Backup failed, Car won’t start

[Bailey808]

Car: 2014 Dodge Durango / 5.7 Hemi
Diablo 3

I attempted to backup my Durango on to the D3 handheld. In the stage 2 phase of backing up, I received a message, something about reaching max license for my car. When I went to sit up to read the message better, I accidentally stepped on the cord and the plug disconnected. When I tried to reconnect, the D3 did not recognize that the ignition was on. It kept asking me to turn the ignition to run (even though it was already in the run position). After the third attempt, another error massage came up, something about ECU not detected. I tried to start my car and nothing.. dash lights comes on, but car no longer starts or connects to D3.

I tried to plug in my matco scanner and it also had a message, PCM does not exist.

What options do I have? Where can I find my backup and how do I reinstall it in my car??

[mikel]

Give us a call, sounds like it happened during the bootloader swap which is a tricky spot for 13-14 PCMs.

[Bailey808]

I tried to ‘force restore’ but the anti-thief system activated. I tried calling this morning but no one answered. I had my car towed to the dealership today.

Hopefully this doesn’t break my bank.. might want to disclose some con’s of backing up your vehicle to diablo. Little discouraging to know a simple tune instrument can turn into a pricy mistake.

I can provide some feedback on what the dealership had to do to get my car running again. Just to educate the Diablo community.

[mikel]

The dealer wont do anything for free, we will! Please give us a call and let us fix it. We'll issue a shipping label to get it here and overnight it back to you. It will be fixed before they figure out what's wrong....
561-908-0040

[Bailey808]

It’s too late man… the car is at the dealership. I’m out $5,600.00 to replace 6 modules… crazy to think what 1 mistake will do. I tried calling for help on Friday and again this past Monday, I can’t wait for someone to be available. I’m lost so much money on the purchase of the tuner, the repair and now on a rental car.

Regrets….? I think you can only imagine what going through right now.

[Bailey808]

I tried calling again this morning.. no one answering. This is why I had to take my car to the dealership. Downtime is costing me too much money.

[mikel]

It’s too late man… the car is at the dealership. I’m out $5,600.00 to replace 6 modules… crazy to think what 1 mistake will do. I tried calling for help on Friday and again this past Monday, I can’t wait for someone to be available. I’m lost so much money on the purchase of the tuner, the repair and now on a rental car.

Regrets….? I think you can only imagine what going through right now.

I can only ask, but please don't pay that. The tuner only talks to the pcm, cant kill more than one module and it cant KILL it to where it needs to be replaced. There is NO WAY there are 6 modules that need replacing unless there was some other issue on the truck with wiring or the CAN bus.
No if, and or butts, we can reflash that pcm and get the truck running, or we'll replace it on our dime in the event we cant. We cant unfortunately cover unreasonable dealer repair costs for something that should have been a 20 minute fix.

[Bailey808]

I called today and talked to Steven? He gave me some hope that this can be resolved. I was a minute away from calling dealership to put the $1,000.00 parts deposit down.

I am having my car towed back to my home on Monday. Gonna give you all a call back and start the backup process over the phone. Worst case that the restore doesn’t work, send my PCM to you troubleshoot / restore / reflash.

Thank you for responding and helping me through this process. Talk to you all soon.

[mikel]

glad to hear it. Just dont want to see an already bad situation get worse.

[Bailey808]

Mike
Today we were able to restore the manufacture PCM calibration but still had issues with the gear selector not working. The ABS, Traction and Engine lights remain illuminated on the console. At first we thought the TCM needed to be reflashed but I don’t think that’s the case here. After hanging up with your technician, I hooked up my matco obd scanner and it showed numerous faults on all control modules. Even the PCM that we just calibrated.. At least 3 DTC faults that could not be cleared on each module.
I called the service center to see what was done and they mentioned trying to restore TCM to its original calibration, but they were still getting module faults. This is the reason why they suggested replacing the control modules.

I really need some help getting my car operable again. It’s really depressing to know it was running fine prior to connecting to diablo. Do you know of a mechanic on island that could assist? Can you refer me to a aftermarket tuner mechanic shop?

[mikel]

The PCM and TCM are alive, your scanner nor our device would talk to them if they weren't.
If they are alive, they are good. Thats a 99.9% rule in our world. Unfortunately, dealers find it easier to throw parts at a problem than to figure it out.
If it starts and runs, the PCM is 100% OK, codes or not.
The TCM seems to be the root of the issue here, and according to Rick thats what was being written when it got unplugged, so that makes sense. Even if it needs a new TCM, it can't be $5600 and its not 6 modules. That's just poor diagnosis.

I am personally convinced that a good dealer tech with a factory scan tool should be able to get the TCM online. May need a vehicle config, or module resync, but its not dead.

[Bailey808]

Dealership ran another diagnostic test and still DTC codes will not clear on 6 modules. They also stated the PCM calibration we did was outdated. They tried to upload new calibration to PCM but DTC codeS still present on all modules.

Total cost: $6,400.00 (w/ labor)

Already spent $1,080.00 on towing and rental car.

[mikel]

I dont know what to say. The car starts and runs, the modules cant all be bad. Impossible. PCM is 100% fine, whether it was on the latest calibration or not.
Only other module we flash is the tcm, impossible for anything beyond that module to have a problem that was caused by our device.