We just got this from Drew Technologies on Friday the 13Th!
Luke from Sterling Service in Littleton, Colorado called us, we have exclusively provided diagnostics for that shop now for more than 15 years.
They recently bought the Universal scanner from Taiwan and the diagnostic PC, an $11,000 package from us. (Thanks)
He has a 2006 BMW E60 with the AMPT module that was intermittent On/Off.
TSB advised software update.
We tried to use a Cardaq + that is no longer supported by Drew Technologies.
Installed all drivers that Drew still had up on that site. NP
Installed ISTA-P on a WIN 7 64 bit running 8 GGB’s of RAM. NP
Followed all advice on the BMW site for a successful install including the BMW PTT. NP
We could not get the Cardaq to pop in the VCI connection manager of the ISTA-P. Problem
We fought it remotely long enough to decide we needed to roll out with the ICOM NextA around 10:30 AM.
I got to the shop close to noon.
We worked on the software long enough without success to call Drew Tech support.
We where quickly connected, spent about two minutes with the support agent.
He explained what we all know as real in the after market shops.
BMW is legally mandated to provide J-2534 access, so they do, when they get around to it.
J-2534 is NOT high on their “to be done soon” list’s as no dealer uses this device.
All BMW Dealers use the factory ICOM! That is their top priority.
BMW updated the main software, they did not bother to update or test the BMW-PTT drivers and they do not currently work with the ISTA 3.5+.
Now we can go back to the E60 and flashing that AMPT.
Once connected with the ICOM we flashed it and it failed.
Called the Dealer parts and checked stock.
Superseded part number, 10 + in stock, the fail all the time, hence the new part.
$1200 later and now its 4:30, John comes back with the new part.
Thirty minutes later and the car is very happy, no DTC’s.
Are you still wondering about buying a J2534 or an ICOM?
Not if you have a brain!