2013+ cannot be remapped

[Yeti-RS]

On Saturday i drove down my 2013 Fabia VRS to APR in milton keynes.

Anyway long story short, my car has the MED 17.5 which has been kicking around for a while now.

It is a varation they have never seen before, the loophole that tuners have been exploiting to access the ECU has been closed...... 1024bit encryption which if ur a geek you would know that this isnt something you can just crack.

They are going to have to buy a whole ECU from VW and try to hack it, could take hours could take months :(

Evan knew about VW closing the loophole in future models, its so bad that they are considering making whole new ECU's for the new MK7 golfs and future gti's which will obviously have locked ECU's.

so if you have a 2013 model VRS, double check with the tuner before making the journey.

Obviously they will find a way eventually, but at the moment theres nothing :(

[Binzie]

Are you sure its 1024 bit im sure I read some quantum mathematician saying it would take 1500 years without a super / mega computer

Unless the key is flawed or hackable ?

[vRSy]

I dont think any of the tuners cracked the previous encryptions, they just opened the ECU and bypassed the OBD port instead. Might be wrong on that though.

Looks like Ford/Mini etc have the right idea with the Mountune/JCW options. Sooner or later they will make it so hard for the tuners that they'll struggle for business because if it gets too hard the price will have to go up to reflect it which is a shame.

[Binzie]

**goes off to invest in tuning box company and buy a whole load of Chinese resisters***

[vRSy]

Fair point there. I cant see how they can protect against the tuning box as that literally plugs in line with the sensor looms etc.

[Yeti-RS]

Are you sure its 1024 bit im sure I read some quantum mathematician saying it would take 1500 years without a super / mega computer

Unless the key is flawed or hackable ?

exactly what i meant.

Evan is vice president of APR and thats what he explained to me!

[Yeti-RS]

Fair point there. I cant see how they can protect against the tuning box as that literally plugs in line with the sensor looms etc.

saw your car sitting there in the snow on saturday, snapped steering rack and no end of transmission problems right?

Edited 26 March, 2013 by Yeti-RS

[vRSy]

Thats the only transmission problem I know of lol, hopefully there arent any more, my piggy bank is suffering lately

[Yeti-RS]

the future aint bright if i heard right, they are looking into making complete APR ECU's to swap with the stock one as its impossible to pass the encryption.

why oh why did i buy a new VRS, should of bought a 2nd hand Golf R, there was a sweet one there on saturday and i came to the conclusion that its possibly the best car in the world.

[Furbytom]

Wasn't the Nissan GTR meant to be totally untuneable? People found a way tho!

[Octygone]

Shark

[vRSy]

Shark

Thats assuming they can bypass this latest encryption which id imagine they havent seen. VAG change them periodically, so the tuners have to rethink their methods everytime.

VAG will block it eventually.

[Octygone]

Shark do their tuning direct by opening the ecu .....would be worth giving them a call though...they will tell you if they can do it

[Yeti-RS]

the exploit was quite simple.

the code was stored on one part of the board and then passed to the main chip everytime you switched the car on.

there was a solder point on the board which you could hook up a machine to and it would read the code as it passed to the ECU.......... it was essentially a design flaw.

this design flaw has been removed, so no its not looking good :(

[Yeti-RS]

see the pic here, thats the ECU open........ cant be read.

so NOBODY can remap it

Edited 26 March, 2013 by Yeti-RS

[vRSy]

Shark do their tuning direct by opening the ecu .....would be worth giving them a call though...they will tell you if they can do it

So do APR and REVO and all the other tuners, but everytime the encryption changes they need to change their method.

Believe me, Shark were working on opened ECUs with the older encryptions on the Octavias/Golfs etc when the Fabia vRS was released we assumed it would work on my Fabia. When i arrived with mine at Shark even opening the ECU didnt allow them to map it and it took a couple months of waiting for their external party to release the latest "bypass method" to allow them to access my ECU encryption and upload a map.

Now the encryptions have changed the tuners will no doubt have to go through the same process again

[Octygone]

Shark don't try to read the code...they slow down or stop the code reaching the ECU and load their own code onto the ECU and go from there....(this I beleive was how it was explained to me as simply as possible)

[vRSy]

Ive been there and seen how its done personally at Shark, Jabbasport and APR on my Fabia vRS. They use the same solder point to bypass it. Now that solder point is gone, they will no doubt, just like the rest of the tuning companies, have to find a new way in. Lets be fair, if APR, who are probably the biggest VAG tuning company globally with all their money available to them cant get in, the other companies will no doubt be in the same boat temporarily.

No doubt they and the other tuners will find a workaround soon. When VAg introduced the first encryptions back along everyone on the forums were saying the cars couldnt be mapped after speaking to the various tuners, fast forward a bit and they had managed it.

I for one, hope they manage to keep bypassing it. For me the sole reason i like VAG is they produce such tunable engines and there is such a wide and varied tuning scene/market. Take that away from VAG and ill just go back to Ford, Renault or Honda.

[grr666]

why oh why did i buy a new VRS, should of bought a 2nd hand Golf R,

Yup, 265bhp to start with and stage 1 mapping will get you comfprtably over 300bhp.

It's exactly why I went for a used S3 over a new mark 2 vRS.

[Binzie]

Old school piggy back eprom or entire piggy back ecu ?

[rwbaldwin]

Fair point there. I cant see how they can protect against the tuning box as that literally plugs in line with the sensor looms etc.

Until all sensors go digital and they encrypt those transmissions too. That also makes replacing the ECU hardware more difficult as well.

[Moist Von Lipwig]

And I thought my 2011 ECU caused problems as it had to be sent to APR HQ in the US. I'm sure the tuners will crack it at some point otherwise they are out of a job. How many times has someone called something 'uncrackable' only for someone to hack it?

Looks like I'll be going the Golf R / S3 route after this one as extra power is pretty addictive!

[vRSy]

Dont rule out the Cupra or Ed30 either same engine/ecu, same power potential.

Or Get a 2.0TFSI A3 S Line, Spend £1k on the K04 and ancillaries and have an S3 on a budget. 300hp for about 8k!!

[Ootohere]

The EU plans for MOT's from the introduction of Euro 6 emissions is that vehicles will be plugged in and the

Manufacturers Specification is checked.

Vehicles will tell Weight, Spec, and Standard readings etc, Tyres noise type, Emissions, the lot.

& then any changes from Manufactured Spec. will be there to clearly see.

Not much different from some US States already.

So best fill your boots, because thats probably another 8 years before those first Euro 6 vehicles ever get Mot's.

Currently, Manufacturers have the right to protect their selfs from Warranty Claims from Customers making Mods and then

making claims where it was not failures down to Manufacturing or Design faults they made.

george

[newbie69]

why oh why did i buy a new VRS, should of bought a 2nd hand Golf R, there was a sweet one there on saturday and i came to the conclusion that its possibly the best car in the world.

So you're saying you chose a vRS for its tuning potential? A car with an 1.4 engine which is already pushed a lot and a box which at least theoretically is already on the torque limit it can withstand? With reported heat problems and fried out plugs even at Stage 1 maps? Go figure....

I'm not saying (and you probably know it yourself) it's impossible, but given the issues that have come up since a long time ago, and the additional upgrades required for even minor power increases, the 1.4 tsi is clearly far from a "tuner's dream".