens to them. I want to add a UEL header and a tune and while I understand the Magnuson-Moss act, I don't want to have to go down that road unless absolutely necessary.

[Photonic]

There is a reflash counter on the ECU. At the moment there isnt software capable of wiping it.

[Basket Case]

that sucks, lol.

[frsqc]

there is always a way for them to find out if you tweaked your ecu, if they really want too.
Im starting to believe though people are getting too paranoid reading all these problems on the forums and don't realize that its like that on every car where 2-5% of cars will have issues but the majority are fine and nothing will happen to them....

[wheelhaus]

You could always buy another ECU and keep it stock. But that almost defeats the financial purpose of trying to maintain warranty...

The underlying question is whether or not the tech would even look for altered data in the ECU that wasn't a problem with the ECU itself.

[Basket Case]

Yeah, I guess I am mostly just curious if it is common for a tech at a dealership to check the edu for revisions. I would think no, but I could be wrong.

[Simon99]

I heard that when there's a problem related to major component, they'll always check for problems in the ecu and that they would be able to tell if you reseted everything..

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[dirtymax]

Originally Posted by Basket Case

Yeah, I guess I am mostly just curious if it is common for a tech at a dealership to check the edu for revisions. I would think no, but I could be wrong.

I think it would come down to a few things like does the car look modded and why you are there. If you pop the motor, trans etc. I would think they would check

[mav1178]

Honestly, worry about building a relationship with a dealer you can trust first.

All the fear-mongering talk about warranty denial boils down to: can your service adviser be trusted to know what proper claims to deny, and what not to deny?

An example: if your DI seals fail because of a bad aftermarket tune, will you submit a warranty claim for them? How would one come to the conclusion that your tune didn't cause an abnormal engine condition for the seals to fail?

It's up to the dealer to determine this. The more you hide the more they would want to not work with you... so step 1, build relationship first.

-alex

[stugray]

You CAN burn a new tuned ROM with the same ROM ID (Cal ID) as the ROM that is on the car.
A quick check would not reveal that it is not the factory ROM.

If they Pull the tuned ROM and compare it to stock, they could tell that it is not what they put on there.

As for the Flash counter: So far it is a unicorn. Myths but no proof that it actually exists.

[Poodles]

Originally Posted by wheelhaus

You could always buy another ECU and keep it stock. But that almost defeats the financial purpose of trying to maintain warranty...

The underlying question is whether or not the tech would even look for altered data in the ECU that wasn't a problem with the ECU itself.

Won't work on modern cars (security features of the various computers in the car talking to eachother) Was done in response to people stealing cars by swapping ECU's.

[Juggles]

Originally Posted by stugray

You CAN burn a new tuned ROM with the same ROM ID (Cal ID) as the ROM that is on the car.
A quick check would not reveal that it is not the factory ROM.

If they Pull the tuned ROM and compare it to stock, they could tell that it is not what they put on there.

As for the Flash counter: So far it is a unicorn. Myths but no proof that it actually exists.

It's not a myth. Plug in your ecutek cable and click the "query ecu" button. It keeps an ongoing count of how many times you have flashed.

I'm at 15

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[dirtymax]

I would imagine just about every manufacturer is doing this in one form or another. I know that on Chevys diesel trucks they have been recording serial numbers for different tunes on the ecu for years with no way around it other than to swap a different ecu before you mod then swap back for warranty. Just a tune can raise the hp on a diesel by hundreds so chevy has gone so far to patent their ecu on the newest truck so they can sue tuner companies that alter it

[stugray]

Originally Posted by Juggles

It's not a myth. Plug in your ecutek cable and click the "query ecu" button. It keeps an ongoing count of how many times you have flashed.

So if it is an accessible memory location that can be read by the user & written by the ECU, then why cant we write over it?
I am guessing that it is just a matter of time before someone figures out what piece of code performs that operation.
And maybe it is a ecutek thing, because I have never seen it mentioned in the tactrix discussions...

Originally Posted by dirtymax

so chevy has gone so far to patent their ecu on the newest truck so they can sue tuner companies that alter it

If they would just encrypt the code image on the ECU, then reverse engineering the encryption scheme would violate the DCMA and would be illegal.