The honest answer to “can you do my ECU?” is a status, not a yes. As of July 2026 our published catalog lists 20 ECU variants: 8 with IMMO-OFF at Live, 3 at Beta, 7 at Soon, and 2 flagged Manual. Checksum recovery has its own separate status per variant, and the two frequently differ on the same module.
Most ECU services answer capability questions with a make list. Make lists are close to useless here — the same nameplate across two model years can carry different silicon, and a patch validated on one firmware revision is not valid on another. This guide explains what each status actually means, so you can read the coverage matrix and know exactly what you are buying before you pay.
The four statuses
Live
Validated and automated on that specific variant. You upload a read, the operation runs, checksums are recovered, and you download the result in seconds. This is the only status where the answer to “will this work?” is a plain yes — and where the published refund promise (a refund if a patched file doesn't flash cleanly) is doing its normal job.
Beta
The operation works, but it is newer to the catalog and has fewer confirmed jobs behind it. Treat Beta as “yes, and tell us what happened.” It is genuinely usable — several of the variants sitting at Beta today have never produced a failure — but we would rather flag the newness than let you discover it.
Soon
Not available yet. Often the checksum side of the same variant is already Live while IMMO-OFF is still in development, which is why a variant can look half-supported. Read the two columns separately. Soon means don't ship us the module expecting that operation.
Manual
Case by case, by a human, usually because the family is heterogeneous enough that automation would be guessing. Delphi DCM and Simos PCR2.1 sit here. Manual is not a no — it is “talk to us with the actual file in hand.”
What the catalog looks like today
| Variant | Makes | IMMO-OFF | Checksum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saab Trionic 5 | Saab | Live | Live |
| Saab Trionic 7 | Saab | Live | Live |
| Saab Trionic 8 | Saab | Beta | Live |
| Bosch ME7 (95040 / 95080 EEPROM) | VW, Audi, SEAT, Skoda | Live | n/a |
| Bosch ME7.5.20 | VW, Audi | Live | Live |
| Bosch ME7.5.30 | VW, Audi | Beta | Live |
| Bosch ME7.1 / ME7.1.1 | VW, Audi | Beta | Live |
| Bosch ME7.5 (flash side) | VW, Audi, SEAT, Skoda | Soon | Live |
| BMW MS43 — ca430037 / 056 / 066 / 069 | BMW | Live | Beta |
| BMW MS41 (M52) | BMW | Soon | Beta |
| Bosch MED17 / EDC17 (non-VDS) | VW, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, Jeep | Soon | Live |
| Bosch EDC17CP14 | VAG group | Soon | Live |
| Nissan SH7058 (pre-2009) | Nissan, Infiniti | Soon | Beta |
| Simos18.1 / 18.6 / 18.10 | VW, Audi | Soon | Live |
| Siemens SIMK41 / SIMK43 | Hyundai, Kia | Soon | Beta |
| Delphi DCM 3.x / 6.x / 7.x | Multi | Manual | Manual |
| Simos PCR2.1 | VW, Audi | Manual | Manual |
Statuses move. The matrix on the coverage page is generated from the same catalog this table was written from, so it is always current — this article is a snapshot with explanation attached.
Why IMMO-OFF and checksum statuses differ
This confuses nearly everyone the first time. They are separate engineering problems.
Checksum recovery means knowing the algorithm and the sector layout for a family, then recomputing correct values after any modification. Solve it once per family and it holds across revisions. That is why Bosch MED17 / EDC17 checksum support is Live even though its IMMO-OFF is still Soon — the checksum library covers CRC32, ADD32 and ADD16 with automatic block detection across the family.
IMMO-OFF means knowing exactly where and how a specific firmware revision performs its immobilizer check, and patching it without disturbing anything else. That is revision-specific work. BMW MS43 is the clearest illustration: we list it as four separate entries — ca430037, ca430056, ca430066 and ca430069 — because each is validated independently. Our MS43 service guide goes through those differences.
A practical consequence worth internalising: a shop advertising “BMW IMMO-OFF” without naming the software revision is either simplifying for marketing or has not looked. The revision is the unit of work.
The line that no status crosses
Coverage describes repair-side operations only. We do not provide emissions defeat, delete files, or services intended to bypass emissions laws, and no status flag in the catalog ever means otherwise. The customer is responsible for confirming legal use in their location and application; our services exist for tuning preparation, diagnostics, repair, motorsport, and off-road use where legally permitted.
