Ecutek debacle from required recall - Toyota GR86, 86, FR-S and Subaru BRZ Forum & Owners Community

Norcalmav23 · 06-05-2014, 11:41 PM

Long week, long story. Not sure how many of you are in the same boat...

In order to get my car registration renewed I had to get recall #WQC39 taken care of. It involves a dreaded ecu reflash. I am full Visconti tuned stage 2.

To allow the recall flash to happen, I flash back to stock... they do their job and service the recall... as soon as I get the car back, to avoid CEL and my car having major issues, I attempt to flash back to my Visconti provided stage 2 tune. HOWEVER, the dealership wrote over/voided/ate? my Ecutek license so I am now unable to flash my stage 2 map back onto the ecu, it simply says that there is no license present

(I attached a screen shot). Given that I put serious miles per day on my Brz, this past week hasn't been too much fun having to clear CEL's and such. I contacted Visconti and he promptly told me what to do... email over a copy of the recall being serviced, which I did within an hour. Upon following up a few days later it sounds like I am actually waiting on Ecutek to supply an additional license. Any idea how long this should take? Anyone else ever go through this?

The beautiful weather is upon us in Nor Cal, and I am missing my somewhat powerful (don't laugh), stage 2 brz

. Hopefully the Ecutek Gods will smile upon me soon and bless with me with another license to flash my neutered car with.

Name: Ecutek No Licenses Present in ECU upload.jpg
Views: 2344
Size: 264.0 KB

Name: Ecutek No Licenses Present in ECU upload.jpg
Views: 2344
Size: 264.0 KB

pmccut · 06-05-2014, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norcalmav23

Long week, long story. Not sure how many of you are in the same boat...

In order to get my car registration renewed I had to get recall #WQC39 taken care of. It involves a dreaded ecu reflash. I am full Visconti tuned stage 2.

To allow the recall flash to happen, I flash back to stock... they do their job and service the recall... as soon as I get the car back, to avoid CEL and my car having major issues, I attempt to flash back to my Visconti provided stage 2 tune. HOWEVER, the dealership wrote over/voided/ate? my Ecutek license so I am now unable to flash my stage 2 map back onto the ecu it simply says that there is no license present

(I attached a screen shot). Given that I put serious miles per day on my Brz, this past week hasn't been too much fun having to clear CEL's and such. I contacted Visconti and he promptly told me what to do... email over a copy of the recall being serviced, which I did within an hour. Upon following up a few days later it sounds like I am actually waiting on Ecutek to supply an additional license. Any idea how long this should take? Anyone else ever go through this?

The beautiful weather is upon us in Nor Cal, and I am missing my somewhat powerful (don't laugh), stage 2 brz

. Hopefully the Ecutek Gods will smile upon me soon and bless with me with another license to flash my neutered car with.

Attachment 81055

I had something similar happen with the licensing. While flashing ecutek threw an error and the flash aborted mid way, car was a sitting brick. Msg'd Visconti (tune was just sent over from him minutes before), and he had a license update for me in minutes. @EcuTek should be able to take care of this near immediately..

jflogerzi · 06-05-2014, 11:48 PM

this guy is still tuning twins WTF??!!

Norcalmav23 · 06-05-2014, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jflogerzi

this guy is still tuning twins WTF??!!

I was one of his original pre orders 2 years ago... Simply looking for support

JerryMichaels7 · 06-05-2014, 11:52 PM

his tunes didn't burn the car down his poorly designed product did, the guy isn't stupid when it comes to the tuning side

Cjymiller · 06-06-2014, 12:41 AM

Hope we can see some solid customer service from EcuTek on this. I'm considering them and definitely interested to see what they do here...

mkivsoopra · 06-06-2014, 01:05 AM

This happened to me a while back. I think it took about 2 days for them to issue a new license through Visconti. You should be hearing back soon. If not, remind Visconti.

Tromatic · 06-06-2014, 01:27 AM

Screw that. Wanting to protect your work is one thing but leaving your car dead to do so is fucked up.

steve99 · 06-06-2014, 01:33 AM

This is not a problem with the tuner, its just the way Ecutek licencing works. Ecutek needs to see the licence info embedded in the rom in the car, it embedded in an unused part of the rom . If you or the dealer write a new rom to the car not using ecutek then you have written over your ecutek licence and you have the problem the OP has.

