Re: <All> Chips and diag scans

[Neil Maller <neilmaller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 10:38:40 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Garrick Louie <garrickl@domain.elided>
>
>From my understanding and others can correct me if they are wrong, When
>connected to a Modic (BMW Dealers Mainframe diag. machine) they can tell
>without looking at it that you have a "chip" even though on a 98' car what
>you may really have is just new "program."
>
>Go with JimC, when he makes a "chip" for your car.  From what I know he
>has alot of intergity, he can help you if you run into any ODBII problems
>that others have had from other chips!  OBDII can cuase you may problems,
>even on stock cars ask me how I know!

At least in the case of his OBD-II software update, JimC's work is 
undetectable by the MODIC.

This led to an interesting discussion at my dealer when I had to have the 
recent emissions related BMW software update done on my car.

My 96 M3 had already been sharked, so I wasn't too thrilled to have the 
factory update done and then have to ask JimC do his thing over again 
(incorporating the update). I had told the dealer that my ECU had been 
reprogrammed, but when they put my car on the MODIC it showed no change. 
The Service Advisor was all concerned that I'd paid for a reprogram job 
and been ripped off!

Of course I knew that it had in fact been reprogrammed (timed performance 
improvement, raised rev limit, etc.), but it was interesting to have 
Jim's stealth capability demonstrated.

As Jim explained it at Gateway Tech this year, each time the dealer's 
system is used to reprogram, a record of that change is automatically 
written to the ECU. That way the MODIC can read the change history. When 
Jim reprograms he doesn't write that record, so no change is apparent to 
the MODIC. Cool!

Neil
96 M3, Sharked (and re-sharked)

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