Xcal 1 Going Offline Discussion

[EnricoPalazzo]

This is definitely a messy situation for us all. My question is how far away is full ZF tuning? And how good will this be to the cars performance?

I am happy to upgrade my xcal 1 to a 3 for this, so it is not the worst thing that has ever happened.

I really think that Herrod have done all they can with this, so its not really all their fault, however better communication, ie announcing the exact date the xcal1 would no longer be tunable would of been preferable.

[Jman]

Its not the worst thing in the world, however I really think a grace period needs to be implemented so we can adjust to the changes.

Just pulling the pin is a bit extreme!

[arm79]

Weren't we provided with an 18 month grace period???

The fact we didn't know about it is apparently of little consequence.

[EnricoPalazzo]

I agree they should offer 90 days from the official announcement of the cutoff to assist all those who are currently tuning, or were not aware of the xcal 1 issues.

There are alot of people who dont read car forums, so would be completely oblivious to this info. It would be the duty of the reseller (tuners) to educate the customers of the ceasing of support of xcal 1 and to advise the purchase of xcal 3 as has been already mentioned by one tuner in this post.

[Buf-Phoon]

I wonder what the margin is on an XCAL3

[tab]

There'd be at least $4.20 in actual component costs.

[Worm]

SCT would sell to Herrod for $150-200... Herrod to tuners for $400... Tuners sell for $795... Everybody makes sh*tloads... And we all get raped!

[Buf-Phoon]

just say thankyou sir , just better all round for everybum

[bcl]

Every time we flash a tune into a box it is recorded in our software, sometimes during the course of tuning a car, although the customer may get 1 custom tune, we may have flashed to box up to 30 times endeavoring to get the best tune for the car, this would count as 30 flashes.

The way the software works is we need a dongle plugged into our computer for the software to open, no dongle and it will not open, this flash count is kept in the dongle, after a certain amounts of flash burns the dongle has to report back to SCT and be updated, some tuners may have as little has 25 flashes before needing an update, when updating we get the latest versions of software and any changes to existing version plus any added processor codes, the dongle flash count is also reset.

We can have 2,3 or even 10 computers with the software, but we have 1 dongle which needs to be updated on a regular basis.

Dongles as a means of software piracy control is so 1980s, maybe SCT should get their act together in terms of software distribution and licencing. At one stage 15 years ago I was using a dongle with a non US version of some software (10k a licence, and I had 20 of them), and we had some major problems with the dongle when moving from 486 to Pentium. The decimal device address of the parallel port changed, so the software performed very slowly, as it spent most of the time trying to find the dongle (lol), rather than doing program processing. The US version of the software did not need a dongle, as US customers were deemed trustworthy, but not the rest of the world! I got myself a US licence, and got rid of the dongles. Dongle functions were replaced by registry and file control once windows 95 onwards was established, by IT vendors who knew what they were doing.

Continuing to use dongles in the way described above means that SCT can screw anyone in the Australian market any time us any time they want. It is paranoid behaviour and gives them total control over software usage.

I understand that the source of the current problem arose because a rogue tuner found a way to re-use old boxes, which was not in accordance with Australian sales agreements.

SCT have reacted by pulling the plug on all tuning capability of XCAL1 units. They can do this all too easily by way of the way they control software usage. I would expect that unless software control and usage has changed then they could do the same to Australian consumers at any time in the future with any newer units.

As I see it this issue has nothing whatsoever to do with xcal1 being an outdated unit.

That SCT have not sold any of these units for quite a few years is completely irrelevant.

The solution to SCT’s alleged problem is to get us to buy newer units. SCT makes money, Herrod makes money, tuners make money.

We consumers get nothing for the outlay, some promises of ZF tuning in 2 weeks time at an unspecified cost.

And it can happen all over again any time in the future unless Herrod sorts this mess out and negotiates some future protection for tuners and consumers.

Brian

[sexual harrassment panda]

I heard the zf tuning in 2 weeks story a couple of years ago