This can also happen if you get a failed write with ecutek and you dont use the recovery mode.
Brz

86drift · 06-06-2014, 02:30 AM

I lost my EcuTek licence when I flashed with BRZEdit. Back then I didn't realise how their licencing worked.
The Australian EcuTek dealer wasn't interested in helping me out.

nelsmar · 06-06-2014, 04:00 AM

I've dealt with this before. Just call john. As much if a **** he can be he will take Carew of you. Just actually call and explain what happened. Exutek just needs to verify before they send a license as it's easy to "false" so it can take upwards of a week but usually just a day or two.

DJCarbine · 06-06-2014, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tromatic

Screw that. Wanting to protect your work is one thing but leaving your car dead to do so is fucked up.

From what I read, the car has a factory tune on it and runs/drives.

::edit

seems the other guys were not so lucky

King Tut · 06-06-2014, 10:30 AM

I lost my EcuTek license many many times in my process of figuring out that my laptop was just incapable of completing a reflash and before they fixed EcuTek to not consume a license until after the reflash was successfully completed. The process was always to e-mail Visconti with my EcuTek log file (the file that has a copy of all the info that gets printed in the right side of the image above). Then he would have to contact EcuTek to have them put a license back on my dongle ID and then you connect to the EcuTek servers and download the new license file and apply it to your dongle and flash away.

Xero-Limit · 06-06-2014, 09:34 PM

Keep your receipt whenever a dealer flashes your car. It is frequent enough and EcuTek will always reinstate the license if you have some documentation. Unfortunately there's some that try to game the system, so there has to be some diligence. Ultimately if you provide a receipt and a log file that shows a certain vin having a license, then not; we know it was an overwrite and it is a non-issue to reinstate.

06-05-2014, 11:41 PM	#1
Norcalmav23 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Drives: SWP Limited manual BRZ Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 146 Thanks: 73 Thanked 55 Times in 33 Posts Mentioned: 12 Post(s) Tagged: 1 Thread(s)	Ecutek debacle from required recall Long week, long story. Not sure how many of you are in the same boat... In order to get my car registration renewed I had to get recall #WQC39 taken care of. It involves a dreaded ecu reflash. I am full Visconti tuned stage 2. To allow the recall flash to happen, I flash back to stock... they do their job and service the recall... as soon as I get the car back, to avoid CEL and my car having major issues, I attempt to flash back to my Visconti provided stage 2 tune. HOWEVER, the dealership wrote over/voided/ate? my Ecutek license so I am now unable to flash my stage 2 map back onto the ecu, it simply says that there is no license present (I attached a screen shot). Given that I put serious miles per day on my Brz, this past week hasn't been too much fun having to clear CEL's and such. I contacted Visconti and he promptly told me what to do... email over a copy of the recall being serviced, which I did within an hour. Upon following up a few days later it sounds like I am actually waiting on Ecutek to supply an additional license. Any idea how long this should take? Anyone else ever go through this? The beautiful weather is upon us in Nor Cal, and I am missing my somewhat powerful (don't laugh), stage 2 brz . Hopefully the Ecutek Gods will smile upon me soon and bless with me with another license to flash my neutered car with. __________________ - Clear Bra - 35% tint - Fa20 club intake - Rev Works header - Perrin OP - 3 inch FP - Resonated CB - Perrin LW crank pulley - Fortune Auto 500 V4 coil overs... pinky sized gap - Full CS knock off poly lip kit - JDM clear side markers - RPF1 18x8 - 35 offset - square 225-18-40 - Perrin shifter bushing - KartBoy positive shift kit - Hawk HPS pads - SS Lines - Visconti e85 tuned

06-05-2014, 11:52 PM	#5
JerryMichaels7 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2013 Drives: Whiteout FRS Location: South, Ga Posts: 348 Thanks: 19 Thanked 144 Times in 80 Posts Mentioned: 2 Post(s) Tagged: 0 Thread(s)	his tunes didn't burn the car down his poorly designed product did, the guy isn't stupid when it comes to the tuning side __________________ life's greatest stories usually start with the words, "fuck it!".