The reason is statutory. Section 203(a)(3) of the Clean Air Act prohibits tampering with emissions controls and the manufacture or sale of any device — software very much included — whose principal effect is to defeat them. Nothing in an immobilizer routine, a checksum sector, or a module unlock touches an emissions control, which is exactly why this work sits comfortably on the legitimate side of that line.
How to find your variant in under five minutes
- Read the module.OBD if the family allows it, bench or boot if not. If you don't have a tool yet, our J2534 buyer's guide covers what is worth owning at each volume level.
- Upload it to the free variant identifier. It reads the firmware fingerprint and reports the family and revision. No account, no charge.
- Look the variant up on the coverage matrix. Read both columns — IMMO-OFF and checksum — not just the make.
- Live or Beta? Order the instant IMMO-OFF at $100 per file, checksum recovery included, or buy a pack if you do volume.
- Soon or Manual?Don't ship the module. Either wait, or post the job to the specialist network where operators with different tooling can bid on it.
If you can't read the module at all, the mail-in route at $250 exists for exactly that — but confirm the status before you ship, not after. Our mail-in workflow guide covers the rest.
What Soon really means about a roadmap
Seven of the twenty variants sit at Soon, and they are not arbitrary. The pattern is that checksum support lands first — it generalises across a family — and IMMO-OFF follows per revision as confirmed donor pairs become available. A donor pair means an original and a known-good modified file for the same revision; without one, patch development is inference rather than verification.
Which is a roundabout way of saying: if you have a confirmed original-and-patched pair for a family we list as Soon, that is genuinely useful to us and tends to move the status.
An operator on the network described the buyer's side:
“What I want from a file service is a straight answer about what they haven't solved yet. Everybody can tell me what they do. The ones I keep using are the ones who told me ‘not that revision, don't send it’ before I wasted a week.” — Network specialist, working operator
How a variant moves from Soon to Live
The progression is not mysterious, and knowing it helps you predict whether waiting is realistic:
- Family identification. The fingerprint has to be reliable enough that a submitted dump can be classified automatically. Without this, everything downstream is manual.
- Checksum support. Algorithm and sector layout for the family. This generalises across revisions, which is why it usually lands first and why so many variants show checksum Live alongside IMMO-OFF Soon.
- A confirmed donor pair. An original and a known-good modified file for the same revision. This is the bottleneck. Without a pair, patch development is inference; with one, it is verification.
- Validation across multiple dumps. One successful patch is an anecdote. The status moves to Beta when the operation reproduces on independent files.
- Live. Enough confirmed jobs that the automated path is trusted end to end.
Step 3 is why some obvious-looking families sit at Soon for a while and some obscure ones are Live. It has less to do with how popular a platform is than with whether a verified pair has come through the door.
Reading a status honestly, as a buyer
A practical translation of each status into a purchase decision:
- Live — buy it, expect it to work, expect the refund promise to apply normally.
- Beta — buy it if you are comfortable being an early data point, and keep your original read with particular care. Which you should be doing anyway.
- Soon — plan around it rather than waiting on it. Either use the OE programming route if the platform supports it, or put the job in front of specialists who may have tooling we do not.
- Manual — send the file and a description before you send anything else. The answer may well be yes; it just is not automatic.
Signed platforms: the hard boundary
Some modules will never appear in a byte-patch catalog. Post-2018 platforms with RSA-signed bootloaders reject unsigned writes at the hardware level — no amount of engineering makes a patch land on a module that verifies a cryptographic signature before it boots.
For those, the legitimate route is the manufacturer's own software, run remotely into your J2534 device. We cover eight OE platforms that way — GM (ACDelco TDS), Ford / Lincoln (FJDS, FDRS), Nissan / Infiniti (CONSULT III Plus), Mazda (MDARS, M-MDS), Volvo (VIDA), Toyota / Lexus (TIS Techstream), VW / Audi (ODIS), and Chrysler / Dodge / Jeep / Ram (wiTECH). Sessions run $100–$250 and 30–60 minutes; see the platform list and our remote programming guide.
This split — patchable old, OE-programmed new — is the single most useful mental model in the whole field, and NASTF exists largely to keep the second half accessible to independents. The interface itself is standardised as SAE J2534, first published in 2002 and revised in 2017.
Bottom line
Read the status, not the make. Read both columns. If it says Live, buy it. If it says Beta, buy it and tell us how it went. If it says Soon or Manual, ask before you ship anything. That is the entire system, and it exists so nobody pays for a maybe.
Start with a free identification, then check the coverage matrix. Pricing is on the pricing page; if a patched file doesn't flash cleanly, that's a refund.