HP Tuners Nightmare. Help!
 

Hey guys,

So, for the last year or so, I've been really wanting to get my car tuned. I've heard that it makes the car more responsive, etc etc.. So after starting a second job recently, I decided to put aside 200 bucks and get it done. What a nightmare.

I headed out this morning to get this whole thing done. The night before, the tuner (who will remain nameless to be fair to the situation) was having a problem with the software. He, however, seemed to have fixed it, and everything was good to go. He plugged it into his car and it all worked normally. He also was messing around with some tunes before I came on his own car. No problems at all. I arrive, and we begin. He starts to log everything. It's all going to plan. After successfully extracting the OEM tune, he begins making adjustments to load back in. After a bit, he's all done and we attempt to load the new tune into the car. Then we attempt again. And again. And..... Again. By this time I'm getting a bit worried, but not overdoing it. I then realize "the tune isn't going back into the car.. it's wiped". We attempt to start the car. Nothing. At all. No click, blip, crank, anything. Now I'm getting mad. I'm an hour and a half from home, and I have to be at work before long. We then begin to check fuses and other things that may have blown and are not allowing anything to adjust. All checked out fine. I happen to have an aftermarket alarm / starter in place of my stock system. We un-plug that and attempt to bypass that. Nothing. I even pull out my radio (aftermarket). Nothing. We try to re-load the new tune on again. 10 more times. Nothing at all. By this time, full force pissed off mode kicked in, as I now have a 2,600 pound paperweight. The car was towed to the dealer right by (that oh so conveniently was right down the road) and it's now sitting there until morning until it can get re-flashed, etc.

Any ideas what would have caused that to happen? This tuner has tuned alot of peoples vehicles before, and has never had this happen. Figures, it'd be my car.

I'm so disgusted at this whole situation that I'm likely going back to stock with the whole car. Then hopefully trading the stupid ass thing in on something reliable.

Will the dealer be able to charge me like 60 bucks and simply load the OEM tune on? Or will I need a whole new ECU? If so, how much? This is my second ECU in this piece of shit.

By the way, 2.4 auto with very light mods.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

No way man, that's so sad to hear, I hope it didn't wipe out your ECU, that would be the worst thing, meaning you would have to do an ECU swap. I'm not all good with mechancials too well but kinda the same way when you wiping your BIOS on your motherboard turns on but all you see is a blank, unless you have your orginial tune saved on your hard drive or something maybe you could have him find a OEM stock tune for a 2.4L on your year model. I'm just taking a long shot guess but thats what it sounds like to me.

It's at the dealership right now, so in the morning I'll find out. Hopefully they can just re-log me to OEM and I can drive it home. If not, they can keep their shit box. I'm so tired of putting more and more into this car, and something always goes wrong.

Yeah man I hear you, I got hit from behind last week, and the lady that hit me isn't willing to cooperate with me as far as paying for the damages, she's not insured from my understanding, filed a police report, called my insurance, and they told me if she's not able to pay up for the damages there gonna give me a 250 ductable and raise my rates, I've been fighting it all this week, just want her to pay $1,096 for the damages to my freakin rear bumper, it's rattling and possibly the transmission might of got some of the impact since I was at a dead stop.

I think the dealership should have a program that will give a stock OEM for your car. Or at least they should. Good luck man

Thanks man, I'll update the thread tomorrow.

And good luck with al your shit. 250 is bullshit.

this is why im buying a second pcm. lol

sounds like their may be a data cable problem or possibly the ecu..

I do not flash gm cars but do alot with outboards and flashing, whenever we have a problem like this either a data cable has poor connection, powerproblem to ecu or bad ecu will not let you flash.. and then the ecu needs to be repaired or replaced.. also we have had problems with laptop batt dies and ecu will lock up not sure if gm has the same problem, so you always want to be plugged in so their is no power loss..

Meh at the most need a new ecu not that big of a deal really. Did you check fuses in the bay and by the foot inside the cabin?
I know if I plug something into my cig lighter it'll blow the fuse and won't let me load stuff properly..

here is the thing, if you pull the tune it doesn't actually pull the tune off of the car. it just reads the PCM. the car is still going to start afterwards. i am feeling something else is the issue here

The tune was corrupt. Try to reload it from another computer with HP Tuners. Contact HPT support. It sounds like he was having a problem communicating with your PCM. I've had this happen with my car before and I was able to fix it by refrashing. There is a built in recovery when you re-write the config.

You probably SHOULD post the tuners name so we don't get screwed if we go to him. Sucks that it happened. Hopefully the dealer doesn't void your warranty.

If it's an '06 LE5 2.4, it has the E67 ECM. That requires a "Write Entire" when loading a tune. A "Write Calibration Only" will fail every time. Ask your tuner how he attempted it.

:lol:

no, no, no....this is a simple error that is really common with hptuners and the 2.4.
it's as simple as deleting 1 file and restarting hptuners.
If I remember correctly, he will have to do a rewrite vs a simple flash though.
The tuner might be great at tweaking but is very inexperienced at going between the 2.0 and 2.4 and he should make every effort at fixing this....for no charge.

I'm just curious,how much of a gain do you really get on a 2.4 auto with a tune?Is the car even fast?I'm asking because i really don't know anything about them.

Yes, I've had this problem happen before and it has corrupted the write of the tune. I don't recall if it is an 07' problem or LSJ problem or whatever, but the software can 'not recognize' the PCM and then corrupt the write of the tune.

You need to delete the 'VCM Suite.cfg' file located at '...\My Documents\HP Tuners\Settings\', restart the VCM Editor, and re-enter the application key. Then write the tune again. Not sure if it needs the write entire however as I've never done a 2.4, but it sounds like it.

All of this info is available on the HPT forums...

I'm hesitant about even getting this done again period..

Dealer was mad booked and can't even start on it until afternoon.. And I work at 3.. Sweet..

The tuner should be fully aware of the support offered on hpt website...I would think AND the fix has been posted here. Can you have the tuner just try this fix on your car?

It's at the dealership. So no, we can't do much at this point.

But if he could, what should he do..? I'm 100% new to tuning, and none of what was suggested made any sense. So plain English. lol

It sounds like it was actually something he was overlooking due to the fact that it was a 2.4..?

So look, I just texted him to see if he could run over to the dealership and try anything out. They can't look at it until around 2 anyway. So, I told him to do this:

Is this all he should need to do? Then a write entire? Anything else to suggest? I need to tell him ASAP if so..

^^ Should hopefully be all he needs to do...

Texted him. Hopefully he tries this.. Will keep you guys updated. Thanks!

Good luck

Tell the dealer you left something in your car and you need to get it. Make your tuner get in your car and fix it and just drive it out of the dealership. Problem solved.

haha That would = great succcess. He used to work there, so I'd assume they'd work with me..

even if its at the dealer its your car...do as you wish to it. they havent even started looking at it, you owe them nothing so far.