I am returning the replacement screen to Autobahn who has offered to refund the purchase. It makes no sense to use ingineer to program it if I run the risk of being banned by Tesla Service
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
$2700 to fix MCU. Might DIY, but how much to reprogram new unit?
- Thread starter Pmacafee
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Model S User Interface
Tesla is absolutely ridiculous about these things. It's a part, you have the part, you're capable of replacing it, and you need Tesla to do the software work because they won't release tools, even paid ones, so you can do it yourself..... yet they refuse and threaten to refuse all service on your car if you try. I hate this kind of stuff about Tesla. Absolutely loathe this about the company and it's one of the things about them that needs more media attention. If you're going to insist on owning and operating all of your service centers you damn well better service people's cars.
The MCU is one of a few components on the car that you simply can not replace without either hacking both units and copying the data/firmware over, or having Tesla do this with their software and access keys.
This is the sort of thing that just isn't going to fly in the future when down the road someone's Model 3 touchscreen dies and Tesla wants 10% of the car cost to replace it. Their service monopoly is bound to kick them in the ass eventually.
If you decide to go the unofficial route, I could probably help you out, but you'd have to mail me both MCUs (old and replacement). I, admittedly, don't actually have time time right now, but I'll squeeze it in, you just pay shipping costs, if it means preventing Tesla from scamming someone out of a forced high priced service.
The MCU is one of a few components on the car that you simply can not replace without either hacking both units and copying the data/firmware over, or having Tesla do this with their software and access keys.
This is the sort of thing that just isn't going to fly in the future when down the road someone's Model 3 touchscreen dies and Tesla wants 10% of the car cost to replace it. Their service monopoly is bound to kick them in the ass eventually.
If you decide to go the unofficial route, I could probably help you out, but you'd have to mail me both MCUs (old and replacement). I, admittedly, don't actually have time time right now, but I'll squeeze it in, you just pay shipping costs, if it means preventing Tesla from scamming someone out of a forced high priced service.
I believe there's no way for Tesla to know you exchanged your CID IF you don't tell them (and copy the data by other means without contacting them).
Since you already did tell them, it's kind of too late on that front.
That's just a config thing that's stored in the memory of the unit about what to show. Turn those bits off and it'll not show the extra stuff anymore.
the important stuff is stored on the rtos side that has separate storage. If cid storage is corrupted, you still can restore important bits from that + IC.
You'd lose logs, UI settings and the like, of course.
When the ECU in my Subaru blew, I bought an identical used unit for about $100.
At first I did a blind try of the replacement ECU... and of course it threw codes and car would not crank. Security lockout feature. To avoid dealer re-programming of all security codes in the car and re-matching the keyfobs...
I just moved the little 8-pin EEPROM over from my original ECU to the "new" replacement ECU. I figured all the critical car-specific configuration data was on that chip. I was right... The replacement ECU worked a charm, and never looked back. Of course, the EEPROM was not socketed, so this was a hot-air removal using a rework station.. but an 8pin SOIC is childs play.
I'm aware of where the network SIM card goes in the radio module of the Tesla premium (w/nav) daughtercard. That's one critical piece of ID that has to move over to get hooked up on Tesla net.
Where are Tesla's car-specific configuration ID's held on the CPU board... can they be moved over similarly? Even if un/soldering is required?
Maybe this is hopeless though, like if Tesla CPU board has a crypto-protected chip with hardware instance serial number burned into it, and that number is used to generate keys that are spread through the car.. then... eesh. That creates a "matching set" hardware lockout preventing module replacement.
I do recall a few releases back Tesla added encrypted software signatures on Application modules that spread around the car with updates... so they can verify these are Tesla certified pieces of (untampered) code operating the car at runtime. But I wonder if that mentality was in place on the hardware modules when they were baking them back in 2010?
At first I did a blind try of the replacement ECU... and of course it threw codes and car would not crank. Security lockout feature. To avoid dealer re-programming of all security codes in the car and re-matching the keyfobs...
I just moved the little 8-pin EEPROM over from my original ECU to the "new" replacement ECU. I figured all the critical car-specific configuration data was on that chip. I was right... The replacement ECU worked a charm, and never looked back. Of course, the EEPROM was not socketed, so this was a hot-air removal using a rework station.. but an 8pin SOIC is childs play.
I'm aware of where the network SIM card goes in the radio module of the Tesla premium (w/nav) daughtercard. That's one critical piece of ID that has to move over to get hooked up on Tesla net.
Where are Tesla's car-specific configuration ID's held on the CPU board... can they be moved over similarly? Even if un/soldering is required?
Maybe this is hopeless though, like if Tesla CPU board has a crypto-protected chip with hardware instance serial number burned into it, and that number is used to generate keys that are spread through the car.. then... eesh. That creates a "matching set" hardware lockout preventing module replacement.
I do recall a few releases back Tesla added encrypted software signatures on Application modules that spread around the car with updates... so they can verify these are Tesla certified pieces of (untampered) code operating the car at runtime. But I wonder if that mentality was in place on the hardware modules when they were baking them back in 2010?
Last edited:
lunitiks
Cool James & Black Teacher
..and the eMMC is a "wear issue" item, right? So if the good stuff is in a worn chip and that's the issue causing the CPU to fnark then moving that chip physically over to a known good CPU board ... is going to fnark that board too.
This is probably when you call Ingeneer. And we're looking at a chip-level extract of the critical (unique) data from the "crashed" chip and moving / merging that with all the blocks of a known good load on a good eMMC.
I guess if the eMMC is not worn, then the whole contents can be scooped and moved... or BGA R&R the chip.. but as you say, that's not easy.
Last edited:
Well, as @verygreen points out you can copy the car config from the gateway and the VPN keys are stored elsewhere. But you'd still lose all your other settings.
Yes.
Settings like height adjustment, autosteer and the like.
When you start from a clean state, cid startup code automatically fetches gw config and repopulates all the important data like VIN.
Gateway has it's own removable SDCard with logs and stuff + it has internal nvram + there's one more sdcard with maps data.
As long as you have correct gateway config in place + cid/gw software versions match you should be more or less good to go.
There's a copy of vpn keys elsewhere too, and in fact even other settings are backed up on other nodes.
So really you are losing logs and potentially need to have the same version of software on all components to run right (at least I tried to run mismatched gw and cid bits and things fell apart in somewhat unexpected ways).
+2. Having had and used other branded software (vag-com), car-level OBD II support, or knowing folks like Ingineer for other makes, there becomes the "after-life" support for a brand. Tesla needs this, and not to worry about it. Treating a car the same as a 4 year old iPod won't fly. It's so bad, in principal, I hope they understand it from customers before the type of media attention a 'right to repair' battle might bring.
All this stuff goes head-on into the reality their cars will otherwise last a very long, time. No one's going to see a $10,000 bill for an Audi timing chain, or $5,000 in diesel muffler work. So, they'll keep driving "the old one" unless something else happens.
Franchised brands don't have this issue with owners, first because their cars expensively break, but also because laws empower their independents. The good of allowing Tesla its direct sales model is someone out there selling, pushing, EVs. The bad is how little attention gets paid to how this less regulated way of moving cars can lead to abuse.
Last edited:
nothing mkfs.ext3 /dev/mmcblk0p3 would not be able to clean
Right, of course with root you don't even have to do this, you can simply overwrite the affected files. Without root, there isn't any way to get a salvage MCU to a clean state.
I know of people who desoldered emmc from cid to get in. So if you have the hardware there's always going to be way in.
This will come handy in case you want to revive a cid with dead emmc as well (not in this case here because there were other problems with it) which will become a problem eventually because of stupid tesla logging practices.
