ECU software protection

**blutopless2** · 07-09-2011, 08:03 PM

I recently went to APR to have my Tiguan flashed... the tuner said that there is software protection on the ECU and to do the flash will need a few hours as it has to come out of the car to be done. couldn't hang round at the time so will book it in at a later date.
He said that it is about the 4th or 5th Tiguan that has had the software protection but hasn't come across any GTI's that have had the protection.
Anyone experienced this at all?

**Corey_R** · 07-09-2011, 08:09 PM

Yeah... it's nothing new mate. Though, it seems to be rarer in Australian than some of the overseas markets. All APR dealers have the equipment to remove the ECUs and "bench flash" them. Various other companies and options may or may not be able to, depending on the model and specific ECU being used.

**DNA Tuning** · 07-09-2011, 08:40 PM

Must not be with all of them though; as I did a 125TSI Tiguan Tiptronic earlier this year...

**Corey_R** · 07-09-2011, 08:47 PM

Yeah... I'm not sure what's going on. APR ensured that all their dealers have the capability because a year or so ago it was expected that all our cars would get this. If you talk to overseas tuners, from the UK for example, they have entire series of VW's which have this protection, yet out here our cars don't. My observations, just from the posts of other members affected here, is that for most models in Australia it just seems to be random - but a rather low %.

**blutopless2** · 08-09-2011, 07:47 AM

no probs... it seems really weird that they would not install the protection on all models etc since it is just software??
unless they figure the amount of tuning in oz is insignificant..
anyway.. i'm glad it can still be done as i am really looking forward to the change in the car...

**slipshot** · 08-09-2011, 10:37 AM

From what I understand, Australia is seeing more encrypted ECU's than it has in the past, and the number appears to be going up rather than down, which is a shame. There does not seem to be any easy way of determining if your car has this issue until inspected by the relevant tuner, but there are ways around the issue (in some cases), albeit at a greater time and cost than a standard tune would offer.

More recent GTI's are beginning to show it, as are Golf R's...

**parso_rex** · 09-09-2011, 09:18 PM

No Golf R's have the encryption as they use the older MED9x ECU's its only the later MED17s and similar as used by the Tigs and Mk6 GTIs that you have to watch as well as many of the diesels EDC17s. The tigs here definitely have a few later model ones locked but the Mk6 GTI aren't yet locked from what I've seen. Certainly with a simple manufacturer upgrade it could easily be implemented though.
From what I saw recently in Europe its going to get pretty interesting in the next few years.

**Guy_H** · 12-09-2011, 08:47 AM

Depends on the build date of the car (Tiguan), certainly all late builds are encrypted, and a lot have security bolts in securing the ECU to make it more fun to get it out. Any that can be done down the port are what we call "old" build now. So unfortunately its best to allow a couple of hours. The last 6 we have done here, 5 of them were ECU out jobs.

We have now seen the roll out of the next generation of ECU's with a newer encryption again (MED 17.5.2) which has another batch of layers of stuff to deal with. The new Passat's & Jetta's have been found with this already.

**james928** · 20-09-2011, 12:55 PM

MMMm these Germans are trying hard. TriCore CPU with tuner protect and multi layer checksum. Soon I think even BDM/BLS functions will be disabled, then I'm off to the mines LOL