looking thru a few threads, paying for a licence pops up. what's this for? do different mappers use a copyright for their maps?

 

Hoskib

Tricky one !!. I bought an "example" EcuTeK map for my MY02 bugeye (TeK 2) and subsequent "tweak" for the de-cat... cost about £600 plus VAT.

Now I have booked in with the a seriously well respected EcuTek Mapper to re-map for a new turbo and bits (TeK 3)..

Unfortunately I have to start from scratch again......it's something to do with the licences. Bugeyes have a different licence from the clasics apparantly.

Midlife.....

 

...sometimes they are left open.. it depends on the original mapper. .. this saves a few bob at re-map time..

Merry Christmas

trouser

 

Opportunity for mappers to earn a few more extra bob in my opinion. It's reprogramming a circuit board whilst sitting in a car looking at a laptop!! Sure it's a specialist task but it ain't rocket science at our level is it? Reprogramming a road car ECU. If it was a racing car or Rally car being used for competition then fair enough, However, We've been here before

Mikey

 

IIRC the licence fee is an opportunity for EcuTeK to earn a few more bob, not the mappers themselves.

 

God it sounds like Microsoft pay for this pay for that if you want an upgrade pay for that as well


Thank god for Hackers

 

Ecutek has designed the product but don't really sell the it direct so they sub-contract it out to mappers. As its their product i think that they have a right to earn some money out of it

As for rocket science i would like to see what you can do with my car mikey I'm on about my 60th flash of my ecu, so i think that my mapper has earnt his money!

Scott

 

Man im having a confusing day, just been to the Audi garage and got my head in a spin over leases of a company car. And now I read this.

Ok this is my understanding (its wrong I bet)

EcuTek sell an off the shelf map which was refered to as a Tek2 this a licence to use this map but cannot be remapped by a dealer e.g TSL, they have to sell you another licsence refered to as a Tek3.

I presume this is the same as the PPP ecu if you want this changed you have to start again with a new tek 3 licence and map.

What I dont understand is why Power Engineering supposedly sell Tek 2's that are then changed for the customers car but then cannot be remapped by anyone else.

And how can you re-map a car without a rolling road ??. do you make changes and then roadtest or does the mapper just "know" what is the best for that exact car ?.

 

OK, here's how it works.

When the ECU has an EcuTek map loaded onto it, the ECU is allocated an EcuTek license. Whether its a custom map or a "one size fits all map" (Tek2) or a PPP (03 onwards) it still has a license allocated.

The original mapper can see his map and can tweak it ad infinitum.

Should you decide to go to a different mapper, the license will still be valid but the mapper will have to create a map from scratch. The fee for this is normally around half the price of buying a custom map from day one.

The only company that I know of that lock their license is Prodrive. If you have a PPP the allocated license cannot be opened to allow new maps by other mappers. The ECU can still be mapped but a new license must be allocated.

All mapping companies/mappers buy the licenses from EcuTek and the software allocates them when programming commenses.

 

Thanks Pete, that makes sense now, in short if you keep using the same mapper that works out to be the best value, as they will only charge you labour rather than additional ecutek fee's.

cheers

Peter

 

so if i get my car mapped at one place then take it to another they wil go 'sorry guv can't touch it, it's licenced to the original place'?
does any one crack these licence codes?
i can appreciate the business side of why to do it but it seems a bit of a pi55 take really.

 

its not a **** take.

As pete has already said, the licence is there for life on the ECU unless it is locked out by the original mapper. I.E. Prodrive with the PPP.

You only have to pay the licence fee once, and this is paid to ECUTEK via the mapper. This is how ECUTEK make their money which allows them to continue to trade, it is not a large amount either.

When you come to get a remap, as long as the original mapper didnt lock the licence, you wont have to pay the licece fee again, just pay for the time of the mapper.

Mikey, trust me, there is a lot more to mapping an engine properly than sitting in front of a laptop and playing with a few buttons. If they get it wrong that can blow your engine up in a worst case scenario, or just have it running poorly if you are lucky.

The diference between a well mapped ECUTEK remap and a poor ECUTEK remap are massive in terms of drivability, but dyno results rarely show this, so you tend to get similar peak power/torque figures on the standard spec engines no matter where you go because that is more a function of hardware. How that power is produced and the delivery of that in the transition states can be very diferent mapper to mapper.

 

Do the mappers warranty their work in any way?

I don't think many people would argue against a customised map for a specific car and the amount of time/knowledge to develop it, but if something did go wrong who has liability?

And if the map is locked, why can't it simply be unlocked if the customer has proof of purchase?

Stefan

 

Mappers have a dongle on the PC which is suplied by ECUTEK, each time they have to upload the licence key, it removes one available licence key from the dongle, so there is no way that a mapper can cheat the system. If there isnt a reusable licence key on the ECU, the software wont allow you to upload a new map until it has a new licence key uploaded.

As to if the engine failed as a result of the mapping, that would have to be taken up with the individual mapper concerned, the dificulty may be in proving it was the remap that caused the failure. It depends what sort of business they want to run and what personal integrity they have as to whether they will compensate you if they find they have caused the failure.

ECUTEK are not liable, as they only supply the tools to the mapper and dont control what the mapper uploads to your ECU.