Good info! I'm THAT guy at the shop that does 95 percent of the flashing. I've really only had issues with Chrysler's J2534 application. I had to find and install an older version of Java to make it work. I RARELY make money doing these. I make more money diagnosing a bad ECM than programming one. It does save the shop from having to give work to the dealerships, so there is an upside.
We are a Lincoln and Hyundai dealer and only do updates on Ford and Hyundai products. I do mostly used vehicle recon and if there is a need for module updates we send it to your sister stores and they send theirs to us. At times, if the sister store is busy and the job needs to be done, I'll drive to their dealership and do the update myself using OEM hardware. Made a number of good contacts for the latest and greatest TSB and service info.
Video on your thoughts on snap on vs matco etc basically professional tool brands hand and specialty tools. Your thoughts on quality, pricing, dealing with warranty etc
Great video Mike- can you do me a favor can you measure the screen L & H on the ads625 I have a vendor that’s going to put a request in for a glass screen protectors for the ads 625. I’ll send you one once they are made.
To be honest not even the manufactures are up to spec on what they need. I’m a Audi tech at a dealer, when doing a reflash or update half the time the factory scan tools can’t talk to the server, or it decides it wants to update in the middle of a job hindering you from completing the job. Very frustrating even at a dealer level. Very frustrating when your trying to do a job that’s flate rated at 0.5 to 0.7. Then it takes you an hour or longer to get it done due to issues with the manufactures server or weekly to daily updates. So to be honest it isn’t much better at a dealer level. I had a car I was flashing an update and the software crashed, later bringing it back up I had no communication with, after troubleshooting we had found from the crash that it basically turned the ECM into a paper weight on a brand new car.
I work at a gm dealership and i use the autel maxiflash for everything due to the limited amounts of mdi's they have. last week i had a 07uplander that the customer replaced the ebcm and it needed to be programmed to the vehicle. I called and asked for help they were like i see ur using an autel maxiflash for programming have you tried a mdi and i was like yea, knowing that it wasn't the problem. they helped me by reminding me that i had to pull the radio and sliding door fuses. I also grabbed an mdi2 just to make them happy and it worked. I wish they would be more open to using non oem equipment and using the error codes to help, and if everything they try doesn't lead to a solution then its possible its the a/m j-box
Worked at ford dealership for 15 years seen so many updates go wrong and then car won’t start now you have to get as built data and type it in by hand. Total headache 🤕. now I’m at a independent and we don’t reflash anything the risk Vs reward isn’t worth the trouble but still good info in this video if you do reflashes
Typing in the as built by hand is a major pain in the rear. Fords IDS is a pain anyway. Especially when you have a module that is dead and it wants you save the data before. Well, I can't because it's not responding!!! I truly do not like the IDS interface either. I got spoiled with the Chrysler WiTech system.
Honestly I work at the stealership and some times we cannot perform a flash. I couldn't imagine doing this in a indy shop. Sometimes we flash stuff and it doesn't work, it crashes or things go south and fry something. It must be really expensive to do this. Is it really worth it? Do you flash allot of things? And the most important part what do you charge ?
The Zapper you must work for Nissan! Lol A lot of manufacturers are almost impossible to brick. I work for Toyota and Toyota just uses a glorified j2534 device to program and I’ve done thousands without issues.
Voltage Drop Diagnostics you can easily kill BMW control modules with their equipment and software. I like to think of starting programming like lighting a fuse.
