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Went to have an APR reflash, it fried my ECU

Basil_Fawlty

Ready to race!
My ECU was fried at an APR sponsored garage, and the ECU was sent to APR in AL, they determined it was toast. I have been without my 2010 VW GTI MkVI since September 10th.

Anyone else experience such a disaster?

Why did it fry, because when it was hooked up in the middle of the flash, the connection at the garage or the APR server went down. This is a process that cant be interrupted, it was interrupted. Now I drive a Kia Rio POS rental.
 

zee

Go Kart Champion
I'm glad APR took care of you with a rental, unfortunately the ECU being fried it is the nature of the tune process when it goes really bad.


edit: I have only read of one similar situation in the past, I'm not sure of how it was resolved for that owner but he got a the shop's owner car as a loaner.
 

Keith@APR

Banned
I'm glad APR took care of you with a rental, unfortunately the ECU being fried it is the nature of the tune process when it goes really bad.


edit: I have only read of one similar situation in the past, I'm not sure of how it was resolved for that owner but he got a the shop's owner car as a loaner.

It was more than likely a loss of internet connection that resulted in the ecu being locked out and requires us to unlock it.

I'll check the status of that procedure and report back.

Should be over soon and I am so sorry this happened.

FWIW, we are soon to complete our 100,000 DPP flash so invariably, not 100% of them will work. We do have a less than 1% failure rate and I apologize that you are one of those unlucky ones.

Internet connections are normally stable but we've all experienced "glitches" in the interwebz on occasion and I am pretty sure that's what happened here. It was more than likely the ultimate fault of the shop's ISP.
 

whalesalad

Ready to race!
It was more than likely a loss of internet connection that resulted in the ecu being locked out and requires us to unlock it.

I'll check the status of that procedure and report back.

Should be over soon and I am so sorry this happened.

FWIW, we are soon to complete our 100,000 DPP flash so invariably, not 100% of them will work. We do have a less than 1% failure rate and I apologize that you are one of those unlucky ones.

Internet connections are normally stable but we've all experienced "glitches" in the interwebz on occasion and I am pretty sure that's what happened here. It was more than likely the ultimate fault of the shop's ISP.

I hate to say this but relying on an internet connection for a flash is a joke. I saw the way that they did Stage II on my car and was kind of surprised. It all happens inside of the browser. I'd seriously invest in building some infrastructure to have software available, staged to the local machine, verified, and then flash from the DISK rather than over the network.
 

Keith@APR

Banned
I hate to say this but relying on an internet connection for a flash is a joke. I saw the way that they did Stage II on my car and was kind of surprised. It all happens inside of the browser. I'd seriously invest in building some infrastructure to have software available, staged to the local machine, verified, and then flash from the DISK rather than over the network.

and then it all get's stolen.
 

whalesalad

Ready to race!
and then it all get's stolen.

Yeah.. that is true... but you could build an app that would require an internet connection to pre-download the package locally so that when you perform the actual write to the ECU it's not streaming thru the internet. It would never leave the app, you could encrypt and protect the hell out of it. And it would require an internet conx to authenticate and actually use.

I guess that as you guys said you've done thousands of flashes and you're failure rate is pretty low. I just figure that with all that $$$ you guys are making from these software flashes you could engineer a slightly nicer solution :)
 

grambles423

Automotive Engineer

Diego Armando

Go Kart Champion
had a similar experience when I went stage 1.. server went down in the middle of the flash but instead of it being fried it just locked us out.. took 36 hours to correct but didnt have an issue after that. apr took care of me quickly and my installer flipped the bill for a rental.

sorry for your troubles man
 

Basil_Fawlty

Ready to race!
I'm glad APR took care of you with a rental, unfortunately the ECU being fried it is the nature of the tune process when it goes really bad.


edit: I have only read of one similar situation in the past, I'm not sure of how it was resolved for that owner but he got a the shop's owner car as a loaner.

Your right, they will reimburse me for the rental, and they will buy the replacement ECU. It is the risk that we sall take. I hope I never haveto go through this again, and I still plan to go with more APR parts and flashes.
 

Basil_Fawlty

Ready to race!
I'm glad APR took care of you with a rental, unfortunately the ECU being fried it is the nature of the tune process when it goes really bad.


edit: I have only read of one similar situation in the past, I'm not sure of how it was resolved for that owner but he got a the shop's owner car as a loaner.

As I understand it, this is the 2nd time ever, I'm so happy to be a part of it. :mad0259:
 

zee

Go Kart Champion
As I understand it, this is the 2nd time ever, I'm so happy to be a part of it. :mad0259:

Not the second time of a fried Mk6 ECU, but second time that I have read of the lost internet connection.
 
Last edited:

Basil_Fawlty

Ready to race!
It was more than likely a loss of internet connection that resulted in the ecu being locked out and requires us to unlock it.

I'll check the status of that procedure and report back.

Should be over soon and I am so sorry this happened.

FWIW, we are soon to complete our 100,000 DPP flash so invariably, not 100% of them will work. We do have a less than 1% failure rate and I apologize that you are one of those unlucky ones.

Internet connections are normally stable but we've all experienced "glitches" in the interwebz on occasion and I am pretty sure that's what happened here. It was more than likely the ultimate fault of the shop's ISP.

I think that is what happened, the upgrade comes in via the Internet, not a file pulled and then pushed. So they had to hooked up, and in the intial begining phase, the connection was lost, it broke the streaming download, and if that happens, it's roasted toasted.
 

Basil_Fawlty

Ready to race!
I hate to say this but relying on an internet connection for a flash is a joke. I saw the way that they did Stage II on my car and was kind of surprised. It all happens inside of the browser. I'd seriously invest in building some infrastructure to have software available, staged to the local machine, verified, and then flash from the DISK rather than over the network.

Surprised me too, I now drive a KIA! :)

But think about it, they have to protect their intellectual property, so its not so bad, this is just the brakes.
 

Basil_Fawlty

Ready to race!
Yeah.. that is true... but you could build an app that would require an internet connection to pre-download the package locally so that when you perform the actual write to the ECU it's not streaming thru the internet. It would never leave the app, you could encrypt and protect the hell out of it. And it would require an internet conx to authenticate and actually use.

I guess that as you guys said you've done thousands of flashes and you're failure rate is pretty low. I just figure that with all that $$$ you guys are making from these software flashes you could engineer a slightly nicer solution :)

Their are a lot of ways to crack something, so I bet they have thought of it all, and this protects them the best. With the fail rate and the cost of fall out and repair, its better than other solutions.
 
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