Talked to a dude yesterday who has a 180k mile Mazda3 the dealership says has a bad ECU. They want $1000 to replace and like $2-300 to reset. He found a used for a lot less. Worth going used? How to reset it to work in his car if used since the dealer won't touch it - is that dealership only?
My son had a Kia that was vin locked. Once the vin was set in the ECU it could not be changed. I don't know if Mazda is the same.
We ended up buying all the vin locked modules out of a junk car and changing all of them. It was still $800 cheaper than the dealer wanted for a new ECU.
I've never done it before, but I think you can use FORScan to do that. I'd check around on their forums to see if that's a thing.
100% ForScan can do it. Just need the original code which you can pull from the existing ECU if the car will still turn on. Also you may need the purchase version of ForScan($50) versus the free version as they lock some of the bigger items behind a paywall. I paid for the free version for the module programming which has worked out great.
I just swapped an Explorer ABS module a few months ago. Worked great pulling the original data file from the truck then replacing the module and writing the old data to the used ABS module once installed. Took longer to remove the bolts holding the ABS HCU down that it was to program the thing.
Thanks for the mention of ForScan, I'd never heard of it. Getting conflicting answers but in my Googles I found some rebuilt ECUs that claim to be plug and play for like $250.
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