ECU re-mapping - can it be detected?

[flango]

Some manufacturers regularly flash the ECU when the car is in for service at the dealers, surely this would wipe out a remap? Also BMW & Ford are now starting to use encrypted ECU's so you can't remap them. Can only be remapped at the Dealer (Presume they have worked out they were losing too much money to after market tuners?)

 

[raymont]

Some manufacturers regularly flash the ECU when the car is in for service at the dealers, surely this would wipe out a remap? Also BMW & Ford are now starting to use encrypted ECU's so you can't remap them. Can only be remapped at the Dealer (Presume they have worked out they were losing too much money to after market tuners?)

Believe some tuners will offer you a free, or nominal cost, remap if yours is overwritten in this way.

 

[GCLTuning]

Unless a main dealer has the same remapping system, software and encrypted codes they will not be able to physically see the software on the ECU. They are however able to see how many times someone has been into the ECU but not what they have done with it....remapping IS invisible to someone that hasn't got the program to open it up....eg if you try and open a microsoft word program without having the software stored on your computer it wont open up.

Remaps are never 100% Not detectable...a company should never say that they are a 100% not detecatble as this would be a lie. The only way in which a main dealer, or insurance company etc can see the remap is if they have the correct software, systems to open it up and the encripted code which is applied by the tuner OR...
If they put the vehicle on a Rolling Road and print off a dyno graph, they would then have to compare this graph with a standard one....

Quite a lot of hassle which i'm sure they wouldn't do with every car they are suspisious of having a remap!!

 

[GuyFawkes]

Remapping is EXACTLY akin to flashing the BIOS on a computer or flashing the OS on a firewall/hub/router.

Google "checksum", the easiest task of all is detecting if the code has been changed, and for many purposes that is sufficient, it is not necessary to know how the code has been changed, merely that it has.

Quite frankly, how a gen u wine Brabus remap is allegedly worth a grand plus, while an updated driver for my colour laser printer is free, speaks volumes about the motor industry in general and so-called prestige marques and aficionados in particular.

The fact is that all the ECU's make a 1995 E-class significantly cheaper to manufacture than a 1985 E-class (for example) while also locking the customer in to a lifetime of maintenance.

If they don't already, expect the "limp home" mode to trigger automatically 14 days or 500 miles after a scheduled service.

The beauty of a CANbus based vehicle is that I can stick a device ANYWHERE on the "vehicle LAN" which does nothing but periodically check every other device to determine by checksum if the software has been altered... it could be literally embedded within an engine sub loom, or inside a rear passenger door loom, anywhere.

Those old jokes about "If Microsoft made cars" are pushing up the daisies, in effect MS do make cars, they changed the name to MB, and everyone else is following suit.

Now the whole idea of Open Source really starts to hit you in the pocket.

What does the Mercedes Benz Bosch engine management system do, that Megasquirt (do a google) doesn't?

http://classicmotorsports.net/project-cars/1969-volvo-142/megasquirt-installation/

 

[GuyFawkes]

Remaps are never 100% Not detectable...a company should never say that they are a 100% not detecatble as this would be a lie.

Remaps are always 100% detectable, by definition.

Why not tell it like it is? Vested interest perhaps.

 

[GrahamC230K]

Remaps are always 100% detectable, by definition.

Why not tell it like it is? Vested interest perhaps.

Glad someone make it clear enough.

 

[scotth_uk]

I am also confident that a checksum method of testing would immediately uncover a modification - provided it can be accessed simply.

All that the tech would need is a list of approved firmware checksum values for the car, and they'd quickly compare the car's current value to that list. If it doesn't match - you've been remapped, or the image is faulty.

*** indicates that it may be tricky to access, so this may not be a real issue for many cars.

 

[raymont]

Don’t know very much about this so feedback on the following welcomed:

Do remaps change the code, data or both?

Code will be updated from time to times as part of routine maintenance, some cars will have no updates applied, others will have different combination of patches applied, wouldn’t this render a checksum approach to code checking ineffective?

Is the data component modified by these updates? If so checksumming is inappropriate for the same reason as the code.

Is the data modified in real time by reading from the various sensors, if this is the case the data is changing and will therefore not be checkable by a checksum approach.

 

[Dieselman]

A map is the firmware an ECU application uses to decide what output to give for a given set of inputs.
Any update will overwrite the old firmware and have a new version code.

A quick look at the Ver will reveal a change unless the new programme also has the exact same name as the overwritten programme, but the checksum won't be the same.

 

[Number_Cruncher]

>>Is the data modified in real time by reading from the various sensors

No, the basic map is not altered by adaptive settings.

There are a number of tables, the basic map, an adaption mapping for temperature corrections, lambda corrections, etc, etc, and the final value for injection duration, or ignition advance, or whatever the ECU output is that you're interested in is found by summing the data in the basic map and all of the corrections.

So, the adaptive corrections can be, and are updated almost continuously - there are even (rather clever!) predictive methods that allow the corrections to be made in areas of the vehicle's operating map which are only rarely used - i.e., the adaptive algorithm doesn't necessarily need the car to be redlined to set the adaptive value at the red line!

 

[GuyFawkes]

All that the tech would need is a list of approved firmware checksum values for the car, and they'd quickly compare the car's current value to that list. If it doesn't match - you've been remapped, or the image is faulty.

I'll say it again so it is clear.

A checksum will provide a TRUE / FLASE response to the question of ECU being changed.

It is an assumption, with no basis, that a human tech is required to decide to, and then make, a physical check.

The lights / battery / abs warning lights are in effect produced by checksums, remove the tell tales and the checksums themselves still exist.

So, in fact (a lot like MS Windows for example) only certain specialists inside Mercedes Benz have access to all the source code, only they can know if there is currently a requirement for a human to run a physical checksum check, or if such a check is already implemented automatically, but the output of this is only stored somewhere else and doesn't actually trigger any state changes such as limp home mode or alerting the next OEM diagnostic terminal plugged in to the vehicle.

This is the automotive equivalent of DRM / HDMI / 1080p / bluray etc.