06-06-2014, 04:00 AM	#11
nelsmar Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2013 Drives: FR-S Location: Phoenix Posts: 2,605 Thanks: 733 Thanked 2,361 Times in 1,031 Posts Mentioned: 345 Post(s) Tagged: 3 Thread(s)	I've dealt with this before. Just call john. As much if a ** he can be he will take Carew of you. Just actually call and explain what happened. Exutek just needs to verify before they send a license as it's easy to "false" so it can take upwards of a week but usually just a day or two. __________________ When I grow up, I wanna be God. My flickr - Canibeat Local magazine scout Old Setup: Vortech Supercharged 360WHP/262WTQ @ 11.5psi My build thread** - WTF happened to nelsmar's car thread

06-06-2014, 10:30 AM	#13
King Tut NASA SpecE30 Racer Join Date: May 2012 Drives: 2006 Honda S2000 Location: Gulf Breeze, FL Posts: 7,279 Thanks: 607 Thanked 5,759 Times in 3,055 Posts Mentioned: 274 Post(s) Tagged: 10 Thread(s)	I lost my EcuTek license many many times in my process of figuring out that my laptop was just incapable of completing a reflash and before they fixed EcuTek to not consume a license until after the reflash was successfully completed. The process was always to e-mail Visconti with my EcuTek log file (the file that has a copy of all the info that gets printed in the right side of the image above). Then he would have to contact EcuTek to have them put a license back on my dongle ID and then you connect to the EcuTek servers and download the new license file and apply it to your dongle and flash away. __________________ - King Tut Street/Track Car: 2006 Honda S2000 TT3 \|\| Race Car: 1987 BMW 325is SpecE30 \|\| Tow Vehicle: 2014 RAM 1500 EcoDiesel Sold Cars: 2012 BMW M3 \|\| 2013 Subaru BRZ \|\| 2012 Porsche Cayman R \|\| 2009 Chevrolet Z06 \|\| 2009 BMW M3 \|\| 2004 BMW M3 \|\| 2004 Nissan 350Z

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06-06-2014, 01:05 AM	#7
mkivsoopra Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Drives: BRZ Location: CA Posts: 805 Thanks: 939 Thanked 950 Times in 412 Posts Mentioned: 161 Post(s) Tagged: 1 Thread(s)	This happened to me a while back. I think it took about 2 days for them to issue a new license through Visconti. You should be hearing back soon. If not, remind Visconti.

06-06-2014, 01:27 AM	#8
Tromatic Banned Join Date: May 2013 Drives: FR-S Location: Portland, OR Posts: 2,232 Thanks: 61 Thanked 1,728 Times in 786 Posts Mentioned: 19 Post(s) Tagged: 0 Thread(s)	Screw that. Wanting to protect your work is one thing but leaving your car dead to do so is fucked up.

06-06-2014, 01:33 AM	#9
steve99 Banned Join Date: Dec 2013 Drives: FT86 Location: Australia Posts: 7,996 Thanks: 1,035 Thanked 4,993 Times in 2,983 Posts Mentioned: 598 Post(s) Tagged: 2 Thread(s)	This is not a problem with the tuner, its just the way Ecutek licencing works. Ecutek needs to see the licence info embedded in the rom in the car, it embedded in an unused part of the rom . If you or the dealer write a new rom to the car not using ecutek then you have written over your ecutek licence and you have the problem the OP has. This can also happen if you get a failed write with ecutek and you dont use the recovery mode. Brz

06-06-2014, 02:30 AM	#10
86drift Join Date: Jun 2012 Drives: Toyota 86 GT Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 517 Thanks: 85 Thanked 263 Times in 147 Posts Mentioned: 24 Post(s) Tagged: 0 Thread(s)	I lost my EcuTek licence when I flashed with BRZEdit. Back then I didn't realise how their licencing worked. The Australian EcuTek dealer wasn't interested in helping me out.

06-06-2014, 09:34 PM	#14
Xero-Limit Join Date: Nov 2012 Drives: JDL Turbo FRS, 335SC BRZ (ret) Location: Lehigh Valley, PA Posts: 938 Thanks: 368 Thanked 1,550 Times in 527 Posts Mentioned: 380 Post(s) Tagged: 6 Thread(s)	Keep your receipt whenever a dealer flashes your car. It is frequent enough and EcuTek will always reinstate the license if you have some documentation. Unfortunately there's some that try to game the system, so there has to be some diligence. Ultimately if you provide a receipt and a log file that shows a certain vin having a license, then not; we know it was an overwrite and it is a non-issue to reinstate.

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