what does vin locked mean. and is it good or bad. do you want a vin locked one or no. should you get a used one or not.

 

I'm guessin that you bought your Hypertech or SuperChip used from someone or you're trying to put it on someone elses truck. The "VIN locked" means that the programming is already in another truck and will not install into another. These controllers will only install on one vehicle. What happens is the stock programming is stored in the controller (I think) and won't be erased or overwritten unless putting that program back into the original PCM. Simply put it's not gonna install. If you bought your programmer used, contact whoever sold it to you and get your money back, you got ripped there buddy.

-Dan

 

you beat me to it.

here's how the hypertech works...
the programmer starts off in an unlocked state. once you use it on a vehicle, it pulls the original pcm software out and saves it into the programmer, along with the VIN #. it then writes new software into the pcm. at this point it is vin locked, and will NOT program any additional vehicles unless you reverse the process to 'return the vehicle to stock', which will 'unlock' the programmer.

you definitely don't want a programmer that is VIN locked, as its useless unless you also own the vehicle its locked up with.

as far as buying used, its a crap shoot. i bought one used on this forum and it worked fine. i've read stories of others that bought them used and the seller did not properly unlock/uninstall the vehicle back to stock, so the buyer had an unusable item. the best advice i can give is to talk to the seller and make sure they understand what they are doing, and even have them double check it by plugging it into their truck and getting the first message... something like 'this programmer has been used' vs 'press > to begin programming'.