Airbag Light

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gnat
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Re: Airbag Light

Post by gnat » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:37 am

sweet victory wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:08 am Since this is becoming a diagnostic tool thread...

Has anyone tried AutoEnginuity? It's a PC based diagnostic program for many makes and models - they even offer a Porsche Enhancement Package. I've been really curious to give it a try. At $249, it's cheaper than the Enthusiast Durametric, isn't limited to how many vehicles you can use it on, and will support other marques. The Porsche enhancement is an additional $229 and looks quiet comprehensive; on par with Durametric Professional. It'd be $257 cheaper and again...isn't limited to Porsche vehicles.

https://www.autoenginuity.com/products/ ... sche-ei13/
Based on what they say is covered I would put that $229 on it being a knock off of an earlier Durametric. I suppose at least they have given you their own program rather than stealing Durham's tech/money and then telling you to just download his software...

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by sweet victory » Fri Dec 07, 2018 1:07 pm

So if two competitors offer a similar product, one HAS to be a knock off? Did Samsung knock off my Iphone before they sold it to you? :roll:

Most aftermarket diagnostic ($400+) tools can do just about "everything" except programming. This isn't any different.

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by gnat » Fri Dec 07, 2018 1:36 pm

sweet victory wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 1:07 pm So if two competitors offer a similar product, one HAS to be a knock off? Did Samsung knock off my Iphone before they sold it to you? :roll:
In this case, probably. Durham has had a big problem with Asian knock offs pretty much since day 1 which is why in his more recent revisions of the tool he added security to make it much harder for them to reverse engineer his work. I'm basing my guess on the listed functions and supported cars as that matches what the 1.x version of the Durametric cable supported.

I could be 100% wrong, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong. The real test would be to grab an old version of the Durametric software and plug this cable up. If it sees the cable then there is zero question it's a knock off.
Most aftermarket diagnostic ($400+) tools can do just about "everything" except programming. This isn't any different.
Actually there is a lot on Porsches that 100% above board tools other than PIWIS can't do as Porsche goes to great lengths to keep the cars locked down so only the PIWIS works (they claim it's for better maintenance, but I think we all know the real motivation companies make cars harder to work on by the DIYer...). Things like non-standard CAN wiring, encrypting modules, and I hear they are getting into signed/encrypted communications now (think SSL on your browser).

Durham spends a lot of time hacking at new Porsches to get the Durmetric to talk to them and then understand the modules. If I recall correctly he said cracking the 996's ABS controller took him over a year of pretty concerted effort. Others could certainly do it too, but it's a passion/hobby/side business for him and most companies would look at the small potential market and figure there isn't much return on investment.

As an example I connected up with Durham when I got my 2013 P!g and he had me do some tests as a guinea pig for him since it was the first diesel he could get someone to work with him on. It worked great (on the stuff he had cracked for the rest of the 958s) until some time in 2015 when Porsche started pushing firmware updates and all of a sudden we couldn't reset the service indicators any more. Such cat and mouse games further impact a companies ability to see a good ROI.

Again, I could be totally wrong here, but my gut says it's a knock off.

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by B3DAWG » Sat Dec 08, 2018 7:35 am

gnat wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 1:36 pm
sweet victory wrote: Fri Dec 07, 2018 1:07 pm So if two competitors offer a similar product, one HAS to be a knock off? Did Samsung knock off my Iphone before they sold it to you? :roll:
In this case, probably. Durham has had a big problem with Asian knock offs pretty much since day 1 which is why in his more recent revisions of the tool he added security to make it much harder for them to reverse engineer his work. I'm basing my guess on the listed functions and supported cars as that matches what the 1.x version of the Durametric cable supported.

I could be 100% wrong, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong. The real test would be to grab an old version of the Durametric software and plug this cable up. If it sees the cable then there is zero question it's a knock off.
Most aftermarket diagnostic ($400+) tools can do just about "everything" except programming. This isn't any different.
Actually there is a lot on Porsches that 100% above board tools other than PIWIS can't do as Porsche goes to great lengths to keep the cars locked down so only the PIWIS works (they claim it's for better maintenance, but I think we all know the real motivation companies make cars harder to work on by the DIYer...). Things like non-standard CAN wiring, encrypting modules, and I hear they are getting into signed/encrypted communications now (think SSL on your browser).

Durham spends a lot of time hacking at new Porsches to get the Durmetric to talk to them and then understand the modules. If I recall correctly he said cracking the 996's ABS controller took him over a year of pretty concerted effort. Others could certainly do it too, but it's a passion/hobby/side business for him and most companies would look at the small potential market and figure there isn't much return on investment.

As an example I connected up with Durham when I got my 2013 P!g and he had me do some tests as a guinea pig for him since it was the first diesel he could get someone to work with him on. It worked great (on the stuff he had cracked for the rest of the 958s) until some time in 2015 when Porsche started pushing firmware updates and all of a sudden we couldn't reset the service indicators any more. Such cat and mouse games further impact a companies ability to see a good ROI.

