How To Change The Brake Flex Hoses On A Ford Escape Hybrid
I'one thousand ambivalent about my car, a 2013 Ford C-Max. Ford feels the same, discontinuing the model v years subsequently launch. Only when my wife and I bought it, the hybrid crossover seemed mod, fifty-fifty cutting-border. Information technology had Bluetooth telephone pairing, a touchscreen, and vocalisation recognition. Dorsum so, a car that could read your text messages out loud felt like today'southward self-driving Tesla.
But the car'south dash arrangement, "SYNC with MyFord Touch" (or "SYNC 2"), turned out to exist even more awkward and useless than its proper name. The vocalism recognition was worthless, the affect input insensitive. SYNC would randomly erase Bluetooth pairings from memory, or kill the motorcar battery updating the satellite radio overnight. Useless software updates made you go along the engine running for 35 minutes. My loathing of SYNC 2 was matched by Consumer Reports, which considered it an actual safety risk, as did reviewers like J.D. Power and the New York Times.
There didn't seem to be any real fix. The 8-inch SYNC screen isn't a standard stereo you can bandy out. Ford dealers didn't offer upgrades to SYNC 3, which had a amend screen and immune CarPlay or Android Car to take over. Every and then often, I'd open a bunch of browser tabs, pray that another SYNC two hater had a solution, so close them. Cars aren't cruddy Android tablets; you lot tin't ready what y'all don't like with some code tweaks.
Except ane mean solar day, I did. You tin probably hack your machine, as well. Unless we let car makers human activity like phone makers and put an end to it.
Allow me to explain.
Shenzhen WeChat friends and truck dudes with cables
After months of wistful searching, I found a SYNC 2-to-3 upgrade kit, at a merely semi-ludicrous toll for a ix-twelvemonth-erstwhile automobile. I paid $550 and sent my car'due south VIN number. The seller sent a kit: a pre-programmed screen/computer unit (seemingly pulled from a scrapped automobile), replacement USB ports, inexpensive socket and Torx drivers, plastic prying tools, a weird cable, and a tiny CD. The instructions were disruptive and poorly illustrated. But they too claimed that if anything went wrong, I could contact someone on WeChat, and, over a remote screen-sharing connectedness, they could reprogram my car from a Windows laptop. No big bargain, right?
With the help of YouTube, the installation took one hour (I would rate the process "moderate" on the iFixit guide difficulty calibration). My motorcar figurer, previously the dumbest, ugliest, slowest gadget I endemic, can now navigate with Google Maps, play Spotify and podcasts, and actually read my letters out loud. When I hit the voice prompt switch on my steering wheel, Siri answers. Few people accept ever been so excited to hear from Apple's third-charge per unit vox assistant as this quondam myFord Impact possessor.
Every bit I was putting tools and parts abroad, I came across the ELS27 cable and tiny CD labeled "FORScan." What was this stuff? I searched and found a remarkably low-tech homepage. On YouTube, I saw truck dudes excitedly holding upwards like cables, and Windows 98-looking screenshots. At that place were compilations of the "Pinnacle five Mods" you could pull off. For the first fourth dimension in my life, I—a lifelong auto doubter—was excited at the prospect of messing with my car. At least the cables and code parts.
FORScan can make your Ford accept a new SYNC 3 unit, sure. Just FORScan can do a lot more than: turn off abrasive little honks, automatically fold your side mirrors when parking, proceed your fog lights and high beams on simultaneously ("Bambi mode,") or show a constant tire force per unit area or engine temperature readout on your dashboard. Dealerships typically toggle options like these for different markets: rental fleets, Europe, police. Sometimes "luxury" features on higher-priced models or packages can be brought to the masses by changing a few variables.
I asked my coworkers if they'd ever seen apps like FORScan. Arthur Shi, a teardown engineer, used the VCDS app to install a backup camera on his 2012 Jetta SportWagen. Volkswagen never offered a backup camera for Arthur's 2012 SportWagen, but information technology did for a different sedan version, congenital on a similar platform. After installing an original Volkswagen photographic camera and wiring it to his head unit of measurement, Arthur plugged in an OBD cablevision, loaded upwardly VCDS, and changed a value or two in his car. The next time he put his automobile in reverse, the screen showed his rear video—unavailable car option, at present available.
