Dealer unable to flash a used ECU?
 

I had my car worked on by an independent mechanic I trust. My car is a 2004 and the ECU went out. My guy put in a used ECU to save me on the cost.

I towed it to the dealer, a few days later, they call and tell me they are unable to flash an ECU that has already been in another RX8. Is this correct?

No...i have a used one in mine that was reprogrammed. You need the "as built" data to do it from Mazda Tech

Thanks for the update. I'm assuming the dealer can get that data from Mazda Tech? So they are basically trying to make $800 off me by telling me they cannot do it?

Basically ;)...or they don't know how to do it

No... how can you think that? A dealer would never do such a thing... totally unheard of ;)

Tamas, I am in SF as well and car is at Mazda SF (Royal Motors). Where do you take your car?

So far I like the customer service guy, so maybe dannobre is right, their mechanic just doesn't know how to do it. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I was just kidding with that comment of course. ^^

I live on the peninsula and my dealer is Putnam Mazda in Burlingame.
I didn't have problems with them, so far they were OK. I do my own maintenance so I rarely saw them after my bumper-to-bumper warranty expired. They took care of all TSBs and recalls without any fuss, so I was happy.

To be sure, there are plenty of Mazda techs who are less informed than many of the numnuts around here ...

To add clarification. Sounds like the dealer genuinely doesn't know how to do it. They are saying it is the anti-theft system that is blocking them from reprogramming the used ECU. I assume the anti-theft system is on all cars as standard and therefore you were able to get it working.

they have to want to do it, which means getting off their butt and getting the information from tech support, forcing you to buy a new PCM is easier ...