After quite a long break we’re back with some major new features and an explanation for where we’ve been.
The band is back from a (sort of) hiatus
At the start of 2024 we publicly set some large goals that we’re admittedly not on track to achieve(see: Tokenization). We underestimated the amount of work this system would take. While we realized we were able to complete the system this year, we also realized it would have to come at the cost of new vehicle support for a massive portion of the year. So we are still working towards Tokenization, but it’s starting to look like a 2025 problem.
Another decision we made that hurt our ability to publish regular updates was pursuing far more difficult things to support. We commonly have customers asking for incredibly difficult vehicles to add that we really would not be able to do while attempting to keep a monthly update schedule. To attempt to address some of the customer requests we decided to quietly take a crack at some of these more difficult projects. Our labours have yielded some results in this area that we’re going to be able to share today finally after months of testing. We do have some more projects in the pipeline are still too early on to talk about, but we’re hoping to have more news soon. Without further delay, here’s what we’ve got up to the last few months.
Ford Instrument Cluster Reading/Writing
When we had rolled out the Beta test for this feature back in December 2023 we knew we would be expanding it. We had built this feature not so much for the 2015-2020 Ford F150 that we initially targeted, but rather for instrument clusters that our customers were commonly converting that had labour intensive removal processes such as the 2018-2021 Lincoln Navigator. We had to spend some serious time to support some of the newer Ford and Lincoln platforms, but we’re happy to say that we’ve successfully made it so that data can be read and wrote from almost all 2015+ Ford instrument clusters featuring a SPC56XX Microcontroller with a 24C32 EEPROM without removal from the vehicle. This update has added the following vehicles:
New Vehicle Added: 2020-2022 Ford Escape(Only Fully Digital Cluster supported)
+Added Diagnostic Features: Get Module Information, Reset Module, Test Module, Clear DTCs
+Added Programming Features: Read EEPROM, Write EEPROM, Convert To KMH, Convert to MPH, Modify Odometer(KM)*, Modify Odometer(MI)*, Modify Engine Hours*, Modify VIN*
New Vehicle Added: 2020-2024 Ford Explorer(Only Fully Digital Cluster supported)
+Added Diagnostic Features: Get Module Information, Reset Module, Test Module, Clear DTCs
+Added Programming Features: Read EEPROM, Write EEPROM, Convert To KMH, Convert to MPH, Modify Odometer(KM)*, Modify Odometer(MI)*, Modify Engine Hours*, Modify VIN*
New Vehicle Added: 2020-2024 Lincoln Aviator
+Added Diagnostic Features: Get Module Information, Reset Module, Test Module, Clear DTCs
+Added Programming Features: Read EEPROM, Write EEPROM, Convert To KMH, Convert to MPH, Modify Odometer(KM)*, Modify Odometer(MI)*, Modify Engine Hours*, Modify VIN*
New Vehicle Added: 2018-2021 Lincoln Navigator
+Added Diagnostic Features: Get Module Information, Reset Module, Test Module, Clear DTCs
+Added Programming Features: Read EEPROM, Write EEPROM, Convert To KMH, Convert to MPH, Modify Odometer(KM)*, Modify Odometer(MI)*, Modify Engine Hours*, Modify VIN*
New Vehicle Added 2019-2023 Lincoln Nautilus
+Added Diagnostic Features: Get Module Information, Reset Module, Test Module, Clear DTCs
+Added Programming Features: Read EEPROM, Write EEPROM, Convert To KMH, Convert to MPH, Modify Odometer(KM)*, Modify Odometer(MI)*, Modify Engine Hours*, Modify VIN*
New Vehicle Added: 2018-2021 Lincoln Navigator
+Added Diagnostic Features: Get Module Information, Reset Module, Test Module, Clear DTCs
+Added Programming Features: Read EEPROM, Write EEPROM, Convert To KMH, Convert to MPH, Modify Odometer(KM)*, Modify Odometer(MI)*, Modify Engine Hours*, Modify VIN*
* Use of this feature for illegal purposes will get your VehicleLink license removed!