Car hacks are a deep, fun rabbit hole (I can't even get into operation bit tuning, but it's a related hobby). And they're helpful: upgrading my C-Max'due south panel has likely put off new-car thoughts for some fourth dimension. Merely equally with nigh hacking, you might wonder almost laws, and safe. Is this legal? How badly could a car hack go? And are car makers going to start clamping down on this?
How your automobile talks to itself (and how to contend with it)
If you know anything about your car'south information systems, you probably know about its OBD-2 port. It allows yous or whatever store to see repair and emissions codes. iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens wrote recently about plugging a scanner into his Toyota Highlander Hybrid, searching the code, and installing a $nine spark plug to ready the "cylinder-two misfire error" that activated his Check Engine lite. Kyle saw the same thing a repair shop would have seen, and saved a good fleck of fourth dimension and money.
The democratizing OBD port exists because the California Air Resources Board demanded information technology for new cars in 1991, to enforce emissions laws. The port is nonetheless useful because of a 2012 Massachusetts Correct to Repair ballot initiative, which requires that crucial diagnostic data be available to whatever repair shop. Auto manufacturers eventually agreed to brand this a national standard. Were it not for this universal data port and the Right to Repair initiative, machine makers would have significantly boxed out third-political party parts suppliers and repair shops by now.
The OBD-II port works past hooking into your machine'south CAN bus, essentially its electronic nervous arrangement. The bus connects all of the car's electronic command units (ECUs), the nodes that measure and command things. Each node has data: engine temperature, cruise control speed, how far you lot've pressed the brake pedal down. These messages are all thrown onto the bus, passing through every single node in a excursion. Each node examines the bulletin, determines if it's important, and so passes it dorsum onto the network. It'south an old system, far behind modern networking tech. But it lets car makers hook upwardly everything in your car with inexpensive, durable wire, in any blueprint, rather than map out new networks for each automobile model.
An OBD-II diagnostic tool requests a read-out from critical emissions and repair nodes. But lots of other non-regulated, automobile-specific information comes back, also: heated seat settings, tail light configurations, SYNC settings. Automobile makers sell expensive, proprietary tools and apps that can piece of work with their cars' data. You tin technically buy these tools yourself, only you might not want to spend, for example, $900, unless you're fixing up a lot of Fords.
The sub-$900 car programming solution
That's where FORScan, VCDS, and other third-party programming tools come up in: they let yous mess with all the stuff moving openly around your car's Tin network with a Windows laptop and an OBD-to-USB cable.
VCDS was launched in 2000 past founder Uwe Ross, an avid auto-crosser tired of taking his GTI to the dealer for fixes he could do himself. Ross bought Volkswagen's official diagnostic tool, analyzed how it communicated with his car, and contrary-engineered his own app, said Santos Vega, Northward American marketing and sales manager for Ross-Tech. When someone wants to supplant the throttle torso on their Volkswagen, they don't need to tow it to a dealership; they but demand a USB-to-OBD cable. VCDS sells not only to enthusiasts and repair shops, just dealers, Vega said; some prefer its faster, leaner interface for non-warranty work.
Ross-Tech tin can openly sell VCDS from its office in Lansdale, Penn., because reverse applied science is generally legal under U.Southward. copyright laws. It helps that CAN is an old system, designed for quick, low-level advice between parts. In that location is nigh no security on most nodes; it wouldn't fit on CAN's tiny data packets. Every bit a issue, there are similar diagnostic and programming apps and OBD rigs for virtually car models.
The more I learned about cars, Tin can, and OBD tools, the more I was struck by the irony. In 2021, it'due south easier to piece of work with third-party parts and software in a highly regulated, 2,000-plus-pound automobile than it is in an iPhone.
The security/repair debate in your engine cake
There is, of course, some danger in straight access to your car'due south unprotected nervous arrangement. This is especially true with the newest cars, which accept wireless telematic systems connected to the Tin can organization. That'southward how hackers tin can remotely kill a Jeep on the highway, utilise an insurance visitor's "safe driving" OBD dongle to cut a Corvette's brakes, or exploit ambulances through their fleet-monitoring GPS software.
