Diagnostics
Firmware and inventory
Reading module software versions, and proving what a workshop visit changed.
Each control unit can report information about its hardware and software. ECU Inventory shows which units answered a discovery scan. Firmware Audit asks responding units for their available identification records. These are related tasks, but discovering a unit does not mean its software version was read.
Inventory and firmware coverage#
An inventory scan lists units that answered and units that did not. A silent unit may be optional, asleep or unreachable. Compare it with the car's known equipment and repeat the scan before assuming it has failed.
A firmware audit can return hardware part numbers, software part numbers, serial numbers and supplier information. Not every unit supplies every field. The audit shows both module coverage and field coverage so you can tell the difference between a unit that answered and a version that was actually obtained. An interrupted audit remains partial.
Compare before and after service#
Save a firmware audit before a workshop visit or software update and take another afterward. A comparison can show version strings that changed, stayed the same or were missing from one capture. A changed version is evidence that a unit reports different software. An unchanged version does not prove that no settings or calibrations changed. A missing version is not evidence that an update failed.
Keep the two captures with their dates and vehicle identity. The app cannot reconstruct a version that was never read, and its comparison should not be used as proof of exactly what a workshop performed.