It is worth noting that while these features will currently be available to all customers, they will soon become tokenized features that will cost money when tokenization becomes available.
Then we have some general vehicles that we’ve added as well as some general changes:
New Vehicle Added 2017-2019 Cadillac XT5(Opt Code UHS Cluster Only)
While we’ve added the basic GM Global A feature set to this instrument cluster, we’ve also added the ability to reprogram the digital Parking Brake indicators(as we see on other Global A vehicles such as 2019-2022 GMC Sierras/Chevrolet Silverados).
New Vehicle Added 2017-2024 GMC Acadia (Opt Code UHS Cluster Only)
While we’ve added the basic GM Global A feature set to this instrument cluster, we’ve also added the ability to reprogram the digital Parking Brake indicators(as we see on other Global A vehicles such as 2019-2022 GMC Sierras/Chevrolet Silverados). This currently will only work on select 2023 Model Year clusters but will be expanded in the next update to cover other Model Years.
Other Changes:
New Vehicle Identification System on newer models – see below for details
Added tons of part number based support to various different Global A vehicles we currently support to ensure maximum compatibility.
But VehicleLink, where are the bangers you’ve spent all year on?
While our above list may seem underwhelming in terms of volume, it has been in terms of complexity a very difficult task to complete. We are happy to say however this is not all we have been working on this year.
Many of the new Fords and Lincolns added will now make use of a new Vehicle Identification system that will allow for more safeguards against accidental damage to modules as well as far more flexibility in terms of being able to deliver solutions on a per-partnumber basis for modules in the same vehicle.
We’ve also taken the time to rewrite large parts of the code that makes VehicleLink work. While only a handful of the new vehicles feature the new code and we haven’t yet expanded it to all supported vehicles we have had incredible results with it. We’ve found in many programming sessions with large volumes of data being transferred that we’ve been able to increase the speed of the entire process by nearly 40% without risking additional issues. This new rewrite will also increase the speed of development as it addresses many of the “band-aid” style fixes we added to modules that were not entirely UDS compliant and now will account for these inconsistencies.
One of the largest projects we’ve been working on is related to the Ford Instrument Cluster Reading/Writing feature. The project in question has been to allow for the Reading and Writing of RH850 Microcontrollers through VehicleLink. While this is not present in this update we hope to soon expand support to many of the vehicles featuring RH850 Microcontrollers without external EEPROMs. An example of modules on this platform would be 2021-2024 Ford Bronco(Denso), 2021-2023 Ford F150(Denso), 2020-2024 Ford Explorer(Denso), and 2019-2023 Ford Ranger instrument clusters. We’ll have more on this as we move closer to completion of this feature in early 2025.
We are also nearly done with adding support for the new 2024-2025 Lincoln Nautilus which is the first new Lincoln vehicle on Ford’s newest vehicle platform. We’re on track to roll that out with our next update.
We’re also making it a priority to add support for the remaining GM Global A vehicles with digital parking brake indicators for customers converting those instrument clusters to US specs. That include the 2016-2024 Chevrolet Camaro, 2014-2019 Chevrolet Corvette, 2019-2024 Chevrolet Blazer, and a few other vehicles. We want to ensure we’ve got the complete lineup available for our customers.
We’ve also been working on a vehicle platform that has been our most requested vehicle since we completed the initial support for 2021+ Jeep Grand Cherokee/Grand Cherokee L/Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer. The work on this project has taken the vast majority of the time in between updates and really the majority of our R&D time in 2024. We’re unfortunately not at a point where we have something cool to show off, other than I can say we’ve successfully got code execution on this target platform. But this is something we’ll have more information on in the future.
Finally we’re working on tracking down the various bugs causing crashing on certain devices. We’re hoping to have a series of fixes in our next updates that should gradually minimize this issue and increase the stability.
That’s all we’ve got for now. The next time we talk we should be ready to show off our newest coolest toys. Until then we hope we’ve saved you some suffering on having to pull these Lincolns apart!