[Deschodt]

The other day my 2003 M3 had a brake lights problem... Troubleshooted (troubleshot?) it to the Light switch module. I got one from a wrecked car and that solved the issue but caused a "tamper dot" on the Odometer because, get this: The light switch is encoded with the VIN and the mileage of the car.

WHY the F would you do that in 2003, BMW ? Imagine what they do now, traffic between all ECUs is probably double encrypted ! We are lucky there is a big community support for this era, still, and with some antiquated laptop OS/software and a special cable I was able to fix this.. That makes me wonder which way it's gonna go for those, say 2005->"now era" cars..

The encryption may be too tough to break anymore, and those cars will be totally unserviceable anymore. OR, we will have new tech / ECU that is smart enough to override all that garbage much in the way my E46 encoding is defeatable now. Given how people seem eager to retain their old manual gas cars vs the new electrics, it could go either way!

The trend is actually to reduce the # of ECUs in new cars again, this time to save cabling and Money (and dependance on ukraine..I mean suppliers). So again, could go either way. All I know is I'm keeping my oldies (and cycling thru moderns via lease, not buying those cellphones on wheels). I posted a while back that the major reason of insurance cost hike on cars is apparently from $$$ of all the friggin doo-dads manufacturers add in them (cameras, lane control, self driving stuff, etc.. all these take $$ to reset/rebuild post accidents and often double repair costs). Simple cars FTW !