Car makers similar their wireless access, though, so some are working fast to secure their cars against remote attacks. In doing so, they're also cutting off admission to DIY automotive tweaks and fixes.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), an auto group that also includes Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Alfa Romeo, installed an OBD gateway known every bit "SGW" on its cars starting in 2018. A 3rd-political party service, AutoAuth, can authorize repair techs working on FCA vehicles, merely they must stay connected to online servers to exercise so. FCA says their gateway is nigh security, not restricting repair access. Yet, requiring fixers to check in online for every ready is a repair model rife with issues.
One repair industry executive told a conference in Jan 2020 that he had heard of "at least two [other]" car makers moving toward an authorized-admission model. Volkswagen may exist one of them. Ross-Tech'due south Vega said that the electric ID.4 is the first U.S. Volkswagen model with Vehicle Diagnostic Protection, requiring authentication from VW servers to alter nodes. Volkswagen (which did not return emails for comment) has seemingly not offered access to customers, or software like VCDS. Equally of July 2021, VCDS's founder and its most fervent customers were trading anger, disbelief, and Right to Repair links in a long-running thread.
Eric Evenchick, a security researcher and noted Tin hacker, empathizes with both sides of the CAN disharmonize. He in one case helped a friend convert a Volkswagen microbus to electric power—commencement using forklift batteries, and so the powertrain from a scrapped Nissan Leaf. Without free Can admission, that retrofit was incommunicable. At the aforementioned time, working every bit a consultant, he one time showed a car manufacturer how sending just v data frames over CAN could wipe the firmware off an engine controller, rendering the car inoperable.
"'Who is this trying to protect against?' is a good question here," Evenchick said. "Some of these measures are probably good-natured. I would like to purchase and bulldoze cars with some assurance that the firmware hasn't been modified. … On the other mitt, if this is just a way to sell a software subscription to heated seats, or more mileage, that's something else entirely."
The future of low-cardinal hacking your automobile
Evenchick is not just guessing at the future. Heated seat "subscriptions" and other software-unlocked features are bodily BMW products. Tesla (whose cars take v different Can systems) has already rolled out cars that drive differently based solely on how much you lot're willing to pay. The next generation of CAN, Tin can FD, pushes a larger, more unwieldy amount of data around the car, and offers a "Secure CAN bus" for automobile makers. That, combined with the rise of wireless telematic data and car control, makes the future of DIY car figurer modification seem less exciting.
I asked Brian Lovelace, founder of NaviUpgrade and enthusiastic Ford-hack YouTuber, what he thought about the future of self-guided upgrades. Lovelace got into auto hacking like I did—he wanted a amend screen for his 2017 Ford Focus ST—simply took information technology much, much further. He read wiring diagram books, learned how FORScan and SYNC and Can worked. Now he sells DIY SYNC upgrades, and helps customers with everything, including the programming.
Lovelace has a Ford Bronco Badlands on club, only information technology won't come up until 2023, cheers to demand and global shortages. He's read upward on the SYNC 4 organisation inside, which is deeply tied to Ford's wireless systems. It's also just more than piece of work to figure out. SYNC three has roughly 9 data blocks on its node, with ane-5 lines in each, Lovelace said. SYNC 4 has 30 to 40 blocks, 1-7 lines each. However, Ford hasn't put any locks on it notwithstanding, so there'south probably some fun to exist had.
"That's one of the things people similar about Ford, they seem to be into the absurd things people can do to their cars," Lovelace said. "That could be irresolute, possibly with their electric lineup coming before long. But I recall in that location'due south a lot of possibilities."
Evenchick thinks there's a time to come for both secure cars and enthusiastic automobile modding. All it would take is a return to the principles of the movement that launched the original Right to Repair automotive move.
"We want to secure all this, simply we have to make good tools available to legitimate repairers," he said. "But anybody tin can be a legitimate repairer."
Source: https://www.ifixit.com/News/52123/the-coming-battle-over-hacking-your-own-car
Posted by: ortegabeent1988.blogspot.com
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