I've tried searching for this but nothing came up... is there something like a blackbox in our evo where the dealer can tell what's been uploaded to the ecu (ex. using ecuflash then reflash back to stock) even after it's been reflashed back to stock?

 

the only way a dealer can check to see if the flash has been modified is by doing a checksum count of the rom. once it is flashed back to stock, with your (becasue of recent discovories of vin inbeded roms) stock map their is no way for the dealership to know.

 

you'll never know, there might be a spy in our cars...

 

the mitsu corp is on this site

 

Some of the newer ECU's (2005 and later) have the Vin# reported in the Rom, I haven't exactly found WHERE it is, but that it turned up in an 05 rom that I was bench testing. Earlier cars didn't have it.

There is no "write cycles" flag in the ECU that would be a telltale of how many times it had been rewritten. So the only real way to check is for them to download the rom and examine it (even just doing a checksum against a stock rom at specific areas)

if you flash it back to stock, with your stock rom, its unlikely they will be able to tell.

Given how easy it is to get tools required to compare your rom to a known stock rom, if your "Case" is of enough concern with the dealership, I wouldn't be too surprised that they would use the same tools we have access to in order to verify it.

When it comes to modifying your car, some dealers are very progressive and don't really care if your car doesn't have a history of abuse or warranty repairs, and something occasionally gives you trouble. If your car is in for warranty work frequently, they will suspect abuse (as its the truth in most cases) and they WILL look for reasons not to warranty it.

A thread like this indicates to me, that there is enough interest in being deceptive with the dealerships that I'm not surprised that they would be suspect of any car coming in for work.

 

But if they weren't "progressive" and warrantied the things they should we wouldn't have a problem.

 

I have brought my car into the dealer several times for warranty items, and NEVER had them refused. In fact, the service manager and others clearly noted and stated to me that "Its obvious this car is not abused even though its highly modified" and subsequently handled the problems with no out of pocket expenses. This was some time ago as my car is now out of warranty.

But, my car was serviced with a TSB for a 5th gear grind, the funny part is I brought my car in for a recall, and had a slight grind, but not something I even mentioned to them. They noticed it and suggested there was a TSB to fix the problem. They also inspected my clutch and had said if it looked like it was very worn, they would have replaced it under warranty.

I've never had any real transmission problems with the car, or any other major problems for that matter. But they could have at any time voided any portion of my warranty but didn't, and even went above and beyond. (This was Wantagh Mitsubishi on Long Island)

I talked to them a few times over the years, and they would joke about the condition some of the cars would be brought in. It was pretty obvious they clearly could tell the difference between abuse and a legitimate problem. And after seeing how many people are willing to be deceptive when having their car serviced, I am not surprised that they are suspicious of everyone now.

My point is THEY DO WARRANTY WORK when its appropriate, but you need to have a relationship with the service department where they know your car, and its history, and its maintanance, even its modifications. They are not your parole officers...