What the hell???

[Sweet35th]

So had a customer who had previously installed an SCT "canned" tune in his car. He has since lost the handheld, and wants to change the tune since he is changed modifications...No big deal, ill made a new tune for him with HP tuners......NOPE. Read his PCM and comes up as LOCKED. Can not open it, can not flash over it. So I tell the guy that he will need to have the dealer reflash the vehicle to stock, since he does not have his handheld anymore and can not return it to stock that way..... Well the guy is an lawyer for large local business. I have never heard so much legal mumbo jumbo that I don't understand, but WOW was he pissed. I recall a few old GM tuners doing this in the past locking their tunes, but now SCT on even just a canned tune....Im sorry but if they do not want their tune read, it is their responsibility to hide it, they have no right to render a customers property inoperable unless they continue to use their product... Imagine if once you plugged Xbox 360 into your TV, and then pulled it off to use a PS4 the TV would not operate anymore because microsoft locked the TV software forcing you to only use the Xbox or having to have the TV manufacture reload the original operation software.

[jchambers]

Crazy isn't it?......locking a tune that was hacked from an OE calibration to begin with. The unmitigated nerve of it all.

[Sweet35th]

Crazy isn't it?......locking a tune that was hacked from an OE calibration to begin with. The unmitigated nerve of it all.

Well its really going to cause an issue in the future for those wanting to continue to tune with HP tuners. Think of how many vehicles there will be out there in a few years, that have exchanged hands a few times and one of those times having an SCT handheld in it. Never getting returned to stock and moving on to the next guy. Now the new person owning the car wants it tuned, sets up a dyno time. You take your time, write him in, put off other work. The car gets there, and BOOM locked PCM. Hopefully everyone will now have an IDS and can fix it on site..But kind of BS to me.

This particular vehicle is out of my hands now, but the guy was furious. I try and look at it from his perspective more than mine. Here he is, he bought and paid for a car (owns it and all that is in it), bought and paid for a handheld tuner (SCT in this case), and now wants to tune his car with HP tuners........But it is locked to NO knowledge of his, (I read the SCT disclaimer, no where does it say it will render your PCM completely useless to anyone other than SCT for the duration that you use the product). Now he has to invest additional money to have it flashed back to stock. He is out his time (me too), his project is pushed back, lucky for him in this instance he did not need to tow it to me and the car is drivable.

[will15]

We have had a car that have been tuned before and locked, then the customer wants us to tune it so they have to take it back to the org tuner (2 hour drive) and all they would do is flash the stock tune (not just unlock it), so the car had to be towed back...

[Jn2]

Reach out to support or wait for Eric to reply. I remember him telling someone he could help with a stock calibration you can use to write over that ECM.

[TunedByNishan]

I've had the same problem before.

I think it something recently that SCT has done because in the past I have been able to read SCT flashed canned tunes before and now I cannot with any new SCT tunes.

I can still read SCT tunes that were flashed from older firmware updates, etc.

If you try to overwrite the PCM by using a known good stock calibration (that you licensed to flash) HP Tuners VCM Suite will come back with a message stating "unlicensed vehicle") when you click WRITE ENTIRE because the strategy and VIN from the stock file you are flashing do no match what is in the PCM and your interface licenses.

Sucks...but that's what it is.

Can the PCM be sent to SCT to have it unmarried and returned to a stock tune?

Cobb Tuning will do that for people who lost their AccessPort which was still married to the PCM so that the new owner of the vehicle can get it tuned for a small fee.

[caniggia]

Yes, i had 3 car last time flashed with SCT and it reads as locked. I belive HPT can bypass it, but i also belive they got agreement with SCT or some tuners to not do that. And that's crazy to support another company product, maybe it's not designed this way, but happend.
This causes lot of troubles as not everyone has FORD IDS etc...
Locking tune it's just some stamp in software, so no reason to unlock such tune if it's SCT. I understand protection of own HPtuners customers, but this i don't.

[wbt]

My guess is that there was an agreement made between companies to mitigate lawsuits for protecting intellectual property.

That said, why anyone would want to start with a canned SCT tune is beyond me.

[caniggia]

It's not the problem to start with sct tune, but problem is that ids is needed to flash to stock. I have such, but it costs lot, could buy chinesse, but bricking PCM is not cheap...
And that guess is not working this way, since they would protect sct, but hacking Ford stock tunes giving you ability to tune...