Again, I could be totally wrong here, but my gut says it's a knock off.
So what you're saying is that Porsche gets ticked off that Durham is sneaking into their mansion, crackin' their safe, and stealing their precious new coke recipe. In retaliation, they change the combination. Durham is ticked off both at Porsche for changing the locks and even more ticked the Chinese are playing pocket pool with his hard earned work? :lol:

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by gnat » Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:27 am

b3freak wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 7:35 am So what you're saying is that Porsche gets ticked off that Durham is sneaking into their mansion, crackin' their safe, and stealing their precious new coke recipe. In retaliation, they change the combination. Durham is ticked off both at Porsche for changing the locks and even more ticked the Chinese are playing pocket pool with his hard earned work? :lol:
The impression I got is that (since it is a passion/hobby for him) he enjoys the new challenges Porsche throws at him (where is the fun otherwise?), but otherwise yeah pretty much spot on.

The difference between him and the Dura knock offs is that he didn't take something already working (PIWIS) and reverse engineer it, he actually attacked the cars and modules directly (he actually had to buy a 996 ABS module and hack the hardware itself to figure it out). The knock offs of his work simple got one of his units and built a sniffer to tell them what it did and then replicated it.

Sorry. As a hacker myself I get passionate about this sort of thing as I can appreciate the time and labor Durham put into his cable. We just plug it in and are happy that it works so well with usually very little idea of what went into it.

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by sweet victory » Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:35 pm

I guess one way to check is look what the autoenginuity supports, and compare that to pre-security updates. Or we can see who will offer support for the 992 first?

The one red flag I see on the autoenginuity site now that I've looked at if for a while is that it states Porsches up to 2018, but when it lists its supported vehicles, the latest one is 2016.

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by B3DAWG » Sun Dec 09, 2018 5:05 am

gnat wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:27 am
b3freak wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 7:35 am So what you're saying is that Porsche gets ticked off that Durham is sneaking into their mansion, crackin' their safe, and stealing their precious new coke recipe. In retaliation, they change the combination. Durham is ticked off both at Porsche for changing the locks and even more ticked the Chinese are playing pocket pool with his hard earned work? :lol:
The impression I got is that (since it is a passion/hobby for him) he enjoys the new challenges Porsche throws at him (where is the fun otherwise?), but otherwise yeah pretty much spot on.

The difference between him and the Dura knock offs is that he didn't take something already working (PIWIS) and reverse engineer it, he actually attacked the cars and modules directly (he actually had to buy a 996 ABS module and hack the hardware itself to figure it out). The knock offs of his work simple got one of his units and built a sniffer to tell them what it did and then replicated it.

Sorry. As a hacker myself I get passionate about this sort of thing as I can appreciate the time and labor Durham put into his cable. We just plug it in and are happy that it works so well with usually very little idea of what went into it.

No doubt about it, the Durametric is a game changer. I hope to get one some day. But this new world where cars are no more than rolling computers concerns me as far as longevity. The more every aspect of the car is controlled by a computer makes me wonder what the auto parts stores are going to look like in the future. Maybe something like Apple's Genius Bar? :D My father's Suburban was hit by lighting. After spending more than $2,000 and replacing two modules, the truck was still not right. He said screw it! I said, "Dad, but how are you driving it?" His reply, "With sunglasses!" I'm like, "What do you mean?" He said, "Son, every light on the dash is blinking, but I can still get from A to B... but with sunglasses." hahaha Great attitude!

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by jlasinski » Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:20 am

I went ahead and ordered the Autel AL629 per your recommendation. $129 on Amazon. Will let you know how it works. Thanks, John

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by 5chn3ll » Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:20 am

Since this is a diagnostic-ish thread:

If you use an OBD dongle but you hate leaving an OBD-II dongle powered and connected all the time - but you're too cheap to buy one with auto power on/off, keep reading...

AutoZone sells an OBD-II Y cable, which (normally) allows you to connect 2 OBD-II devices. However, if you don't mind reading the pinout for the OBD spec and doing a little work with the small pliers and the soldering iron, you can install a relay to control the +12v going to one leg of the OBD-II splitter and use any switched ciruit from the fusebox (or even the center stack cell phone connector) to drive the relay. For about $3 in parts and 20 minutes of your time, you have a switched-power OBD-II port you can plug your bluetooth/OBD-II dongle into, tuck it up under the dash, and forget about it.

Frankly, in a 20 year old car, it's going to throw codes often enough to make it worth being able to read them on your phone. The FIRST code you erase because it isn't something you need to freak out about right this second also erases any doubt about whether it was worth doing... :mrgreen:

Understeer: You will hit the wall with the front end.
Oversteer: You will hit the wall with the rear end.
Horsepower: How hard you will hit the wall.
Torque: How far you will move the wall.

Gone hunting with Alec Baldwin and Dick Cheney. Back soon.

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Re: Airbag Light

Post by 5chn3ll » Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:21 am

Speaking of Durametric - I need to figure out who I loaned mine to and see if he's done with it yet.

Understeer: You will hit the wall with the front end.
Oversteer: You will hit the wall with the rear end.
Horsepower: How hard you will hit the wall.
Torque: How far you will move the wall.

Gone hunting with Alec Baldwin and Dick Cheney. Back soon.

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