Bought one on Ebay and after hooking it up to my car, I learned is was still locked to the previous owner's car.

Contacted the seller - you know - "What's the big idea?" Seller said was selling for a "friend" and that the car was wrecked and could not be unlocked.

Seller agreed to reimburse me, but never responded since. He stuck it to me baby!

Anybody know how to unlock these units? I ahve heard of a 9-volt battery trick, but cannot find information on it anywhere.

Ideas?

 

You can send it back to HyperCrap and for a fee they will unlock it for you. Just tell them that you are the original owner and that your PCM got flashed by the dealer.

 

Any self-help hints to unlock?

 

I researched this a while once upon I time. All the info I found was that the only way to unlock it is by sending it to hypertech and paying like $50-$100 and you must be the original owner with the receipt. Turn that jerk into ebay and paypal (if you used it)and they will lock his account until the situation is settled. I have one that is locked to another VIN. If you find out a way to do it. Please let me know how.

 

I had a problem kinda close to this one, well I bought mine off ebay also with no reciept from the owner but he set it back to stock before i got it.

My problem was, when i was reprogramming it at home one night changing some settings my car batt died.

I didn't get to it in time and after I hooked up a batt charger to the car and tried again, it could not confirm the vin that it already had in the programmer.

It said, it wasn't valid and wanted me to call hypercrap.

I was getting pissed so I tried to reinstall it again and while it was coming up I tried multiple button button combos on the programmer and finally got a screen that said "no program found".
The next thing i know my car does nothing but cranks, no engine starting.

I called hypercrap the next day to find out how much it would cost to reprogram and they said " F U " in so many words lol.

They wouldn't touch it with out me being the original buyer with receipt.

Nor would they offer to reprogam my ECU, even though I offed to pay for it out of my own pocket.

Next day, I had the car towed to the dealer and told them the deal.
They said it might just need a new OEM program installed or replace the ECU.

So, I took a chance, paid the $ 45 for towing and it cost another $45 for the reprogram at the dealer.

Wala, it ran fine, brought the car home and reinstalledthe hypercrap and everything was like new again.

HYPERTECH TECH SUPPORT SUCKS!

I told them "hypertech tech support" that if my computer ( a dell) had done that all I would have to do is send it to Dell and they would have just charged me to fix the prob and send it back to me, that guy had no answer for that one.

Anways, good luck figureing out the combo of buttons I pressed to unlock it, I guess I just got lucky, or maybe it was when I took the PPIII apart and pryed out the square chip on the PCB slighty (started to crack lol) and I placed it back in it's socket before I broke it.

Be carefull if you open the unit and try and pry it out, I would try all kinds of dual button pressing combos first as the unit comes up, or while it's trying to verify VIN.

NEVER LET YOUR BATT DIE WHILE DOING ANY PROGRAMMING ON THE PROGRAMMER LOL!

Good luck.

I hope this helps more than it hurts you.

WARNING: ONLY TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! THAT'S WHAT I DID!!!!!!!

EDIT: I think I tried pressing more than one button at the same time and holding them, I tried so many combo's I don't even recall...it was late and I was getting pissed, I needed my ride for work in the morning.

 

B T
same **** happen to me but the guy i talk to at hypertech knew what he was talking about ...he first told me to take it to the dealer ship to get it refash and then install it back and it should work and if it didnt to call him back but it work just fine
BT how do you like your Hypertech ..did u get some hp off of it ?

 

I don't think the power tune makes much more power, at least I wasn't able to feel if any SOTP increase.
Maybe the dyno might find a couple HP?

I bought mine used thank god, because it's like I told the guys at Hypercrap before when I called them about it not even giving me a tenth in the 1/4, If I would have bought this new for $350.00 I'd be pissed as HELL!

The unit might be worth $50-$100 if you needed a gear or RPM limit change for a cam but other than that it's damn sure not worth the money for any kind of power increase IMO.


Use the money for HP Tuners or something great like that...

 

It ups the timing some, flattents the timing curve, copies low octane to high octane tables, and leans the PE table out... the leaning is where it makes most of the power... on cars that run rich from the factory you may notice alot... but on cars that are running just right or maybe slightly lean.. it can cause detonation... overall not worth it... it's great for changing gear/tire sizes, and for A4 tuning... IF you can get one used and IF it's unlocked and IF you can get it for like 50 bux heh