Whereas most ECUs can be both ID’d and read-out over OBD, some ECU / tool combinations will only allow for an ID. In this case we then use a virtual read.
What is a virtual read? It’s not as complicated as it sounds, some tools will download the file automatically from the server, and with others you simple use the sw numbers from the ID file to select the correct file from the servers of who made your tool.
We previously tried to avoid virtual reads because we didn’t like the idea of not having a full backup, but now we realise they are actually very useful. We can now program an ECU that is only read protected but not write protected.
We now have access to Dimsport’s certified original file server. This means that we can not only get originals where we couldn’t source them before, but we can also get a guaranteed good file to use for ‘virtual reads’. This ensures that the file integrity is correct and that the checksum calculation will be carried out correctly.
What’s more, we recently tested the use of Dimsport’s virtual reads for OBD writes on SID807 and EDC17C10 ECUs using Kess and can confirm it works well. If you’ve been holding off on tuning your 1.6 because you couldn’t connect to it, then now’s the time to go ahead with the remap as we can confirm it’s totally safe to do so.