[Sweet35th]

My guess is that there was an agreement made between companies to mitigate lawsuits for protecting intellectual property.

That said, why anyone would want to start with a canned SCT tune is beyond me.

The responsibility of protecting their "intellectual property" falls on them. Locking out a component that they do not own, have rights to own, nor even have rights to manipulate without permission from the owner is not the right way to do it. From what I have been told by my customer, its not the lawful way of doing it either. Not sure what his plans are, kinda want to stay out of it personally, but do not want to continue losing business and time because of this.

This is just plain wrong, no matter how you look at it. SCT does not own the PCM, they do not own the vehicle, they do not own the hardware in the vehicle, they do not even own the software that is in the PCM. They may hold their "manipulation" of that software as proprietary, but that does not justify them rendering the software unusable for the owner should they choose to use another product..

[caniggia]

Hpt also has lock function, but you still can read it with another software.

[mbray01]

^^^^^^^ ironically, I have used sct software to read locked hpt tunes, then rewrite with sct, and booooom tune is now unlocked. I feel like hptuners is holding up their end of their gentleman's agreement, however sct is not. In the end everyone looses, we loose our time, and sometimes $ for multiple licenses, and factory calibrations, and the customer looses by a vehicle that is down longer than expected, and sometimes needs a new pcm

[Eric@HPTuners]

Customers requested us to add the ability to "lock" their files. What we implemented was a type of watermarking of the files, so that if you lock your file, only you can open it.

Since adding in this functionality other tuner companies have begun to write a lock in the same location we use, locking out other tuners.

Our only option is to get rid of the lock, but that is probably not going to happen.

[caniggia]

Can't you add somehow watermark that it's done by HPT so you protect only own customers?

[Sweet35th]

Customers requested us to add the ability to "lock" their files. What we implemented was a type of watermarking of the files, so that if you lock your file, only you can open it.

Since adding in this functionality other tuner companies have begun to write a lock in the same location we use, locking out other tuners.

Our only option is to get rid of the lock, but that is probably not going to happen.

Eric, I see no issues with protecting what has been modified to a calibration. (Lets be honest here, unless someone somehow made completely custom OS and wrote it with new software to the factory hardware, then we are all just MODIFYING someone else tune no matter how you look at it.

Think of the hellfire if Ford suddenly released and FSA to reflash all PCMs with a lock on the software so that all of the aftermarket tuning companies could no longer open the original files...

What we need is the ability to "overwrite" these locked tunes. If some how the HP software could recognize the original calibration (or by manually acquiring it via the box code) and flash over the locked tune, without disrupting the VIN, or the HP license.

[Sweet35th]

Can't you add somehow watermark that it's done by HPT so you protect only own customers?

I will say my personal opinion on the matter is, if you don't know how to write the tune yourself, opening up someone elses and modifying it is just going to eventually get you in more trouble anyways. If you do not know what you are doing, seeing it in front of you is not going to help. If seeing someone elses tune, gives you ideas on how to improve it, then everyone benefits.

I have shared 100s of my custom tunes with other tuners, in only asking if they making improvements or changes that they share them with them. We all learn from it. There will however always be some people who thing much "higher" of themselfs than justified.

[caniggia]

I took the risk last night and I tested with friend China 300$ IDS flashing car to stock and it worked. So I'ts not that bad, you can follow this way if you have problem with that.

[Eric@HPTuners]

Eric, I see no issues with protecting what has been modified to a calibration. (Lets be honest here, unless someone somehow made completely custom OS and wrote it with new software to the factory hardware, then we are all just MODIFYING someone else tune no matter how you look at it.

Think of the hellfire if Ford suddenly released and FSA to reflash all PCMs with a lock on the software so that all of the aftermarket tuning companies could no longer open the original files...

What we need is the ability to "overwrite" these locked tunes. If some how the HP software could recognize the original calibration (or by manually acquiring it via the box code) and flash over the locked tune, without disrupting the VIN, or the HP license.

You can already overwrite a tune that is locked on a Ford. We do not prevent you from doing that.

[15PSI]

I discovered this in Mid-February. I was reading my latest SCT calibrations from my tuner, to compare with the older versions and voila! I no longer could. Is this lock-out automatic with SCT flashes or does the tuner intentionally have to flip the switch? I want to clarify that point before I speak to him about it. If he is locking me out, I have real issues with that.

[rshoe09]

and also how we can overwrite a locked ecm as well